My hometown is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is the 2nd largest city in Pennsylvania, with a population of about 305,000. I live in the South Side of the city, which can be reached through a number of bridges that are used to gain access all around despite the three rivers that run through the entire city. I didn’t realize this before, but I would categorize Pittsburgh as an extremely metropolitan area, with both a mix of pedestrian-oriented and automobile suburbs. My particular neighborhood has a streetcar which runs through it. I’ve lived in Pittsburgh my entire life, and I am able to identify the various types of neighborhoods which exist within my city. Although we tend to have a lot of construction and traffic, I would still consider most parts of the city and the outskirts of the city to be relatively accessible.
The first city that I am going to talk about is Copenhagen, Denmark. Transportation was a collective action problem, just as it is with my city as well. In order to increase safety between bike riders and cars, this city created car-free streets and zones. My city has been building something similar, however not many streets are car-free. Instead, some bridges and trails have been created which are specifically for bikes and sometimes walking. Additionally, my city has started to provide more space for bikes by building bike lanes. I personally find the bike lanes to be quite safe, but I think Pittsburgh should find a way to have more “bike only zones” to help with traffic especially. I think Copenhagen has done a great job solving a problem within the community, and improvements can be made in Pittsburgh to increase sustainability in certain neighborhoods by utilizing the same outline as Copenhagen.
The second city from the module which is relevant to Pittsburgh is Chicago. When it comes to urban farming, I did not expect Chicago to be as advanced as it was. I recall Pittsburgh having a few urban farms, but it has really sky rocketed over the years. Our biggest non-profit organization is called, “Grow: Pittsburgh”. Grow Pittsburgh has a few farms throughout the city, and then we have about three or four other farms which are located in predominantly automobile suburbs. I think a way to sustain our current farms would be to offer more jobs within that field to expand it. Grow Pittsburgh is not talked about a lot, and I think if we had more of an opportunity to get people involved, we would have a lot more farm to maintain.
Hi! I’m Micaelie. I also love the Copenhagen idea! I know a lot of cities, like Philly, have little quads or areas like parks where activities take place. I think having whole streets open really helps the local economy and can also hold activities. Streets are also a lot bigger than we think so it’s usually a fairly large area for people to do activities in. Theres a street in my town that did this as well and it’s a lot of fun. I wrote about in on my blog : https://wp.me/p3RCAy-c0D
Hi Shanda,
My name is Chris and I’m also from Pittsburgh. Here’s a link to my post if you want to take a look. http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/16/improving-sustainability-mod-7/
I like the solutions you proposed in your post. I’m from Pine Township, which is an automobile suburb that could benefit from bike lanes and urban farming. Everything is so spread out that walking is not really an option, but bike lanes could help lower the reliance on automobiles. There is also a lot of land that could be put to better use. Pine should think about setting up neighborhood gardens, which would take advantage of unused land, while lowering the communities footprint.