Let's see, behind a couple of Canadian cities (Calgary and Ottawa), Helsinki, and Honolulu, Minneapolis has appeared to the reporters of Forbes magazine to be the fifth cleanest city in the world. I'm surprised and I'm not. Happy to have beaten out various other Scandinavian cities and a couple of Swiss cities in the top ten, perhaps a closer observation should have been completed before putting us at five.
Though I haven't been to the other three, Helsinki certainly can qualify in my mind. Walking the often damp street in air freshened by the Baltic Sea, the city is indeed clean. Certainly not without its fair share of street crime, but people were generally brisk in the step and all but happy to afford directions.
The only drawback was the sun's appearance (in mid November) of roughly four to five hours. And even then it was really only twilight in photon strength.
Back to my point. Yes, Minneapolis wouldn't strike me as a clean city necessarily. Walking the streets of Downtown regularly, it's not uncommon to find trash floating about in the middle of sidewalks, street, and sometimes the skyways.
We have homeless people too. But I can't say they're bringing down the appearance or general cleanliness of the city. Generally they're pretty harmless. Almost necessary extras in a Shakespearean play, if only for that one quip that makes you appreciate your post in life.
Forbes did their homework though. Making note of variables intrinsic to both cleanliness and environmentally conscious policy, Minneapolis was given credit for, "heavy use of bike lanes ... [and] a well functioning light rail and bus system." Good news for those Metropolitan Council folks.
Critical is my spin, however. So let's look a little closer than the Forbes folks perhaps did. 3M has been feeling the heat for their chemicals being identified in Minnesota waters (more specifically, Lake Calhoun!). Our skyscrapers remain nearly 50% lit at night (a colossal waste of energy--wait, money--in my opinion) and if you live outside of Minneapolis, owning a car is requisite to any normally functioning life.
Yes, we have a light rail, one. It goes to the shopping Mecca of the Continent, airport, and of course, Downtown Minneapolis. Our bus system is admirable, though. And as the morning bus I take gets more crowded it seems, by the week, I know that more light rail is not far behind the cloudy plumes of diesel smoke left in the wake of my bus.
Perhaps the reporter from Forbes noticed people fishing Isles inlet off Dean Parkway and thought people actually take their sunfish home and consume them. And they were probably right. But thinking about it yourself, would you eat the fish out of Isles?
http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/16/worlds-cleanest-cities-biz-logistics-cx_rm_0416cleanest.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment