Module 7- Urban Planning

Posted on by
  1. My hometown is Wyckoff, NJ. Wyckoff is a township in Bergen County, New Jersey, which is located about a half hour outside of New York City. I would consider Wyckoff an automobile suburb. My town has a public high school, roads with sidewalks, and bus transportation to New York City. Although Wyckoff doesn’t have their own train station, we have neighboring towns that provide transit to New York City and other major cities, which is very popular for commuters. The population of Wyckoff is just a little bit over 17,000 people. Growing up in a town like Wyckoff has been pretty great because of the proximity to the city as well as having that small-town feel. Wyckoff has provided people with shops and restaurants around town that are easy to get to by walking, bike, or car. Lastly, Wyckoff and its neighboring towns have provided public transportation to larger cities by either taking the train or bus.
  2. First, I will be comparing Wyckoff to Copenhagen. Wyckoff and Copenhagen are similar in a way that just like Copenhagen’s pedestrian streets, Wyckoff has a center of town where a lot of people like to visit that have some restaurants and other shops. Wyckoff can be more sustainable like Copenhagen by encouraging more public transportation into the larger cities instead of individually driving. Also, the use of bikes should be more encouraged than cars, when people are leisurely driving around town. Walking to school can also be an alternative from driving to schools in the area because with everyone driving to school in the morning, it creates a large amount of traffic. This alternative would improve air quality as a result of less fossil fuels being burned by cars.
  3. Lastly, I will be comparing Wyckoff to Rochester, NY. Rochester and Wyckoff are both automobile suburbs and are both neighborhoods designed for families. Wyckoff is both similar and different than Rochester in a way that the town does have sidewalks on main streets and roads that allow pedestrians to walk from their homes to the middle of town. But, if you were to walk in your neighborhood, you sometimes have to walk in the middle of the street because of lack of sidewalks. In Wyckoff, most grocery stores, work, shopping malls, and schools require you to drive to and from. This causes a lot of traffic in the area, which causes pollution affecting the air quality and health of the citizens. Wyckoff can be more sustainable by encouraging activity such as running, walking, and biking that will not only increase the air quality but, also the health and happiness of the community.

2 thoughts on “Module 7- Urban Planning”

  1. Hi Mara I’m Eunice Lee majoring in Early Childhood Education. I was interested in your blog entry because we had different concerns for our city and it seems like our city is very different. To begin with, Seoul (my home city) and Wyckoff are both automobile suburbs but my city is also considered as pedestrian-oriented environment even though it is a metropolitan city and the capital city of South Korea. (I thought this was cool!) Moreover, I thought it was interesting to hear that your city is mostly moved by personal cars. My city is very well developed in public transportation and I think according to wikipedia, the use of public transportation in my city is higher than New York. I think you should check out our transportation system so you can more ideas on how to have sustain urban environment.
    Overall I really enjoyed reading your entry and thought it was very organized!

    Thank you for sharing and this is my blog entry : http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/17/module-7-urban-planning-7/

  2. Hi Mara,
    I believe my hometown is very similar to Wyckoff. Where I live, Bellefonte, PA, I would consider is a automobile suburb. We have a Cata bus that goes to State College which would be our closest surrounding city to get to any major cities along with our train station that I believe only runs through our town once every day. In my blog one of the things I said to make my town more sustainable would to make it more pedestrian-oriented implying that I wanted to improve the air quality like you said when comparing your hometown to Copenhagen.

    If you are interested in reading about my hometown and the cities I compared it to you can check it out on my blog here:
    http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/17/make-bellefonte-more-sustainable-andrea-garbrick/

    Thanks,
    -Andrea

Leave a Reply