Module 7 Jonah Kim

  1. My hometown is Lansdale, Pennsylvania. It is located in Montgomery County North West of Philadelphia. So I am generally in southeast Pennsylvania. Montgomery County 812,376 (2013) has a total of about 16,408 people and has a neighborhood I would consider as an automobile suburb. Though not a huge city, Lansdale requires for a car to get from place to place. My neighborhood itself has sidewalks, but throughout Lansdale there is not sidewalks everywhere. To get to any market, school, store you have to drive everyone throughout Lansdale, but people can and get from place to place walking or riding bicycles on the street. We do not have a mayor in Lansdale. Rather we have leaders for the county known as County Commissioners. The Chair’s name is Josh Shapiro. The Vice-Chair’s name is Valerie A. Akroosh. Lastly, the Commissioner’s name is Joseph C. Gate. I have been living in Lansdale for 9 years now. I went through the Pennsylvania public school system from 4th grade through high school.
  2. The first city from the module I am discussing is Chicago, Illinois. My hometown is Lansdale, PA now, but before that I lived in Naperville, Illinois. I lived there for about 5 years. Chicago is pedestrian based whereas you need a car in Lansdale to get around. Many places in Chicago are just within walking distance of each other and many people live within the city whereas many people in Montgomery County live in neighborhoods. However, Lansdale and Chicago both use the same types of transportation Lansdale has the Septa trains connecting Lansdale to Philadelphia. The L train connects Chicago throughout the city. Trains are a good form of transportation and that is what Philadelphia is to people who live in Naperville is Chicago. However, Chicago’s cities provide better urban agriculture that South Bend could take after. In Lansdale, there are not community gardens present, however, in Chicago, they have turned community gardens into artwork and created parks to increase plant coverage and improve the air quality there.
  3. The second city I chose was Rochester, NY. Just from the image itself, it shows many similarities to Lansdale. In my neighborhood, there are sidewalks like in Rochester. Like Rochester, people that live in Lansdale, need street car transit to get around the city. Unlike Rochester, it is very unlikely to see people walking around the neighborhood, walking their dogs or going on runs. My personal neighborhood actually has lawns and people can be found outside. However, I think that Lansdale should have even more sidewalks and develop a more pedestrian-oriented city. Many side streets do not have sidewalks including many that connects the high school. Students still can go to convenience store to grab food after school. It might encourage people to walk more to save gas if there were more sidewalks in Lansdale.

One thought on “Module 7 Jonah Kim

  1. Hey Jonah! I liked how you talked about the possibility of your town implementing more Urban farming, like there is in Chicago. I also discussed this topic for my hometown, Hummelstown, PA in my blog post (http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/18/sustainable-cities-alex-deebel/). Even though our towns have space in them now, I think they will need to follow after the big cities and begin to become sustainable before it is too late. The possibility of making our towns more pedestrian oriented is also a great step toward improved community health and development.

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