City Living

As a city of 8 million people became a city of 8.5 million, it only took a glance skyward at any given time to note the booming population in every borough, with tall towers and boutique buildings springing up like weeds in formerly less-bustling neighborhoods. It's just as noticeable closer to the ground as an exploding population's trash threatens to reach skyscraper proportions, too, taxing the city's sanitation infrastructure. From street cleaning to curbside sanitation pickup to volunteer "adopt-a-basket" efforts in tourist zones and parks, the job of keeping the city clean is getting out of hand, the New York Times reports. Yet the garbage keeps growing. The city's sanitation department spent $58.2 million last year to keep the streets clean, up from $49.5 million the previous year, as well as expanding and adding routes, putting more people on duty to empty sidewalk baskets and adding Sunday service; Staten Island got its first street sweeper last year.
More people means more trash