The town I am from is called Plainview. It is located in central Long Island, New York. The types of neighborhoods within the town are pedestrian-oriented. It is a small/medium-sized town of about 26,000 residents. This is on a different scale from what I will discuss on New York City, as well as Shanghai, China. The streets are usually quiet and pretty empty, besides the few main roads, which have some heavy traffic during peak times of the day. Plainview is the town I had grown up in from the time I was 6 years old. In this time, I have seen many changes go on. As the recession and other factors hit the town during 2008-2009, the first thing people tried to cut back on financially was transportation. Many residents downgraded vehicles in order to save money, or simply used the bus system. From a financial standpoint, this change was very helpful, but what was even better was that the recession resulted in environmental benefits as well. By using smaller and fewer cars, the environment experienced less pollution and this even saved fossil fuel resources.

The first city that I will be discussing is New York City. New York City’s population is of the largest in the world of any city. The city makes my town seem nothing but a spectrum in a major galaxy. This can cause many issues for a city. One major issue is pollution. The environmental impacts of pollution have been devastating in New York. The city deploys thousands of tons of pollution into the atmosphere everyday. A major cause of this pollution has resulted from the transportation methods. Whether it is taxi cars, automobiles, buses, construction vehicles, and more, New York City has way too many. These vehicles exhale pollution, all day, everyday. The city is small enough that most people can commute around on foot, yet people choose the lazy option of auto transportation. As stated in the lesson, there are many ways that people can cut down this pollution and find other ways of transportation. The lesson suggests biking, walking, or even trains if needed. My town shared this problem of pollution caused by transportation. Both places were forced to make change, but for different reasons.

The second city I will be discussing is Shanghai, China. Shanghai has the largest population of any city in the world. Again, this issue causes them to have more air pollution, as well as water pollution. The air pollution of Shanghai is between 23 and 31 times greater than the international standard. Residents of Shanghai need transportation in order to get around, but they are much more efficient at using environmental friendly methods. They use subways, metros, and efficient bus systems that enter every town and city in China. The high population still results in major pollution, but the country is working to solve this problem everyday. People of Shanghai also use bicycles to get around at a high rate. Automobiles are more of a luxury than a necessity. My town can relate to this way of living. We had to cut back on spending so we realized how luxurious automobiles were not as important as living well and healthy.