Eugene, OR
Recently, National Geographic‘s Paul McRandle and Sara Smiley Smith considered what factors help designate a city as green, and with that they composed a list of the top 25 green cities in the U.S.A. Well, what makes a city green? Is it just having an abundance of recycling bins and bike routes?
Taking a look at the highlights of the top 25 green cities, it is clear that there are many diverse aspects that qualify a city as green. Eugene, Oregon, with a population of nearly 140,000, makes the top of the list; it uses renewable energy to supply 85% of the city’s power. It is the only one to break 9 points on the green scale of 11. Second on the list is the capital of Texas, Austin, with the largest population in the top ten (656,562 people). Making use of its location, Austin is committed to solar power and has a strong Green Builder program. Portland, Oregon, makes the list because of its exceptional public transport, St. Paul, Minnesota, stands out because 25% of its urban area is “green space,” and Santa Rosa, California, has admirably clean air and water, in addition to bicycle paths and lanes. (They are 3rd, 4th, and 5th on the list, respectively.)
With that said, even these top 25 have a significant amount of room for improvement. Kansas City, Missouri, rounds out the bottom of the list with a score of just 6.055 out of the possible 11. Hopefully, when this list is updated, we will see improvement in all of these numbers.
However, each one of these cities deserves applause, especially the ones that have populations above 500,000. I can’t imagine that it would be easy (or cheap) to get a place with over 100,000 (let alone 500,000) community members to do its share in the green initiative. San Francisco (population 776,733) makes the list as number 18 for its municipal composting, green design, high percentage of renewable energy use, and very high public transport use. Imagine the significant effect a city like Chicago or NYC would have if it could do enough to make this list! I hope there will be a day when I see that happen.
