I’m from Pine Township, which is a suburb about twenty minutes outside of Pittsburgh.  The neighborhoods are spread out and consist mainly of single family homes.  A car is required as there is no downtown and shopping must be done at strip malls.  There is also little public transportation.  After reading the module I would classify it as an automobile suburb.  The township has a total population of 11,497 people according to the 2010 census and is located in Allegheny County.  The community might be small, but being part of Allegheny County gives Pine residents access to most things associated with larger cities.  Many parents work in Pittsburgh, as does my dad.  I lived in the same house in Pine Township my entire life and enjoyed growing up there.  I was lucky to have safe neighborhoods with wide open spaces to play in.  I realize that the automobile suburb is not very sustainable, but I do recognize the advantages it has for raising a family.

The first city I chose to examine was Rochester, NY.  This is the most similar neighborhood to Pine Township.  Rochester and Pine are both automobile suburbs located on the outer edges major metropolitan areas.  I think that both of these neighborhoods have sustainability problems that are complicated and hard to address.  The distances to shopping areas makes it nearly impossible to live in the area without a car.  Another problem is the lack of population density.  The fact that the population is not concentrated makes public transportation unviable.  Despite these problems, there are ways to improve the sustainability of Pine Township.  One of the main ways is by changing the mixture of old and new developments.  I’ve already witnessed this as Pine now has two mixed use developments consisting of townhomes and shops intermingled.  This decreases the need for a car and encourages walking.  Another way to improve the sustainability is for the township to enact policies that encourage new and old construction to meet higher environmental standards that offset the heavy reliance on automobiles.

The Jamaica Plain neighborhood is Boston has a few similarities to Pine Township.  This leads me to believe that Pine could borrow some of Jamaica Plain’s features to become more sustainable.  Jamaica Plain and Pine are both suburbs, albeit different types.  Pine Township is growing and has had population growth of 47.4% since 2000.  This means that the population density is increasing, leading me to believe that public transportation could become viable.  Jamaica Plains has a higher population density, but if Pine continues to grow, it could borrow aspects from their streetcar model.  As I previously mentioned, Pine is increasing the amount of mixed use developments and these would be great places to locate bus stops.  It will never be possible for everyone to walk to these stops, but a large portion of the population would be able to.  Also, many people work in Pittsburgh and commute daily.  Currently there is no train line servicing the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh.  In the future bus lines could transport commuters to the train, which would increase the townships sustainability.