Manhattan is the Greenest City

Reviewer Elizabeth Royte is unfamiliar and skeptical of many of Owen's ideas which are general knowledge among planners and urban thinkers, but generally gives Owen high marks for his argument that "urban is good":

"[Owen]makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and use less energy to heat their homes (because those homes tend to share walls); and they're less likely to accumulate a lot of large, energy-sucking appliances. People in cities use about half as much electricity as people who don't, Owen reports, and the average New Yorker generates fewer greenhouse gases annually than 'residents of any other American city, and less than 30 percent of the national average.'"