Infill Development: Market-Based Climate Solution

​In 2007, McKinsey popularized the global cost curve for climate abatement, ranking interventions from negative-cost efficiency gains to expensive new technologies. Land use has never appeared on that curve, yet infill housing may be one of the cheapest levers available: it lowers vehicle miles traveled and embodied carbon while relying on infrastructure that already exists, and the policies needed to legalize it, like ending exclusionary zoning and restrictive parking mandates, cost governments next to nothing to enact. Removing parking minimums in particular frees up land and lowers construction costs, helping infill projects pencil out and giving rise to more market-driven housing growth and a stronger property tax base. Panelists will explore why land use has remained a blind spot in climate strategy despite this outsized, low-cost potential.

​This session is hosted by Gehl Architects, the Parking Reform Network, Metropolitan Abundance Project, and WRI and is a part of the Urban Climate Solutions Track at NYC Climate Week 2026. View all events in the track at https://www.urbanclimatesolution.org/.