I have personally lived in some large cities, smaller suburbs and now a very rural area: for our family, we prefer the rural life: no traffic, you can see the stars at night, very low (practically nonexistent compared to the city) crime, very quiet. Our dream locale of living by the water. Of course, it is not for everyone. There are people who would go for lack of better words, "stir-crazy" if they "had to" live out here. Everything is a driving distance from our area: it takes 10-15 minutes to find a gas station, 15+ minutes to get to the grocery. The nearest major city is approximately 3 hours away, depending on traffic. There is a mall, but it is almost an hour away.
There are definitely a lot of good points to living here, but if you are thinking about our carbon footprint, is it better on the environment to live in an area such as ours? I believe it is. Yes, we have to drive to get anywhere. We do not have sidewalks (I do not think Marion has a single sidewalk!), even to get to a playground is a good 15 minutes drive, not just a walk down the street like when I grew up in the city. There are hybrid vehicles which help, although they are expensive. More people in the country tend to recycle and compost more, as we do not have local trash pickup but are reponsible for these things ourselves. But I still believe we are better off here than the carbon footprint caused by the cities.
Urban areas have their ups and downs as well. The up side? Many things are within walking distance, or there is the option of public transit, in the form of bus or train, even ferry service in some areas, so many people do not even need a vehicle. There are more things to do in the city, so people are not bored. Many jobs are available in the city as well and there is not a long commute for many.
The bad? There are many factories though which produce literally tons of harmful toxins in the air. There are less trees in the city, so less natural oxygen to breathe in. Studies show that people that live in the city are more stressed than those who live in the rural areas; no big surprise there, that stress is harmful to one's health as well.
There are many things that we can do to lessen our carbon footprint in the world, and it is not hard to do; you do not have to go completely vegetarian, or stop using gas powered vehicles all together. Try this free calculator out(http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/index.htm/) ; you put your information in (no personal information) about the way you live your day to day life, and look at the numbers of how much your carbon footprint is, and see many simple tips on how you can live a greener life, and make this planet a better place to live, whether you are a big city dweller or are a large family on a rural farm.
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