How Small Acts Shape Great Cities

I’ve been photographing New York for more than 50 years, documenting this city’s endless capacity to surprise and inspire as I’ve explored its neighborhoods. But during the pandemic, something shifted in how I saw our shared spaces. With fewer people around, the litter that’s always been there became impossible to ignore — coffee cups wedged in tree grates, takeout containers blown against stoops, the daily debris of city life that we’d all learned to look past.

Very soon, I realized how the small things we do every day, the split-second choices we make when no one’s watching, don’t just add up — they define what kind of city we’re building together.

We love to talk about New York’s greatness, and rightfully so. But greatness isn’t just about towering skylines or world-class culture. It’s about whether our residents see a city that cares about itself. It’s about whether a parent can walk their child to school on clean sidewalks. It’s about whether the bodega owner who’s been serving your neighborhood for decades feels like his block is worth taking pride in.

Here’s what most New Yorkers don’t realize: when you toss that coffee cup on the sidewalk, the Department of Sanitation isn’t coming to clean it up. That’s not their job. The Department of Sanitation is responsible for collecting bagged trash and recyclables, as well as street sweeping on designated routes. But individual pieces of litter scattered on sidewalks? It falls on New Yorkers to make sure trash is placed where it belongs so that DSNY can do its part.

By law, property owners are required to keep the sidewalk in front of their building and 18 inches into the curb clean and free of litter. This isn’t a suggestion, it’s a legal obligation that can result in fines if not followed. This division of labor makes sense: our sanitation workers handle 24 million pounds of properly disposed trash daily with remarkable efficiency. But they're not a cleanup crew for our individual choices to litter. That responsibility rests with property owners and, ultimately, with each of us as we move the city.

Recent research conducted by the Sanitation Foundation revealed a troubling disconnect: while 83% of New Yorkers say they’re proud of their city, nearly 40% admit to littering. We love New York in the abstract, but we’re not always willing to act in a way that expresses that love in practice. That’s a shame, because how we treat our shared spaces reflects our commitment to each other as neighbors and fellow citizens.

I’ve occasionally started carrying a trash picker on my walks, not because I think I can single-handedly clean up the city, but because someone has to take responsibility for the block where they live and work. When you see a piece of trash and think, “Someone else will get that,” you’re probably wrong. That someone else should be you.

Quality of life isn’t just about crime statistics or school ratings, although those matter enormously. It’s mostly about whether your daily environment feels cared for, whether the people around you are invested in the shared project of urban life and whether walking down the street makes you feel like you are a part of something bigger than yourself. It’s what it means to be a New Yorker.

Consider the small shop owner who sweeps the sidewalk in front of her shop every morning, not because she has to, but because she understands her success is tied to her neighborhood’s well-being. Think about the parent who teaches their kids to hold onto their candy wrapper until they find a trash can because there’s no age limit on being a responsible citizen. Picture the teenager who volunteers to pick up litter in her neighborhood because she understands that this is her city, and it’s her responsibility too. 

These aren’t heroic acts. They’re the basic civic behaviors that make urban living possible. In a city of 8 million people, we succeed or fail together based on whether we see ourselves as responsible for our shared spaces.

The beautiful irony is that taking care of our city actually makes us better New Yorkers. When you’re invested in keeping your block clean, you notice things, you feel connected to your neighbors and you become a player in your community instead of someone who’s just passing through. 

These small acts — holding onto trash until you find a proper receptacle, picking up something that isn’t yours, taking pride in the appearance of your block — don’t just keep our streets clean. They keep alive the idea that we’re neighbors, not just consumers; that the greatest city in the world stays great because people who live here never stop working to make it so.

That’s the New York I want to live in. That’s the New York worth fighting for, one small act at a time.