You realize what’s wrong with a place once you start living there.

Sometimes it’s something as commonplace as noise pollution from the street.  Cars, buses, trucks, belligerent pedestrians.  They can get loud and bothersome, especially when it happens all day long.

Sometimes it’s gunshots that sound frequently enough to warrant concern. You look out your window and see drug deals happening on the corner.  Prostitution.  Lots of police sirens and lights.

Somtimes it’s the commuter train that passes every hour.  Or cargo trains.

Sometimes it’s the deafening bellow of airplanes.

Sometimes it’s the shitty smell emanating from a landfill or polluted river.  Even if you make sure to raise your windows, hold your breath, the molecules of putrescence still wrench your abdomen.

Sometimes it’s the perpetual construction going on.  Power tools.  Concrete and dust stick to your car.

Sometimes it’s a tendency to flood after a seemingly harmless rain.

Sometimes it’s earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, lake-effect blizzards, avalanches, mudslides.

Sometimes it’s the cooing of nesting pigeons right outside your window.

A barking dog.

Infestation

Grazing deer that ruin your garden.

Or sometimes, like in Manhattan, it’s the trash blowing around on the street.  The city that never sleeps also has no alleys or berms.  That’s why there’s always garbage bags lined up haphazardly along sidewalks, and litter blowing around people’s feet.  NYC is so filthy.

Related TOE posts:

• Trashy Magazines, Trashy Women
• Let the Sun Shine Tomorrow
• Gang Members Fight :: Noble Square, Chicago
• This is Me Missing Miami
• An Image of my Ex-University of Chicago

Tags: ::ESSAYS ABOUT REAL LIFE::, ::PHOTOGRAPHY::, environmental issues, litter, manhattan, nyc, pic, pollution, street, TOE pic, urban living

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