More High-Rises In Noida Will Make It Greener

Of the 10 tallest buildings in the National Capital Region (NCR), five are in Noida. Of the tallest under-construction buildings in the NCR, all but one are in Noida. In fact, all the tall buildings in the NCR are in Noida and Gurgaon. The reason, of course, is that the regulated floor area ratio (FAR) is higher in the two adjoining cities. (FAR is the ratio of the floor area of a building to the size of the plot.) This has led to many thinking that the neighbouring cities of Delhi are slowly turning into concrete jungles.

To stop this from happening, the Noida Authority has now decided to make the city greener by developing 35 new parks. With close to 600 parks, the green cover in Noida is reasonably high. Over 20 per cent of Delhi's area is under forest or tree cover, but this does not stop Delhi from figuring among the most-polluted cities in the world. Even though parks are green, this means that having many parks and forests is not enough to save a city.

What more does a city need to be green? Skyscrapers. This may sound strange. A study on building density and greenness by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser and U C L A environmental economist Matthew E Kahn proves this point. When they compared the energy usage from transportation and carbon emissions from electricity usage, what they found was that energy usage and carbon emissions per person was much lower in dense cities than in low-rise suburbs in the US. This is consistent with the findings of other researchers. Although there are no such studies on Indian cities, the nearly uniform density in many Indian cities confirms that it is unlikely that suburbs in India have a much higher per person carbon emission or energy consumption. But, this is illustrative and makes a strong case for having dense CBDs in Indian cities, too. Every study on carbon emissions in densely built cities and low-rise suburbs prove that dense cities have lower emissions per household. Why?

People tend to assume that forests are green and skyscrapers are brown. But, when you construct in dense, central areas of a city, you can leave green parts of the city alone. Tall buildings free up more space than low-rise buildings. If environmentalists want to preserve forests and green spaces, they should, in fact encourage people to live far from such parts of the city. If environmentalists want energy usage and carbon emissions to decline, they should worship at the altar of high density.

There are also other reasons for this. People who live in high-density areas are less likely to drive because they are more likely to be closer to where they work. They are also more likely to be closer to super markets, malls, movie theatres, parks and restaurants. Apartments in dense areas are smaller, and people tend to consume less electricity in heating and warming houses. Similarly, when people eat out or spend more time in malls and other such public spaces, they tend to share energy consumption. Carbon emissions decline, too.

In Manhattan, for example, public transit usage is much higher than in other parts of the US. People who live far from the city centre and drive to work are not paying for their environmental damage because roads and parking spaces are free. In India, suburbs are not much less dense than city centers, but even then, the fundamental fact remains the same: People who live or work  in low-rise areas of Noida have a much greater carbon footprint than people who live or work in skyscrapers.