First of all what is sustainable mean? It surely is about something to do with the environment. Do you think New York is the greenest state in America? It sounds the opposite but when you think about it you will give it to me. When you move from a metropolitan city – Manhattan, New York, to a suburb in Connecticut you will see that you will have to drive ore, you will have more yards which you will have to spend your sources and time to maintain etc. And you own more stuff. Now you have a garage to fill it up with not only the cars but also with the stuff that you don’t use. So, the more space you have, the more stuff you buy. With the stuff that you always imagined using but never actually used. I am sure if you have a garage, the gym tools are still there in the corner. You might be smiling now when you are asking yourself that the last time you used it was right after the new year?
When you live in a smaller apartment in the big city, everywhere you want to go will be in walking distance or you can use public transportation. The electric consumption will be lower than a suburb house. All the rooms, and walkways will require more electric to illuminate. Forget about the heating costs, In a small apartment your house will be warmer thanks to the apartment below you but the big houses are hard to heat. So what makes us choose a non-sustainable life styles when you can live actually greener in a big city? American Dream? Or our dreams of having grass in the backyard where the kids can play safely? Because you don’t want to raise your child in a big city. When you live dream about the suburban life, you dream about kayaking, hiking in the woods or getting eggs from your own chickens.
But the environmental facts don’t say so. New York City reminds you cars, concrete or less green and you might think it has a negative environmental impact, but the fact is it has the one third of national average of carbon footprints per person. You can generate more carbon footprint in a suburb than you could in the New York City. The places are gathered, so you can walk. The big city life forces you to use public transportation which eliminates all the personal usage of the energy which have a negative impact on the environment. Above all, you can sometimes walk faster than the traffic would take you. IS this greener or what? It is tragicomic to see an old lady passing you on the curb while you are in the cab waiting in the traffic jab. In suburbia, nobody uses walking as a transportation method because everywhere is too far. Because once you move outside of the density the destinations are too far to walk or to ride a bicycle. We are surrounded by green but it will take tens of miles to get to the grocery shopping or to go to a doctor. Not only time consuming but also not very energy efficient since you have to drive there.
We live now. But is it a sustainable living? I know the city life has unacknowledged lessons to teach. There are population density and destination density there. We need to ask ourselves that if we want to leave a livable habitat to our children or the carbon footprints that they might not able to read those prints because of our negative environmental impacts.
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