So says the Urban Land Institute. The following grabs are from a couple slides in A Plan for Tomorrow: Creating Stronger and Healthier Communities Today and the nearly identical A Plan for Tomorrow: Creating Stronger and Healthier Cities Today, companion PowerPoint presentations to Higher Density Development: Myth and Fact.

"About half of the homes, office buildings, stores and factories needed by 2030 don't exist today." That's only 28 years from now. The importance of the 2030 Challenge can't be emphasized enough.

"Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, and the U.S. carbon footprint is expanding. Since 1980, carbon emissions in the United States have increased by almost 1 percent each year. Emissions from the residential, commercial, and transportation sectors each increased by more than 25 percent during the past 25 years. Industrial emissions have declined during this same period as the country has moved away from energy-intensive manufacturing and toward a service and knowledge economy. Much of what Americans once manufactured is now being imported from China, India, and other countries, thereby lessening U.S. greenhouse gas accounts. "As a result, consumers are increasingly the driving force of domestic energy consumption and carbon emissions. Residential and commercial buildings and road transportation are expected to dominate energy demand and carbon growth in the future. Total U.S. carbon emissions are projected to grow by 16 percent between 2006 and 2030..."

From Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America, a report from the Brookings Institution.