On the other hand, a New Yorker without a car, who walks around piles of leaking garbage bags on the sidewalk, is ecstatic about replacing parking spots with garbage containers.

Fortunately, it's a good thing to realize that each neighborhood is different. The busy neighborhoods with the most trash (e.g. much of Manhattan) have the smallest number of car-owning residents because it's a lot of tall buildings, while the neighborhoods with the most car-owning residents (e.g. much of Queens) generate the least trash, because it's a lot of houses.