Believe it or not, and this evoked a giggle from your MesaZona blogger, a review of this book on Greenbiz.com begins with" I often tell people that if they want to save the planet, they should move to New York City . . . "
Yours truly lived there for 22+ years, happy to take a 20-block walk from the Upper Westside into Central Park where he worked on the side of a lake in the middle of Manhattan! One of my most favorite other cities is also mentioned,
"Large cities like New York or Mexico City offer the best odds for sustainable growth as global populations increase rapidly. The collective energy of millions of people concentrated into high-rise buildings instead of being spread out over hundreds of rural and suburban miles is itself a reason why so many people are attracted — culturally, professionally, politically and practically — to cities. . ."
The books somewhat too academic, but it makes a few points:
- Despite the natural advantages of cities, political leaders haven’t fully capitalized on them. Cities don’t come with owners’ manuals. Within city transportation departments, most street design practices were standardized by traffic engineers long ago. In this way, cities have tended to operate in much the same way that their cities have sprawled: by doing things the way they’ve always been done.
- Making cities a choice preferable to the suburbs cuts against a long-standing anti-urban bias in the United States based on the view that cities are dangerous, crowded and havens for crime.
- Suburbs and exurbs not only force long-distance commuting in cars, but also require cars to be used for every trip.
- The misreading of what is occurring in America isn’t confined to driving. While spending money to build roads is seen as a public investment, critics characterize public transportation as a wasteful welfare subsidy. The pervasive myth that public transportation riders are subsidized and that people who drive pay the full cost of their trips has never been less true than it is today.
Seth Solomonow was the chief media strategist for Janette Sadik-Khan and the New York City Transportation Department under Mayor Bloomberg. A graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Solomonow now works at Bloomberg Associates.
