[Reeses]

Cities, with people crammed into small apartments in big apartment buildings and few owning cars, tend to be lower energy consumers per capita than more sprawling environments.

Compare apples to apples. People don't need a big city to increase their energy efficiency. Country people can move into a 500 square foot compartment too. For an equivalent quality of life though, living in a big city is less energy efficient than living in the suburbs. As a rule of thumb, price is a surprisingly accurate proxy for energy consumption. Big city living is both more expensive and more energy consuming on an apples to apples basis.

If government transportation were at all energy efficient, the taxpayers wouldn't need to subsidize 90% of the fare to get people to ride it. Government transportation in general is *NOT* energy efficient, nor is it a pleasant quality of life experience.

[9YearLurker]

But that’s not apples to apples. 4000 square feet ACed to the max and a couple of SUV
s in the garage is not something that many people who live in the City feel a need or have a capacity for.

And yes, the NYC subway system is not only more efficient per energy miles than those SUVs out in typical traffic, but also big cities enable much shorter commutes for many more people.

Got any data for your claims?

Here’s some that concludes otherwise:

http://www.academia.edu/5332884/Residential_Energy_Use_and_the_City-Suburb_Dichotomy

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/greenest_place_in_the_us_its_not_where_you_think/2203/

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/the-comparatively-green-urban-jungle/?_r=0

http://www.frameworkhomeownership.org/blog/which-location-is-greener-city-or-suburb