A plan several years ago to bury transmission and other power lines at the University Medical Center and Veterans Affairs hospital in BioDistrict New Orleans, where both complexes are under construction now, was termed too costly.

Despite bold talk of massive infrastructure improvements in the direct aftermath of the storm called Sandy, some are wondering if the nation's famously short memory will prove a barrier now.

Mid City residents living within BioDistrict New Orleans worry that health and science entities might one day encroach on their neighborhoods, while Governor Bobby Jindal's health care cuts jeopardize the outlook for a BioDistrict lynch pin.

With these unmeasured factors, city parks with high maintenance regimes may have much larger impacts than reported here. Thus, urban areas that have a large amount of mowed, irrigated, fertilized lawns and pruned shrubs and trees can be a source of carbon dioxide rather than a sink.

In cities, agriculture might be able to take the place of vacant lots. And in suburbia? Well, in 2008, the New Urbanism evangelist Andrés Duany, of D...