Today I looked at this cool slideshow from Scientific American. In particular I liked this image:
City dwellers produce, on average, less CO2 from fossil fuels than suburban or rural residents, who use vehicles and outdoor equipment more.
This is one of the things that I love so much about living in New York City. I use only public transportation, mostly subways and occasionally buses, which are part of a clean vehicle fleet. The taxis, while not yet upgraded by and large, are at least beginning to be overhauled to clean vehicles as well. I don’t own or drive a car, I never buy gasoline, and my husband, a life-long New Yorker, doesn’t even know how to drive.
Admittedly, my apartment building, which is not a designated “affordable housing” unit but is nonetheless mostly low income residents, is woefully wasteful in its degraded and leaky plumbing system. But I don’t have a yard, a lawn mower, a need for sprinklers, or many rooms to heat, cool, or keep lighted.
While I sometimes consider what it would be like to move to a house with a yard for raising our future children, I can’t imagine making the transition to living in a sprawled community that requires a car to go anywhere. I like it better here, in the city, where I can use only public transportation, and enjoy the many public parks with the rest of my community.
