How Green is Your City?
By Warren Karlenzig, President, Common Current
In our peak oil, post-Katrina world, how do America's largest cities stack up in terms of sustainability?
Which cities are more self-reliant and better prepared for our uncertain future? Which cities are operating business-as-usual?
How Green is Your City? is the outcome of a sustainability study involving the largest 50 cities in the US, compiled by SustainLane in 2006. This study, also known as the SustainLane US City Rankings, measures each city's performance in 15 areas of urban sustainability. Among these areas:
- Public transit use
- Air and tap water quality
- Planning/land use
- Affordability
- Energy/climate change policy
- Local food/agriculture
The resulting comparisons provide a snapshot of urban sustainability in the US today. Leading the pack is Portland, Oregon, with its high quality of life and commitment to green building, local food, alternative fuels and renewable energy, while Columbus, Ohio, with its dependence on the automobile and poor public transit, ranks at the bottom.
How Green is Your City? serves as an in-depth analysis of each major city's management policies, strengths and challenges, as well as a survey of where clean technologies might break new ground to expand job-markets and tax-bases across the country.
How Green is Your City? will appeal to city planners, legislators, green businesses, as well as anyone interested in their quality of life and making their city a more sustainable place.
Reviews
"Sustainability is more than an environmental issue. It's about our economic and personal security, as well as the health and wellbeing of our families and neighbors. How Green is Your City? is a powerful indicator of how prepared cities are to address both the challenges and opportunities ahead. It is destined to play a critical role in leading local governments to help their economies and communities survive and thrive in uncertain times."
--Joel Makower, Founder, GreenBiz.com, and Co-founder
and Principal, Clean Edge, Inc.
"How Green is Your City? is the first national ranking of 50 US cities evaluating how well cities are doing in implementing sustainable practices based on a comprehensive set of indicators, ranging from air quality to use of renewable energy. This is a must read for city officials and citizens who are interested in how cities are responding to the integrated global challenges of environmental and economic sustainability."
--Prof. Susan M. Wachter, Co-director, Institute for
Urban Research, and Director, Wharton GeoSpatial
Initiative, The Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania
Download the full report, "Major US City Preparedness for an Oil Crisis"
