So I come from Grove City Pennsylvania.  We have a small town of about 8,500 people.  We have one small one way street called broad street that is pretty pedestrian friendly so people can go to the small shops along it.  For the most part  we are an automobile suburb but getting towards the outer part of town we have no sidewalks even though we still have a lot of residential properties.  I would say that Grove City is intentionally a slowed down town.  for many of our neighborhoods especially the wealthier ones they are either dead end streets, circular designed area called the Boulevards, and side streets with a 15mph speed limit.  Grove City is slow and quiet and I believe intentionally so.  I personally really enjoy the slow pace.  As a kid I could ride my bike anywhere in town and being that it is such a slow pace you never feel in danger from traffic.

The first city I want to talk about is Copenhagen.  I think Copenhagen has a similar mission as Grove City to reduce it’s environmental footprint.  We just simply go about it based on our different issues. Copenhagen looked to reduce its energy use and pollution output the the reduction of car use by making it’s city extremely biker friendly.  Grove City isn’t quite as heavy traffic being such a small town.  So to reduce our environmental footprint Grove City funds a lot of reclamation projects.  Such as the Wolf Creek project which we removed a 150 year old mill dam to return Wolf Creek to its original state and make it a better stream for trout fishing.  Also the reclaiming of many areas damaged by the immense strip mining that took place in the early 1900’s.  So both my town and Copenhagen are doing their part to reduce their environmental footprint.

Finally the city I’d like to talk about is New York.  As mentioned in this unit, the reason New York became the largest city is because of its geographic location to ship materials both by sea and the Erie Canal to the central part of the US.  Grove City is located only an hour from both Erie and Pittsburgh.  Grove City thus thrived in the early 1900’s as a huge supplier of coal for energy consumption by major cities, as well as supplying food from its rural farms through the efficient use of the railroad system.  It is also why both Cooper Bessemer and GE had major factories in Grove City producing locomotive engines.  Grove City’s environmental advantage more specifically its geographic location is why it continues to survive economically much like New York City.