Did you know that 8 million people live just in New York City? NYC has a high population density. This means that a lot of people are living in an area that is too small. This makes people experience challenges due to its high population. For instance, every time you ride the subway, you’ll see that it is overcrowded and almost always running late because of the amount of people that use it. In addition to this problem, New York City welcomes about 60 million tourists every year. This needs to change because New York’s overpopulation has led to massive pollution, high rents, traffic congestion, etc.
The first reason why NYC’s congestion is such a big problem is because it is making the city alone lose a lot of money. For instance, NRDC in a recent article says, “And the cities leading business organization, the partnership for New York City, has concluded that the cost of delay commuting time and work-related travel is $9.2 billion a year.” This explains that the city is losing a lot of money just because of congestion. Some people might say that congestion in NYC is not that big of a problem. However, various studies have shown that businesses and people themselves are losing a lot of money because of this.
The second reason why congestion and overpopulation is bad for NYC is because it causes the regular NYC’s residents to have a worse quality of life. According to Bloomberg, “A typical motorist driving through the most populated city in the US lost 101 hours last year because of traffic during peak commuting times, the most among nearly 1,000 cities across the globe.” This shows how incredibly bad congestion is in NYC, considered the busiest city in all of the United States. It also makes its residents lose hours of their daily lives. This worsens their quality of life and cuases stress and frustration. Some people may think that overpopulation makes NYC feel “alive” and the city where everybody wants to go. However, congestion is a problem that negatively affects NYC’s residents.
Overpopulation is negatively affecting housing, our public transportation, economic opportunities and the environment we live in. It is time to deal with the situation. We must demand actions from policymakers and urban designers. The future of NYC depends on it and we must build a city that works for everyone, not just for those who can squeeze in.
