City Living Trims GHG

Check it out; I've already mentioned this research but this time Worldchanging has picked it up here. Worldchanging: Bright Green: Does City Living Trim Greenhouse Gas Emissions? And the headline info: "downtown residents use radically less energy, and consequently emit about two-thirds less climate-warming CO2 than their suburban counterparts."
We need to think about this missionally: to me this sounds like a call to urban new monasticism (and the Beguine movement of the thirteenth century looks like a good reference point for that). And also for a relocalisation of suburban communities which is a community development task, but a missional one at that. It's interesting, having read placement reports from students attached to suburban churches that local community is a real issue. That said, there are not always easy ways to address it, but it must be done.