I am from a town called Colts Neck and it is located in central New Jersey. The town is about 25 minutes away from the beach and about an hour away from New York City. Originally, my town was centralized around farming and agriculture. As time has gone on however, many of the farms have been converted into housing neighborhoods. There are still several large farms in the town though. The only means of transportation in Colts Neck is automobile. The houses are very far apart and the nearest stores or food shops are only within driving distance. Unfortunately the nearest train or bus station is approximately 15 minutes away, so my town is an automobile suburb. The current population in Colts Neck is 12,331 people and the area of the region is 31.79 square miles. I have lived in Colts Neck my entire life so I have a very strong connection with it. Most of my friends are from this area and I love the fact that it is a smaller town that hasn’t become very commercial. I like being able to go to apple orchards and specialty stores within my own town rather than have people from other places flocking there for chain stores. It was a very nice place to grow up and I always look forward to going back.

One of the cities I found most interesting to learn about in this module is the city of Bogota in Colombia. Bogota is addressing the issue of Sustainable Urban Development with Ciclovias. Ciclovias happens every Sunday and holiday and it restricts the usage of vehicles on 75 miles of streets. This promotes alternative forms of transportation like cycling and walking on those streets and also reduces harmful vehicle pollutants.  It’s a great way for community members to see the city and get exercise at the same time. Something like Ciclovias would be very beneficial for my town. Because there is not very much to do in my town, having an event like Ciclovias would be a great way to develop the community. By promoting the restriction of car usage, people can find alternative ways to exercise and be entertained, thus also increasing the use-mixture of my town. This would also promote sustainability and health due to the limited usage of automobiles and increased exercise.

Another area that caught my attention was Cuba’s use of urban agriculture. After the Soviet Union collapse and the US embargo caused Cuba’s supply aid to be restricted, they were forced to come up with alternative methods for creating food. In cities like Havana, people were forced to find more innovative ways to grow food organically. Instead of using machines powered by fossil fuels, Cubans had to use “people power” and “animal power” to grow their crops. Additionally, Cubans were unable to use pesticides and insecticides in order to grow their plants, which is much better for the environment. Using harmful pesticides to grow food can be very dangerous to resident health. Their way of growing food became far more sustainable. Cubans avoided some of the difficulties associated with switching to sustainable living simply because they had no other choice. This is interesting to me because although we are not restricted in supplies in my town, we are a very farm based town. If we could use more of our land and farms in order to make our own food and grow it organically, we could become a much more sustainable town.