Michael Simons: Comparing my home town to other cities

My home town is Lindenhurst New York. To clarify this is on Long Island where most town are automobile suburbs. Lindenhurst is pretty small town and about an hour or so train or car ride to New York City. Lindenhurst is home to around 27,000 people as of 2010. I feel as though Lindenhurst (and most towns on Long Island) are very automobile driven areas. Although, you can walk to some places or bike to many places, it is most common for people to drive everywhere. I am connected to this town because this where I grew up and also where my family lives and will most likely live in for many years to come.

 

One city I chose to compare Lindenhurst to is Rochester New York. Both cities are examples of automobile suburb areas. Although there are some areas in my town that have sidewalks, most of them don’t get used very often. I feel as though this is similar to Rochester because even though some areas have side walks, most don’t because they mainly encourage people to use their automobiles to get around. But I do believe Rochester uses their side walks more often and efficiently. Lindenhurst can learn from this because using sidewalks and creating more sidewalks to use will reduce the towns pollution. By implementing more sidewalks and making it more common and easier to walk then the people of Lindenhurst can become a little more healthier while significantly cutting their usage of gas.

 

Another city I would like to compare Lindenhurst to is New York City. One reason I chose this city is because it is only a train ride away from my town. Many people use the train system from my town to get to work if their work is in the city which is great. I feel as though using mass transit is much better than driving just yourself to the city at least 5 times a week to get to work. One area that New York City excels in is using rooftop planting or farming. This is very effective in shortening the food miles you use and more efficient and healthy foods to eat yourself. I have seen a few areas in my town which use rooftop farming but I feel as though we can do a much better job with it.

One thought on “Michael Simons: Comparing my home town to other cities

  1. Hi Michael,
    My name is Katie and my blog post can be found here: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/18/harleysville-pa-katie-greiner/

    Your post grabbed my attention because you selected towns and cities all located in the same state. I thought that this comparison among cities and towns in the same state was a very cool concept. I think that your alternative means of transportation options in your hometown would work really great. I think that by incorporating more public transportation and sidewalks in your community will encourage people to get around by other means besides using their cars. We both posted about getting members of our communities to use other means of transportation to get around instead of using their own vehicles.

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