In “Growing Greener, New York Style,” Rachel Weinberger attempts to widen support for PlaNYC 2030 by offering a lucid and thorough analysis of, specifically, the City’s transportation system, which she asserts is the “lynchpin” of New York City’s success. She asserts that because New Yorkers depend so greatly on public transit, it is crucial for the City to develop ways to counter the strain it will endure due to the ten percent increase in population expected to occur in twenty years. The aim is to find a way for the already stretched system to further expand its capacity, while simultaneously lowering carbon emissions. Weinberger cites three negative externalities of transport that the City took into consideration while mapping its transportation system: pollution, congestion, and land. Motorized transportation lowers air quality and is harmful to people’s health so much that in 1994, the EPA found the act of driving a car as the “single most polluting activity of most Americans.” With regards to congestion, Weinberger argues that once a transportation system reaches its full capacity, delays caused by frazzled commuters ultimately impose an unnecessary additional expense on the City’s economy. Such delays also slow down deliveries, making them more costly as well. She also discusses the large influence land has on the efficiency level of a public transit system.

Weinberger does not make baseless claims, however; she also backs her assertions with credible facts and statistics that are easy to understand and relate to, providing a plethora of simply presented data to help demonstrate her claims. For example, when she aims to show just how immense the amount of space necessary to move and store automobiles in NYC, she goes beyond supplying readers with a large number (coupled with a unit many people—especially those in an urban setting—are unfamiliar with). As daunting as “23,000” sounds, many people would not have been able to fathom the exact immensity of the figure if it were not for the little anecdotal fact in parentheses stating that this equated to about the same size as the Bronx. She goes on to compare 5,500 acres (the amount of space the cars New Yorkers own would fill) to “seven times the size of Central Park” and 11,000 acres to nearly all of Manhattan. Such comparisons therefore serve as valuable aids in demonstrating her points. Besides using such anecdotal bits, she also utilizes various numerical graphs to help persuade the reader into adopting her view. Two particular graphs that struck me were figures 4 and 5, the former of which displays the fact that the number of daily transit riders in New York amount to more than that of the next five largest transit systems combined. According to its caption, it was derived from the American Public Transit Association in 2006. Because she has taken the graph from an apparently reliable source, readers are further swayed to agree with her assertions.

Although one may be prompted to question the credibility of data derived from presumably biased sources, one must also take into consideration the fact that because such organizations have taken an interest in the topic at hand also works to increase the probability that the information is indeed accurate. This is in the sense that because of the organization’s immense interest, they most likely acquired their data through extensive research and experimentation. After all, immense curiosity leads to a desire for specialization, which denotes a greater amount of focus poured into one specific field. In truth, it is this sense of specialization and specificity of interest that makes an organization authoritative. The more specialized an organization is, the more people seem to trust its data, despite the fact that it may be blatantly biased in its presentation. So long as one knows how to separate such bias from fact and is willing to gather information from a multitude of sources and intertwine them in an objective manner, such sources can still be deemed reliable. In truth, the “unreliability” of such organizations stems from the fact that many times, though their data is 100% accurate, they only display the figures that support their cause. It is therefore crucial for one to explore every facet of a given topic, strip them all of their original biased natures, and then meld them together to create one detailed and objective piece. The product of such would, theoretically, be a perfectly unbiased source; but in reality, it is impossible for any source to be completely unbent. This is due to humans’ natural tendency to inject some degree of their own viewpoints or beliefs in everything that is said and done. Even an author hoping to compose a completely objective book on insects will unknowingly insert some level of his or her own opinion within it by failing to leave out certain bits of information that he may not have found appealing. Within Ascher’s book, for example, lies a line that hints towards the author’s own personal opinion, though at a glance one may judge the text to be completely objective: “While it is true that individual appliances may be getting more energy efficient, their rapid proliferation outweighs any energy savings that better manufacturing has achieved.” This statement is clearly subjective, as Ascher provides little proof to support the claim and instead inflates it with her own personal confidence in order to make it sound more believable. The wording and strategic presentation of Ascher’s works therefore shed immense light on her bias, though quite discreetly. She masks such with a strew of impressive numbers and figures, however in truth she simultaneously manages to interject her own self into the text. Her use of words such as “fabulous,” “marvelous,” “beautiful,” and “grand” in describing some of the City’s anatomical aspects illustrates her awe and admiration for New York; if she were truly aiming to create a purely objective book about the inner workings of NYC, she would not have utilized such opinionated vocabulary.