We now see cities as environmentally responsible communities because their energy footprints are so much smaller than other forms of human settlement. In a sense, the environmentalists are learning something that the capitalists learned a few centuries ago: There are efficiencies to urban living that outweigh all the annoyances. City dwellers spend less money heating and cooling their homes; they have fewer children; they recycle their waste more economically; and most important, they consume less energy moving around day to day, thanks to the shorter commutes and mass transit that density
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