Ecological footprint interactive: explore which parts of a footprint settlement design changes

Density shrinks a city’s footprint, but consumption sets most of it

Compact design, mixed use and transit cut the land and energy a city needs for housing and travel. But food, goods and services make up most of a footprint, and they follow income and consumption, not density. So a dense, wealthy city is not automatically a small-footprint city. Raise the density and watch which parts of the footprint move, and how far the bar still sits above the one-planet share.

Settlement pattern
Low-density sprawl
Raise the density. Amber parts stay; purple parts shrink. Values are illustrative, in global hectares (gha) per person.
MODEL FOOTPRINT: 7.0 GHA / PERSON
Sprawl Compact
Footprint (gha / person)
7.0
Earths needed
4.7
Density done well means more people per hectare, shorter trips between home and services, and less road, pipe and cable per person. Paired with mixed-use zoning, it cuts car dependence and makes shared heating and cooling networks worthwhile. Higher density shrinks the land used for housing, roads and parking, and lowers energy for travel and home heating, though by how much varies widely between cities. It does not change what people eat or buy: higher-income households can still have large footprints because they own more cars, live in bigger homes and consume more.
Know This
A city's ecological footprint is the productive land needed to supply its resources and absorb its waste. Compact density and transit shrink the housing and transport parts, but income and consumption drive the rest, so dense cities are not automatically small-footprint.