Hi, welcome to the Build Environment module. My name is Haley, and I'm an undergraduate student studying Economics and Urban Studies at the University of Michigan. In this module, we will be showing you an interview with Professor Doug Kelba about new urbanism and how the design of the build environment affects climate change. Before taking a class with Professor Kelba, I thought that my home community in Iowa was a relatively sustainable community. My family lives on a half acre of land with plenty of grass and trees surrounding our yard. There was plenty of green space all around our neighborhood The grocery store is close by, only a mile away, and my high school's only three, but then I started to learn more about how the build environment has a huge impact on the environment, and how where I lived wasn't necessarily good for climate change. Although I was near everything I needed, my only option was to drive there. There was no infrastructure for walking and biking or any public transportation. My family's big yard wasn't being put to much use besides being watered and maintained. And the utility bills to heat and cool a large, single unit home for my family of five was several times more expensive than it is now for my current apartment in Ann Arbor with four people. Now, I am lucky to be able to interact in a more sustainable way with my community here in Ann Arbor. I can get to wherever I need without driving. I share an apartment building with a dozen other people. And I can have plenty of green space with the several public parks and plazas right down the road. What makes me able to live in a more sustainable way is the density of Ann Arbor. I learned from Professor Kelba's class about how law can apply to cities. It's this concept where if you double the size of the city from 100,000 to 200,000 people or a million to two million. It doesn't matter. And systematically you get a 15% increase in wages, wealth, number of AIDS cases, number of police, anything you can think of. This includes infrastructure too, whether it's the length of roads, length of electrical line, anything you look at has the same economy of scale, all going up in the same way. When the population doubles, you only need 15% more infrastructure, which saves a lot of resources. A city is a super environmentally friendly form of human settlement if designed well. Each city dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water and produces less pollution than their counterparts in settlements of lower densities. You don't have to live in the city to reap the benefits that new urbanism has. Promoting higher density, mixed use communities can produce the same results anywhere you live. As my home community has grown and developed, they have applied the idea of new urbanism, whether they knew it or not. New stores did not replace farm land, but instead went near other stores, filling underused areas and making more walkable spaces. In this module, you will learn about how the design of the build environment has a significant impact on climate change.