Absolute vs. relative reporting

A couple weeks ago I complained about a Washington Post story lauding green McMansions, ""Can Big Be Green?."

Somehow I missed a story in the New York Times on the same broad subject, the impact of the suburban "carbon footprint." In "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You," the Times article is very direct about the "enormous carbon footprint" of suburban living.

Suburban energy consumption in metro Atlanta. NYT graphic.

I have published this particular graphic many times. (And don't forget the great article, Green Manhattan from the New Yorker.)

Graph by the Jonathan Rose Companies.

Also see the NYT Dot Earth blog entry, "Can we uninvent suburbia?"

One of the things to do regardless of suburbia, is to ensure that infill development in fundamentally urban places is urban, rather than suburban. The new Congress Heights shopping center mentioned in a blog entry yesterday fails on that count.

Rhode Island Place shopping center adjacent (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) to the Rhode Island Metro Station.