Urban Density, Electricity Consumption, and Greenhouse Gas Emission: An Analysis of Italian Cities

Abstract

AbstractThe growth of gas emissions and concentrations, which resulted predominantly from the combustion of fossil fuels, is widely recognized as the leading cause of the increases in global climate change. Urbanization is one of the more relevant reasons for this phenomenon, especially in the countries facing recent urbanization. According to the framework mentioned above, many studies analyse the relationship between electricity consumption and urbanization. Nevertheless, energy consumption and electricity consumption, specifically, are studied in metropolitan areas, while the small and medium-size urbanization are scarcely studied in this perspective. The present contribution describes the results of ongoing research on urban form in household electricity consumption in Italy. The empirical analysis aims to verify whether exists a significant statistical correlation between urban density and households’ electricity consumption in 112 Italian provincial capitals. The analysis confirms the existence of a robust statistical correlation between electricity consumption and urban density. The higher is the density, the less is the electricity consumption per capita. The results are partially counter-intuitive considering the existing literature on the topic, but it is worth underlining two specific features: on the one hand, the “urban heat island” concept considers the overall energy consumption and not just the electricity one; and on the other hand, it suggests the existence of a threshold for which the relationship is reversed in the metropolitan areas. Lastly, in the same way, results confirm the empirical research highlighting the higher marginal costs of public services in less dense territories.KeywordsGas emissionsElectricity consumptionHedonic price modelUrban densityHousing stock