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I've never thought of NYC as a particularly dirty city. I don't think of it as an especially clean city, but given the high density of a place like Manhattan it doesn't seem that bad.
The dirtiest, litter-wise, big city that I've lived in has been San Francisco, (although that might almost tie with LA), although I think we had bigger rats in DC.
I don't think litter or trash is keeping anyone away from NYC. I suppose locals notice it (I always notice the trash outside our place), but unless it's really bad I think most people are focused on other things.
There are always going to be people who can't be bothered to put their trash where it belongs, wherever you go. People will come across one street or sidewalk one day and either see litter or not, and try to form an opinion of the whole city and its cleanliness or lack thereof. It's pretty useless.
I've never thought of NYC as a particularly dirty city. I don't think of it as an especially clean city, but given the high density of a place like Manhattan it doesn't seem that bad.
The dirtiest, litter-wise, big city that I've lived in has been San Francisco, (although that might almost tie with LA), although I think we had bigger rats in DC.
I don't think litter or trash is keeping anyone away from NYC. I suppose locals notice it (I always notice the trash outside our place), but unless it's really bad I think most people are focused on other things.
yeah I was going to say that LA and SF are fairly dirty cities, probaly close to being the dirtiest actually.
I wonder if the lack of alleys might contribute to the trash problem. Chicago and other cities have alleys to keep their trash cans in as opposed to NYC which has to put them on the street. Plus with a city that big and dense, it's gonna be hard to keep it clean although they could probably improve it somewhat.
I think that has a lot to do with the issue. I've been in Chicago for 9 years now, and honestly "litter" is pretty much non-existent in a majority of the city. There's almost an anal aurora of keeping the city tidy, which is speerheaded by the mayor.
Alleys through the 50's and 60's use to be almost a playground and backyard to many families. From the late 60's through the early 90's thought it suddenly became a crime scene, but now have finally regained their space among humanity for the most part. There are certainly many areas I don't wander around in - but for the most part alleys are an asset much more than they're some threat these days.....
Litter in the streets is the measuring stick I use which tells me to get out of that neighborhood.
Seriously. I live in the Dorchester section of Boston and Dorchester is like a chessboard, bad sections/good sections. The good sections have clean streets where people actually pick up the litter that other, low class types dropped. The bad sections have trash in the gutter and pieces of paper and plastic pushed up against chain link fences like little colorful snow drifts. Mind you, Boston's bad sections are still not that bad.
Some people just don't seem to mind their neighborhood looking like a dump while other people take pride in theirs.
I think that has a lot to do with the issue. I've been in Chicago for 9 years now, and honestly "litter" is pretty much non-existent in a majority of the city. There's almost an anal aurora of keeping the city tidy, which is speerheaded by the mayor.
My simple point was that after being in NYC 10 times or so, and living in Chicago - I do think that Chicago is a much cleaner city, and I think a huge factor in that is that we have alleys behind every street in the city packed with large dumpsters elevated off the ground on wheels.
In NYC, at least Manhattan, it seems people normally put bags of garbage out on the sidewalks at night to be picked up. This will inherently lead to more trash finding its way onto the sidewalk. Then there's the factor of seeing trash and in the back of your mind thinking it's ok to add a little more from time to time. It's not the city's fault - just the way it was built at the time.
There's over 600,000 people that cram into 2 square miles of central Chicago during the weekdays - and those streets are almost creepy clean. They've also got crews though that run 24 hours a day 7 days a week to clean streets, sidwalks, trash cans, etc. I've read the city has more alleys than any city in the world - thousands of miles of them.
One of Daley's first things he did when he became mayor was a huge cleanup of the city. Planters, new lights, signs, trash cans on almost every corner, literally scooping everything that's not suppose to be there out of the river at all times, washing down every street in the city at least once a month, washing down main streets every week, and washing down the central area streets every day.
All of you should read this small article of the myths and facts of littering.
tijlover- 1st off you must not be well informed of the negative effects littering has on an environment. Some day those "trees and forests" will no longer be here because of our littering problems in the US. There is a lot of research on littering and how it affects different aspects of our environment.. maybe you should educate yourself on that instead of posting you unethical bias opinion.
littering is worse in many European cities than the US. Do a comparison on Numbeo - under Pollution is a category 'dirty and untidy' that takes into account litter.
where I live now, Prague, has a worse score of 36.3 versus my home city Chicago w/ 25.
NY City has a high score of 60.42 but Paris is even higher with 64.7
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