The history of environmental protection is Marin County’s defining pride. Outside narrow strips of development along the highways, rolling green hills rise and fall (mostly undisturbed by development) before meeting the brooding beauty of miles of untouched coastline. Compare this image with the “concrete jungle” of San Francisco, and it seemingly only serves to prove that Marin is a rare ecological steward in the modern age.
Yet, as green as the landscape appears, this impression is false: The development practices are fundamentally anti-environmental. While protecting our open spaces is the right choice, Marin’s lack of reasonable housing density along our suburban corridors is not; it results in excess greenhouse gases pouring into the atmosphere and it pushes sprawl elsewhere. According to data presented by the Association of Bay Area Governments, Marin actually produces 40% more emissions per capita annually than San Francisco.
In fact, there is no debate among scientists: One of the most effective ways cities can combat climate change is by increasing urban density. Clearly, climate change is the environmental battle of our lifetimes. Millions of lives, countless coastal regions and an inconceivable number of species, as well as ecosystems, are on the line.
While Marin doesn’t need to replicate San Francisco, it cannot consider itself pro-environmental while doing nothing. As a place that will face rising sea levels and increasingly common wildfires head-on, the answer is clear: It must build more homes. Of the various climate impacts of sprawl, car usage is probably the most infamous.
The longer distances between locations in Marin forces residents to drive. According to the ABAG study, Marin emits almost three times as much greenhouse gas per capita from surface transit as San Francisco. This is particularly true of those commuting into the county.
Because Marin so severely lacks affordable housing (the median cost of a home in Marin is $1.7 million), over two-thirds of the workforce commutes. Moreover, the number of “supercommuters” – those who drive over 1.
5 hours for work – increased by 71% between 2009 and 2017. Building more affordable housing in Marin would decrease the number of commuters and make our towns more walkable to residents. One study from the Univeristy of Illinois found that doubling density in the average city would decrease per capita carbon emissions from residents traveling by about 50%.
The bulky, single-family homes that populate most neighborhoods throughout Marin are also fuel for climate change. Pumping heat and air conditioning through every inch of these extensive structures is a massive waste of energy, and there’s little to prevent that tempered air from quickly seeping through the walls and away from the house. On the other hand, compact urban homes require much less energy to heat and cool, as these buildings pair denser rooms with wall-to-wall heat transfers with neighbors.
As a result, even gentle increases in density would result in homes that produce a third of the greenhouse gases of current suburban homes. Finally, increasing density in Marin would change the climate impact of other cities. Because areas like Marin County have had limited affordable housing for so long, it has forced many would-be residents to settle elsewhere.
This trend has fueled the Bay Area’s appetite to devour countless miles of beautiful natural lands through residential sprawl. Since 1950, outer metro areas like Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Napa have increased in physical size by over 300%. Even today, areas across the Bay Area see near-constant fights over whether to continue expanding.
We can’t force these areas to reduce sprawling development, but by constructing an adequate supply of affordable homes in Marin, we can reduce the demand for housing in these suburban fringes. And while many residents worry that Marin is “built out,” the truth is that it would not need to place a single new home in any of the open spaces. Instead, it can develop the same small slices of land it set aside for that purpose back in the 1970s.
It is time for Marin to make good use of them. It’s time to change. It is time to build affordable homes to protect the environment like was always intended.
David Newman, of San Francisco, is an intern for the Marin Environmental Housing Collective ..
