A Pedestrian's Dream

New York City is a perfect pedestrian city.  For example, without having to take a taxi or the subway I could find multiple restaurants, coffee shops, clothing stores, pharmacy, sporting goods store, and plenty more.  That was all within about two or three blocks from my hotel.  Then by riding the subway almost anything was reachable.  I say that NYC is a pedestrian's dream, but it is really a great city for anyone leading a sustainable life.  The subway is a great option for not driving around town.  On top of that, the city buses are hybrid-electric, and many of the taxis are hybrid vehicles.  I do not know if these hybrid taxis are more expensive than non-hybrid vehicles, but I would likely pay a small up-charge to save fuel and emissions in my personal carbon footprint. 

Though I did not drive around the city, I can very strongly say that I would not want to even want to own a car. With the subway, buses, and (hybrid) taxis when necessary I know that my personal carbon footprint would be lower if I lived in NYC than it is living in Arkansas.

I was not used to a pedestrian-based city.  Whenever I want to do something I have always had to get in my car and drive at least five minutes and usually a lot longer. In NYC we were staying at the Rockefeller Center Hotel so I only had to walk about one block to get to the Rockefeller Center subway stop.  From this station I could go pretty much anywhere in the city with just a short walk after reaching my desired stop. Before heading to NYC I downloaded a subway map on my iPhone, and I couldn't imagine finding my way around the city.  The  map looked so difficult, but by the end of the week I could "easily" find my way around Manhattan.

I try to have as small an impact on the environment as possible, and after this trip I noticed the importance of the city.  I can only lower my impact as much as the city and infrastructure allows.  This is how I imagine my life in a larger city like NYC, but not necessarily NYC specifically.

• Transportation - I could walk to local businesses, and potentially take the subway or bus if available.  Additionally, I could incorporate riding my bike into my daily routine as another way to eliminate driving my car.
• "Locavore" - With more local, small groceries I could support local businesses and eat food that was not shipped thousands of miles to reach my table.  And, if the city has a large farmers market, like NYC does, then I could buy straight from the farm!
• Vegan diet - If I wanted to eliminate all animal products from my diet, then a large multi-cultural city has a lot of different options for places to eat and groceries at which to shop.  

These are just a few of my initial ideas about sustainable living in large, diverse cities.  I think it's pretty clear that I loved visiting NYC.  I always look for sustainability options wherever I am and NYC did not let me down.