Love Letter To New York: You're the Best and Greenest I've Ever Had

September 11, 2007

Dear New York,

We've been together a long time and although I'm terribly unfaithful, you always welcome me back with open arms because you know no matter how many states I've slept in, I'm yours. And truth be told, I love you. You're my city - center of the universe - and there will never be another to take your place in my heart. DC and Maine were fun, North Carolina's been good to me, and I'll never forget the college years in Boston.. but New York - you ROCK my world! You'll always be home.

i-da13613d43015632690eecf9f230fa82-new-york-city.jpgTwo years ago I composed an OpEd to commemorate the fourth anniversary of September 11 - the very worst side of humanity I've experienced. I wrote about how many people my town lost, the courage of firefighters and policemen, and how the terrorists may have taken down our towers, but they damn straight didn't destroy the life and substance and grit and beauty of the city that never sleeps. No one ever can, thank God. Or Allah. Or Horus. Or Sagan. Or PZ or whatever religious leader or lack thereof you like best. We'll never forget that horrible Tuesday, but as we remember the loved ones we lost with the WTC, the planes, the war and so on... the best we can do to move past the sorrow is to celebrate you New York City. Your perseverance, your spirit, your culture and life. And this is ScienceBlogs after all, so what better way here and now than to point out a few of the green reasons you're the greatest city on the planet!
Here goes, hold on tight:

1) You're a world leader in the fight against global warming and the most energy-efficient city in America.

2) New Yorkers consume less than half of the electricity (7.1 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually on average) than someone who lives in San Francisco (11.2 on average). Texans, by the way, consume on average 75% more electricity. Those crazy Texans!

3) Our stoplights are powered by energy efficient LED lights.

4) The Big Apple's public transportation boasts the highest use. Sure tourists get confused, but it's kind of funny.

5) We've got the largest fleet of hybrid vehicles in the country.

6) My grandma was right that NYC's water is okay to drink - we get it unfiltered from the Catskills.

7) The dense population encourages walking and biking (emissions-free and healthy) and keeps energy use down because of our smaller-than-average dwellings.

8) We've got practically no sprawl since the city can't expand out. Instead we construct on vacant lots leading to higher density leading to... (you guessed it!) more environmentally friendly living.

9) Recycling is encouraged everywhere.

10) The green market program makes local foods available in neighborhoods across the city.

11) Central Park is incredible and lots more parks, plazas, and green spaces, are planned.

12) Green building is going on all over the place.

And that's only the beginning. Museums, festivals, music, zoos, parades, Christmas in Manhattan, roasting nuts and hot pretzels, Times Square, Broadway, sports, poetry, literature, skyscrapers, Alphabet city, Harlem and the Village. The stimulation never stops. We both know I can't get enough or better anywhere. And no matter where I wander, I always come back don't I? I love you New York. You've got everything I need -- style, diversity, food, art, and with the whole green-living thing - you know how to please. I'm heading home to you tomorrow and I can't wait... You're the best baby and always will be!

With Love,
Sheril

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Living in New York all my life, I know and feel what you write about.. it really is a special and unique place, and nowhere else is like it. The rhythm and pace of the City is alive and constant, and has an energy that sweeps you into it. You can applaud and participate in it, or find a quiet place if that suits you.
The tragedy of 9-11 will never take this away, and your wonderful "love letter to New York" makes me feel even prouder...

And where else can you sing karaoke with SciBlings?! That alone makes it the cultural capital of the Universe.

DC has its good points but I really miss NY!!!

4AM steak and eggs and cheesecake at Manhattan Diner on 77th and Broadway are reason enough alone to spend every dollar you have on rent to live nearby.

I didn't know we are so green but I'm not surprised. For some reason, I also feel like a cigarette after reading that.

The Texan part would be funny if it weren't so sad and disturbingly true.

Just to play the contrarian:

Vancouver B.C. beats NYC on on most, it not, all indeces of green:

* A denser downtown that NYC.

* Powered almost entirely by clean hydro (versus coal and nukes for NYC).

* Higher recycling rate that NYC's.

* The water is even cleaner that NYC's.

* Plenty of hybrids; plus it's the hydrogen fuel-cell research center of the world.

* Stanley Park kicks Central Park's ass any day of the week.

* You can kayak without worrying about what's in the water.

* You can get to work on a bike without worrying about breathing the air or getting hit by maniac cabbies.

So there.

There is nothing "green" whatsoever about New York City. Rebuttals as appropriate:

1) You're a world leader in the fight against global warming because the city is so enormous and hot that, when viewed from space, it's a giant red blur. You HAVE to pay attention to global warming, because you're responsible for a lot of it. Not to mention that a lot of New York is powered by coal-fired power plants. You're just trying to clean up the mess in your own backyard, and bragging about it - forgetting that some other cities don't even have a mess to clean up.

2) This is hand-picked data used to illustrate a pre-existing bias. New Yorkers use less electricity because they're huddled into tiny apartments that costs less to heat/cool because of smaller square footages; this is not something they chose as an alternative to something else, it's because that's the state of the existing housing stock and the real estate market. People in urban areas also spend less time at home, which means they're using electricity at work, at a restaurant, at the museum. Most New Yorkers don't drive either, but they use fuel (bus) or electricity (subway) that isn't counted in your statistics. Comparing yourself to Texas to try and make yourselves look good? Texas uses a lot of electricity so they can operate the refineries that create fuel for the massive fleet of transfer trucks that deliver the world to every New Yorker's doorstep.

3) Your stoplights might be using LEDs, but how many of them do you have? The massive concentration of people and cars creates more of a need for stoplights, and therefore, more energy usage. It's a smart idea to use LEDs. A smarter idea would involve not packing millions of people into such a tiny space that you can't drive for 200 feet without hitting a stoplight.

4) Once again, there's no alternative to moving that many people around other than public transporation. It's not like New Yorkers have an alternative; or that they somehow made a conscious decision to use public transporation. Owning a car in NYC is a luxury that only the ruling class can afford.

5) You have the largest fleet of hybrid vehicles because you are one of the biggest cities in the world; ergo, more cars (hybrid and otherwise). Not that hybrids are green either; check out Norway's recent legislature regarding the advertising of hybrids.

6) Sure, NYC's water supply comes from a clean source. Most of the water in the US comes from a clean source. But by the time it's run down the mountains, it's collected plenty of toxins. And by the time it reaches the Yonkers area, it's traveling through water pipes that are hundreds of years old, and on the verge of collapse. Search for "Third Water Tunnel" in New York and learn about NYC's 50-year, $6 billion water infrastructure project that has claimed about 25 lives. Just so you can bathe in the runoff from the Catskills.

7) To say that biking and walking are "encouraged" is a bit of an understatement. You have a choice between biking and walking, taking the subway or bus, or not going anywhere at all. A car is out of reach for the majority of New Yorkers, and due to the density, it would take longer to drive than it would take to ride the subway. I'm not sure that's something to pat yourself on the back about.

8) No sprawl? The city can't expand out? Look beyond the edges of the river to the massive urbanized area around Manhattan. Manhattan is NOT New York City. The NYC metro area is up there with LA as one of the country's most developed areas, but since it's on an island, and since it gets to offload a lot of its mess (statistically and demographically) to New Jersey, people find it convenient to claim that NYC is not sprawling. Like I said before, just go take a look at the massive built-up area from Jersey City to Manhattan and out to Long Island. It's all part of the city, and it's most certainly sprawl. Also, skyscrapers are possibly the least "environmentally-friendly" building typologies ever constructed. Did you ever think about how much steel it takes to build a skyscraper? How much energy it takes to mine, manufacture, and transport steel? Did you stop to think that the building is constantly too hot on one side, and too cold on the other, because some narrow-minded architect forgot to orient the building in the right direction? Does it take more electricity to power an elevator, or to climb a few flights of stairs?

9) Recycling is encouraged; that doesn't mean that New Yorkers generate less waste than people in other cities. This is the same as the LED stoplight issue. It's the city of consumption - the city where the most powerful companies in the world employ grossly-overpaid advertising agencies to push out messages through NYC-based media outlets to convince Americans to spend their money on things they don't need. And you want to talk about recycling!

10) Local foods? Are you kidding me? There probably isn't a farm within 25 miles of Manhattan. If there is, the food is growing in polluted air, being hydrated with polluted water, and rooting in polluted soil. Even if the food was safe, the farmers have to drive their produce into the city on a truck. Compare to someone who is - gasp! - living in the suburbs and actually has the space to plant a garden.

11) Central Park is William Olmsted's version of Disneyland. Kids in smaller cities can play soccer without the threat of gang violence. Read Rem Koolhaas' "Delirious New York" and learn a thing or two about Central Park, Coney Island, and the other manufactured landscapes that have been constructed to delude New Yorkers into thinking that there's anything natural about their city.

12) Green building is going on all over the place... well, there are a few... but since you already said that there's no sprawl, and no space to build in a direction other than up, and since you have harped on and on about New York's density, you have to tear down a functioning building to put up a "green" building. When you look at the lifespan of the building, it's quite possible that it took more energy to build the new "green" building than it would have taken just to operate a less-efficient building.

By David Bowman (not verified) on 11 Sep 2007 #permalink

"The temperature has also risen as New York has been covered with asphalt and concrete, creating an "urban heat island" that's estimated to have raised nighttime temperatures by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. The warming that has already occurred locally is on the same scale as what's expected globally in the next century."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/earth/11tiern.html?em&ex=1189…
(or http://tinyurl.com/2ctyrn)

By David Bowman (not verified) on 11 Sep 2007 #permalink

This letter just show how confused Americans can be when it comes to equaling USA with the world. It is claimed that NY i "world leader", but then all the examples are with other US cities. It is implicitly assumed that USA has to be world leader and therefore the leader in USA is also world leader.

I'd go for my city, Stockholm, as more environment friendly than NY any day. LED:s in traffic lights, public transit, recycling, drinkable tap water etc. What's the big deal? Can you swim in the water in central NY? In Stockholm you can even drink it if you go a few km away from the center.

I agree with the last few comments here. Hybrid cars, recycling, LED stoplights, farmer's markets - these things are just wallpaper. The NY Times article linked above is a great find, and the title, "Feel Good vs. Do Good on Climate," is strangely ironic and clearly applicable to the kind of greenwash that the author of this blog post is attempting to espouse. Just look outside of your apartment window at the unbelievably massive urbanized area around you. It looks more gray than green to me. New Yorkers seem to have great powers of self-delusion.

I've only visited NYC once and even then it was very brief but I have to agree with the admiration of Central Park. Sure I'd seen it on TV and in films many times but I never really appreciated its sheer scale until I made it there in person. I loved it, pure and simple. Forest, open grass, sports fields, theatres, the jogging path round the reservoir, even ice rinks (I was there in the Winter), it's such an amazing use of public space.

Ever since visiting I've told everyone who'd listen that it should be made compulsory for every single town planner in the world to visit Central Park on a regular basis, just to remind themselves of what's possible and what they should be aiming for.

I agree with the other posters though - NYC may be green compared to other US cities but it's definitely not a world leader.

I think a lot of David Bowman's complaints come from the fact that New York has some obscene population. What's relevant is per capita numbers, which for the reasons cited in the post are low. It sounds also like some of these conditions (small apartments, building up) are forced on New Yorkers and some (biking and walking) they are encouraged but really do choose. I think some credit's due overall. But not as much for my fine town of Minneapolis, which has the second highest number of bike commuters per capita, after Portland, despite the hot muggy summers and unruly winters. Freaking Portland, always one step ahead.