My hometown city is Plymouth Meeting, PA. Not to follow a bandwagon, but it is located outside of Philadelphia, but also not far from King of Prussia. I would consider Plymouth Meeting to be somewhere in between the streetcar suburbs and the automobile suburbs. We definitely have a ton of sidewalks, but people always drive to the stores and commute into the city to work by cars, etc. The stores are close enough that it’s convenient, but not close enough to walk there. When I did a little research, I found that it has a population of about 5,593. I love Plymouth Meeting! It’s small enough that you don’t feel crowded or weighed down by a ton of traffic or chaos, but it is big enough that there is every store I need within a ten minute drive. It’s so convenient and just an amazing place to live. It’s my home and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else!

The first city from the module that I chose to talk about is New York City. This is because I think it compares a lot to Philadelphia, which is right outside of Plymouth Meeting. The first reason I connect them pretty closely in my mind is because of the busyness of both cities. I’ve been to both numerous times and there’s never a dull moment. There’s always tons of people walking, biking, driving, everything. The second reason I chose New York City is because I think it also compares to Philadelphia in the sense that they could both really improve upon cleanliness. In both cities, there is constantly waste on the sidewalks and in the streets and it’s honestly really sad. There are clearly a lot of people in both places, so it would take a lot of effort and individual work to make a big difference and steps towards better sustainability. However, I do believe that the little things add up and the more steps we take, the closer we are to a sustainable state.

The second city from the module that I chose to talk about is Rochester, NY. I chose this one because as soon as I saw the picture in the module, it reminded me of Plymouth Meeting and some of the neighborhoods there. They are very similar to my own street in regards to the fact that we also don’t have sidewalks on our street, all of the houses are lined up in a row, and there are lots of trees and plants everywhere. The one difference that I noticed in that picture as opposed to my own neighborhood is that our houses are much smaller and we also each share a driveway with one other house, which it doesn’t look like here. However, they are very similar because of the fact that they are both automobile suburbs, which means they are both very mainly automobile centered. I think they could become more sustainable by using public transportation more often, or by carpooling.