That density is needed for a growing urban population, but height isn't." "We showed that new development should focus on minimizing whole-life carbon of buildings, not just the emissions from their operations or their materials.
![urban greenhouse urban greenhouse](https://divisare-res.cloudinary.com/images/c_limit,f_auto,h_2000,q_auto,w_3000/v1515266050/hkmzgfqq1jj7n2urkhyb/superspatial-urban-greenhouse.jpg)
"Both the urban sprawl that we see in the suburbs of the United States and the high-rise that we see in places like New York City are not necessarily optimal," Arehart said. Jay Arehart, an author on the paper and instructor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, said the work challenges current conventional understanding that tomorrow's cities must be densely packed and stretch upwards to address and curb greenhouse gas emissions, with the idea being that tall buildings make optimal use of space, reduce operational energy use for heating and cooling and enable more people to be accommodated per square meter of land. In the U.S., it accounts for 39% of all greenhouse gas emissions, while in the European Union, it accounts for 50% of all extracted materials and 42% of the final energy consumption-making it a rich area for understanding and improvement related to climate change. The built environment is a big contributor to carbon emissions, global energy demand, resource consumption and waste generation.
![urban greenhouse urban greenhouse](https://478213-1529614-raikfcquaxqncofqfm.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DSC09100-1-scaled.jpg)
The work, recently published in journal Urban Sustainability, builds on a growing debate around the design of future urban environments and was done in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University.