Why NOT the urban life…

So long ago before I had any actual readers of this blog, I did a post extolling just a few of the many advantages of living in the city. In that post, I promised also to give some time to all the things that suck about the city at some point. Well, the moment is here at long last. While out catching cute pics of the little lady at the park yesterday, we also stopped to capture this gem for posterity:

That’s right. It’s a giant trash- and dirt- covered pile of leftover snow. Notice the garbage bags fore and aft that were left behind during last week’s trash pick-up. If you zoom in for a closeup, you’ll be able to see the pile of trash on the street next to the black bag (it’s not snow!), as well as the various small pieces of plastic debris decorating the snow pile like cake toppings.

And just to be clear, this is not from some back alley or parking lot–no, no. This is right on the side of the road, taking up a parking space on a well-trafficked, high-profile street in an affluent neighborhood. If you go a few blocks south to a less-affluent neighborhood, you’ll see the same piles, except the snow has melted completely and it’s just a giant stack of straight-up trash.

Living in the city is not pretty, people. In fact, it can be ugly. This goes doubly or triply for Philadelphia, whose citizens seem to take a certain amount of pride in perfecting the art of throwing their crap wherever they feel like it. Garbage can AND recycling bin on every corner? Whatever! I’m in the middle of the block–my trash is going on the ground NOW. I’m in my car? That trash is going out the WINDOW. It’s trash day (or even if it’s not)? I will put out sixteen untied Shop-Rite bags that will soon be blowing down the street like tumbleweeds, leaving a few more pieces of garbage behind them with every roll.

Yesterday my daughter and I were watching the birds in the tree from her 3rd floor bedroom window, and I had to explain to her that the white plastic bag that had made its way to one of the tallest branches was not, in fact, a rare albino breed of bird. (Well, the explanation was for my own amusement, since she does not yet technically understand much, if anything, of what I’m saying.)

So there you have it. The city (and this city in particular) can be an aesthetic nightmare, especially at the end of winter before anything is growing or blooming and neighborhoods have yet to launch any spring cleaning efforts. In fairness to Philly, though, while it doesn’t LOOK so nice most of the time, if you measure it by environmental standards that actually have an impact, it really is leading the pack and I’m quite proud to be living in a city that is making such amazing green strides so quickly and aggressively. Those trash cans I mentioned earlier? They’re solar-powered compactors. And apparently the water department has been quietly adding some absurd number of green roofs to the city per year through strict regulations for new buildings, which helps out the storm water management system immensely and keeps our water cleaner and safer–and now the mayor is launching a white roofs initiative to help save energy to boot. Woot!