I currently reside in Blair County, Pennsylvania just 15 miles north of Altoona. My home is in Tyrone which is right along the Little Juniata River, and the most recent population count was in 2013 where there was a record of 5,412 people in my community. This small town is only 2 square-miles, so the town has an urban feel to it lately with just over 5,000 people residing in that area. Along with the public Elementary school, we have a small Catholic School in town that only teaches up to the 5th grade and then students transfer to the public Middle and (eventually) High school.The Catholic school averages at about 15 students per grade where the average graduating class at Tyrone is around 130 students each year. I live at the northern end of Tyrone, located outside of the town in a more rural setting. I spend a little time in town as I possibly can being that I am not attracted to areas with a high population density.

The first city I would like to recognize is Beakon Hill. Located in Boston, Massachusetts, this town promotes physical exercise through walking, biking, and other means of transport other than the automobile. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Tyrone is only 2 square-miles; however, people refuse to walk anywhere because of the few hills in the area. The sidewalks, in Tyrone, are hardly able to be traveled on due to their poor condition except for on the main avenue located just off the interstate. If there was a better layout of our town with more sidewalks, playgrounds, outdoor organization, etc., then I feel that the population would be more open-minded to going to their friends house beside a vehicle who is barely a mile away.

One of the cities that seemed to catch my attention was Detroit. The mention of a second Green Revolution through the use of urban farming seemed to be be working rather well in more urban settings such as Detroit, so I figure that using such technique in Tyrone would be great for those of us who actually reside here. A majority of our residents are not in the healthiest states, so using some of our abandoned properties and small yards would help in improving our diets, health, and satisfactory of living such as it is doing in Detroit. We do have a farmers market that comes to town once or twice over the summer, but that does not really impact us in the same way if we were to grow it ourselves where we would have access to these products more than twice a year. Tyrone needs a wake up call in the fact that we cannot sustain ourselves on burgers and pizza.