My hometown is Ronkonkoma, New York. It is in the center of Long Island and is about 1 hour and 30 minutes East of New York City. In addition, the population is around 20,000 people. Living here, I am close to the beaches and that is my favorite part. With the closest beach being 15 minutes away, it is easy to spend most of my summer there. I would describe my hometown as an automobile suburb. Automobiles are a major form of transportation and every household has at least one automobile. Sidewalks are not always available to walk on and stores, gas stations, schools, restaurants are most easily accessed by automobile. Although there are a few public busses to use, they are not used often by the people in my town as people typically drive. I would consider my hometown to have a lower urban density since houses are surrounded by yards and are not densely packed together. There are also wide streets within the neighborhoods and this decreases the urban density of the area.

Comparing my hometown to Copenhagen, Denmark, there are clear differences in the levels of sustainability. In Copenhagen, many citizens travel on foot or by bicycle, while in my hometown people drive to where they need to go. It is easy to see how the low use of automobiles has increased the sustainability of Copenhagen as there is less air pollution compared to places with more automobile use. Since the use of bicycles is also a social norm in Copenhagen, it is widely accepted for people to use this. Their use of alternate transportation is a great alternative compared to my hometown, but since buildings in my hometown are relatively far from each other, it would be difficult to instill using bicycles as transportation. Also since this is not currently part of any social norms, it would be difficult to transition most people from cars to bicycles.

Comparing my hometown to Haiti, there are also clear differences in the levels of sustainability. In Haiti, there are more areas of urban farming and with this, the people are able to provide food for themselves and their families without having to travel far to get it. With urban farming the food is grown locally and, as it is stated in the module, requires less transportation and thus reduces the ecological footprint. In my hometown, there aren’t many people who have food gardens in their yards. My mom used to take care of one but because she became busier, she hasn’t had the time to tend to it. I think that this is a trend where I live because urban farming isn’t a necessity where I live as people can go to the store and buy their food. I think that urban farming would definitely increase the sustainability and decrease the ecological footprint, but I think the people are too busy to farm.