I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which can be characterized as an urban-downtown setting. Philadelphia is the largest city within Pennsylvania as well as the fifth most populated city in the United States. It has been estimated that there were 1,560,297 people living in the city of Philadelphia in 2014. I may be bias, but I have done much traveling in my lifetime and I believe it is one of the most fascinating urban landscapes. The city is filled with people of different race, ethnicity, careers, ages, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Philadelphia is also influenced by a variety of environmental factors. Philadelphia experiences a vast array of seasons. Philadelphia sees snow and ice in January, the most beautiful cherry blossoms in April, dense humidity in July, and falling leaves in November. The Delaware River, as well as the Schuylkill River surround the city, both originally served as boundaries between the city’s early urban street plans. Philadelphia is divided into a number of large neighborhoods – North, Northeast, Northwest, West, South, and Southwest – each surrounds the Center City neighborhood.

Curitiba, Brazil, has one of the best bus systems in the world. The bus system in Philadelphia, commonly SEPTA, is known for a wide range of reasons. The city of Curitiba has a larger population than Philadelphia, but the population sizes are comparable and Philadelphia could make use of a similar bus system in an attempt to accomplish sustainability. Although Curitiba was compared to the city of Phoenix, Philadelphia is structured more similarly to Curitiba than to Phoenix. Philadelphia is not designed for efficient automobile transportation. Although people are always driving in Philadelphia, traffic is inevitable, which is not environmentally efficient. Traffic makes for inefficient transportation, but the bus system, along with the subway system, are alternative options that provide transportation in an inexpensive, timely manner. Philadelphia has hundreds of rapid transit routes into and out of the city. With bus stations placed all over the city, this mode of transportation is even more efficient. If more people in Philadelphia made use of the bus system, the city could reach a level of sustainability similar to that of Curitiba.

The final city I will be discussing is Boston, Massachusetts. Beacon Hill is a Boston neighborhood slightly north of Boston’s central public park and directly next to the downtown region of Boston. Beacon Hill is one of many neighborhoods in Boston, just as the city of Philadelphia is made up of dozens of neighborhoods. The downtown setting of the Beacon Hill neighborhood offers many options for dining, entertainment, socializing, shopping, and working. Certain areas around Beacon Hill and other neighborhoods in the city offer the opportunity for quiet, calm walking outside of the normal hustle-and-bustle of the busy, crowded city. Philadelphia is set up in a similar sense as both cities have neighborhoods that were developed over two hundred years ago. With the change in age, transportation changed, but the streets were originally designed to be walked on. In order to create a more sustainable environment, people living in cities like Boston or Philadelphia should make use of these quiet streets to walk to their destination, while taking a peaceful “break” from the city.