NYC: Smart Growth Ideas

New York City is a very big city, home to millions of people. NYC is also home to many minorities, but they are usually in slums or are not given any basic living standards. Smart growth can easily help with this issue. Environmental cleanup can help African Americans and other minorities deal with leaking underground storage tanks. The New Brownfield Act can also deal with cleanup of environmentally dangerous places, most of which are near slums or disadvantaged communities. Making laws to prevent white New Yorkers from moving from black communities will prevent sprawl in the city. These laws will make city life much easier for everyone.




This chart from National Equity Atlas shows how the minority group in NYC has grown over the years. It is at a point where the minorities outnumber the white Americans. This is all the more reason to try to help these groups to live better lives.

Environmental Justice Chapter Reflections #2

This selections of chapters got a lot of different reactions from me. The chapter on development of cities surprised me the most. I had always assumed development of cities was the same for all sections. Then again, if that were true, slums probably would not exist. As for the rest of the chapters, the info didn't really surprise me that much. Learning about the MPOs was fun and enlightening. All the info on renewable energy, and damage form Hurricane Katrina was still things I had some knowledge of. All of that only proves that cities need to be developed to deal with the issues of the time. They need to protect everyone from dangerous storms, combat using fossil fuels, and better city planing will make life better for everyone.

Environmental Justice Chapter Reflections #1

A common thread I found in all of the chapters was the mistreatment of minorities. Whether they were latino or black, it was the same story; they were either living in terrible industrial areas, had poor food options, or suffered from general race issues. Admittedly I knew about this stuff for a while, and it will only get better if we work together. The people and the government need to step up and do something about this. I'm sure plenty of people want to live in a world where everyone is treated fairly.