Sustainable Cities — Ralph Diaz

One of the things I am least fond of in my hometown, Hagerstown, Maryland, is its level of sustainable development. Hagerstown is largely a city that was thrown together without any planning going into it. It has grown into a pseudo-pedestrian-oriented city, where many people walk and bike, but most people still have cars. This is not a good system because the city could have been guided through its growth to be a purely pedestrian-oriented city. Recent developments have caused the city to grow in this respect, however: Sidewalks have been repaved with red brink in an appealing pattern, bike lanes have been added (though some people in cars like to run the cyclists off of the road), and shops are often within close proximity to each other. Despite the growth, cars still dominate the streets because of the late implementation of these developments.

I think the best example for my hometown is the Cuban Revolution. This kind of development would be very positively impactful on my hometown. Cuba had issues with a lack of money and a lack of production causing an inability to feed its people. Manpower was not difficult to find, however, so people could work on local agricultural systems to help increase the cities total food output. This idea started a revolution causing Cuba to be a highly self sufficient country. Hagerstown is not so different from this previous state of Cuba discussed in this module. Hagerstown has many unemployed citizens (downtown Hagerstown has as much as 12% unemployment in regions); naturally with all of this unemployment, the poverty level is high. Locally growing produce would fix both of these issues simultaneously (among many other issues such as the high crime rate which could be reduced by giving people jobs).

Though much of downtown Hagerstown has adequate ability for pedestrians to do anything they need to do by foot, I would like to see Hagerstown model itself more after Beacon Hill, Boston. Beacon hill was intelligently designed in a way that inspires people to not own cars. As the module says, people in Beacon Hill are wealthy enough to own cars, but do not because walking is the more attractive method of transportation. I would like to see Hagerstown structure itself such that walking is attractive. Hagerstown could largely achieve this with a few produce markets downtown. This would allow the citizens to walk to get food and the city to eliminate roads and parking spaces, leaving more room for things like vegetation (you can see the plants lining the walkways of Beacon Hill, increasing the attractiveness of the city).

2 thoughts on “Sustainable Cities — Ralph Diaz

  1. Hey Ralph. It seems like our hometowns are pretty similar. They both have pedestrian potential, but the convenience of cars has made our towns lazy, and difficult to navigate on bike or by walking. I liked the town of Beacon Hill because even though they had the monetary funds to drive cars, they chose pedestrian transportation to make a statement. I think that one of the main reasons that pedestrian transportation improves businesses is because it slows people down and lets them get a quick look at stores before they go in. Anyways, feel free to check out my post and see how our towns compare!

    http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/03/16/jared-mummert-module-7/

  2. Hi Ralph,

    My name is Chris and I really enjoyed your post. Here’s a link to mine if you want to take a look. http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/16/improving-sustainability-mod-7/

    It looks like Hagerstown has a few issues, but I also saw some solutions that my township could add. My township is much more spread out than yours and has a heavy reliance on cars. You mentioned that your community has bike lanes and this would be great for my township. I didn’t think about adding bike lanes when I wrote my post, but this could help decrease the reliance on automobiles in my community. It’s impossible to walk everywhere, but biking is much faster and could benefit my community.

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