Sustainable Cities – Module #7 – Skiba ljs5300

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Lucas Skiba

3/16/16

Module #7

GEOG 030

Sustainable Cities

            I am from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. It is located in Centre County right next to State College. It is a small little town where I was born, raised, and also attended school. To me Boalsburg is definitely an automobile suburb. It is very middle class with lots of suburban neighborhoods. Boalsburg is very quiet and quaint and only has a population of almost 4,000 people (City Data, 2016). I will always return to Boalsburg, it is my home and where I feel the most comfortable and safe. Boalsburg isn’t just important because I was raised there it is also the home of Memorial Day and where I’ve spent most of my life making memories with my friends and family. I would say Boalsburg is an environmentally friendly town where people do a lot of gardening, hiking, snowboarding, skiing, golfing, walking, biking, etc. But I would love to see it evolve even more and become more sustainable and efficient.

For my first city I chose Charlottesville, Virginia. It decided to close eight blocks, in 1975, permanently and created a pedestrian mall (Pedestrian Perfection: The 11 Most Walk-Friendly U.S. Cities, May 2011). Some of the shops are also renovated old historic buildings as well. I chose this city because Boalsburg is very historic due to its creation of Memorial Day and it also has very beautiful scenery, shops, parks and restaurants. Downtown Boalsburg is probably only 6 to 7 blocks long, but it would be interesting to permanently block the few streets running through it. I feel the shops would blossom, and the gardens and flowers would fill the streets. Not only would it be more green, but more people and families would come to walk and enjoy the town. Also some of the buildings in downtown Boalsburg are also renovated historic buildings, especially the Boalsburg Mansion. But overall I feel like this would make the town more sustainable and environmentally friendly due to less automobiles and more gardening and pedestrian walking.

For my second city I chose Curitiba, Brazil. It has one of the best bus systems in the world. They designed their city around the bus over a subway system because they could get the same function as the subway with the bus (Street Films, Vimeo, 2011). I chose Curitiba because Boalsburg only has probably around 10 bus stops (CATA 2009) and that’s not that many for the size of Boalsburg. Also with a lot of people biking I also think we should have more bike lanes, or certain bike routes in Boalsburg. Curitiba has begun to design bike lanes on there streets to have a steady flow of pedestrian movement. I believe if we had more bike lanes, routes, and a better more consistent bus route as well we would have less people driving automobiles, and all around better urban panning. With less people driving and more car pooling, biking, and pedestrian transportation I think we can make Boalsburg a little greener.

 

Bibliography/Citation List:

  1. City Data (2016). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from

http://www.city-data.com/city/Boalsburg-Pennsylvania.html

  1. Pedestrian Perfection: The 11 Most Walk-Friendly U.S. Cities (May 2011). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/pedestrian-perfection-the-11-most-walk-friendly-us-cities/238337/#slide10
  1. Street Films, Vimeo (2011). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from https://vimeo.com/12499536
  1. CATA (2009). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from http://catabus.com/ServiceSchedules/CATABUS/CommunityService/B%20Route/index.html
  1. GEOG 030 Module #7 Urban Planning (2015). Retrieved March 15, 2016 from https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog030/node/365

 

 

2 thoughts on “Sustainable Cities – Module #7 – Skiba ljs5300”

  1. Hi there! My name is Sara Getson and I wrote about living in State College, PA and then about biking in Copenhagen and urban farming in Detroit. Here is a link to my blog http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/17/sara-getson-urban-planning-from-state-college-to-copenhagen-to-detroit/. Your post caught my eye really because I live fairly close to Boalsburg! I also have to agree with you in that the town is overall very automobile oriented and I would like to see some more public transportation perhaps and definitely more bike friendly areas. The pedestrian mall in Charlottesville sounded really cool in that it is both sustainable and keeps people who like to walk safe from automobiles. I think that can often be another problem. Many people might normally walk or bike, but it may be too dangerous in certain areas to do so because of cars and trucks driving around. Nice post!

  2. Hello Lucas, I’m Wenjie. Unlike a nice little town like Boalsburg, I talked about Beijing, which is a huge metropolitan consists of a mixture of all kinds of neighborhoods. I also talked about the case of Curitiba and the successful BRT network it has. As for Boalsburg there is only one route goes through it, but a more frequent schedule I guess would attract a lot of people those who drive to commute. Currently most roads have no bike lanes, which poses a safety threat on both drivers and bikers since they have to share the road. I talked extensively on the BRT system, maybe you can take a look:
    http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/18/m7la_wzz5097/

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