I live in Manheim Pennsylvania, which is a small town of about five to six thousand people. The town is a part of Lancaster County. The town consists of mostly urban neighborhoods and some automobile suburbs. The very center of town is however, a streetcar suburb. Everyone drives everywhere, there is no public transportation and the only buses are school buses. The community has various events throughout the year where most of the town comes to and enjoys whatever is going on. Some people do ride their bikes around, but for the most part bikes are not used as transportation but more of as a hobby. There are a lot of farms in the area and most of the neighborhoods are surrounded or bordered by farms and their fields. It’s the best of both worlds because it’s the country, but still close enough to do everything in Lancaster and Harrisburg.

In the module, we look at the city Chicago and how big it is and all the people that live there. It is very different from my hometown of Manheim. Manheim is a farming community in a sense, compared to Chicago being a big city. Both areas farm, but do it in different ways. My hometown, all the food is farmed in fields or in gardens behind homes. Chicago is different in the way that is uses urban farming. Growing food is done on the rooftops of people’s homes instead of behind them and that is one thing that Manheim can take away about being more sustainable. Manheim should start to urban farming in the middle of town, and more people can have their own person garden’s right on their rooftops then.

In the module, we talked about Penn State and how the university is trying to become more efficient and one way they are doing that is through “green buildings”. Penn State has implemented the LEED program into some of its buildings like the Stuckeman Family Building on campus. This building is made out of recycled cooper and durable brick. It has different rainwater irrigation systems, intelligent lighting system, and energy efficient windows. The homes in Manheim are average, and I think a lot of peopIe don’t see the opportunity to make homes energy efficient and how that can positively impact the environment. I know that my home and the buildings in Manheim are not energy efficient like this one at Penn State and creating more buildings like the Stuckeman Family Building will only make Manheim more efficient.