Suburbs aren't typically replacing forests, they're typically replacing farms, and we have far more agricultural land than we need (we produce a huge surplus of food) that we aren't managing well in the first place. We can and should protect existing nature, expand our national parks, and incentivize the naturalization and public access of existing private lands; however, we can do this without packing everyone into dense urban cores.
According to a 1993 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report, it takes about 1.25 acres of agriculture land to feed one person. That value doesn't care about whether a person lives in a city or a suburb. The median suburban American lives in a 2.5 person household on 0.2 acres of land, which means about 0.08 acres per person. I'm not sure what the average urbanite lives on, but let's say it's a quarter of that: 0.02 acres per person. So we're talking about 1.33 vs 1.27--suburbanites require only about 4% more land than urbanites. Hardly a major threat to nature compared to excessive and unsustainable agricultural practices.
> Yes, but agricultural footprint is the dominating factor.
Perhaps, but you also need to consider:
- transport to work / school / hospitals / entertainment
- food distribution
- sewage
- electricity
- emergency services coverage
- etc…
I don’t have any hard stats for you but my background reading has suggested these are significant.
> Nature, to my point. Recall that you're the one arguing that suburbs rather than agriculture is threatening nature
Yes, because we could be rewilding, creating new national parks etc. but instead are building suburbs. We can also replace existing suburbs on longer time-scales.
According to a 1993 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report, it takes about 1.25 acres of agriculture land to feed one person. That value doesn't care about whether a person lives in a city or a suburb. The median suburban American lives in a 2.5 person household on 0.2 acres of land, which means about 0.08 acres per person. I'm not sure what the average urbanite lives on, but let's say it's a quarter of that: 0.02 acres per person. So we're talking about 1.33 vs 1.27--suburbanites require only about 4% more land than urbanites. Hardly a major threat to nature compared to excessive and unsustainable agricultural practices.