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BANG FOR THE BITE
Clearly, it is not convenient to move if you don't live in an eco-friendly city, but the personal and planetary benefits to large-scale greenness are huge!
COCKTAIL FACT
The city of Beijing has announced plans to build a "solar street" where buildings and streetlights are all sun-powered.
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home › tip library › Green Cities
Want to live in a city that's as green as you are?
The Bite
If you’re looking for an eco-friendly place to call home or just to explore for the weekend, try one of the green city picks below.The Benefits
- Green cities are clean cities. Bellingham, WA, Colorado Springs, CO, and Fargo, ND are among the American Lung Association’s clean air winners, while Chicago, Baltimore, Denver and Detroit get high marks for drinking water quality.
- Great mass transit and walk-able, bike-able streets and paths make green cities safe and easy to navigate. 10% of Madison, Wisconsin’s residents bike or hoof it to work thanks to the city’s 100 miles of bikeways.
- Not just a concrete jungle. Boulder, CO is surrounded by 60 square miles of public parkland and designated open space—about twice the size of the actual city!
- Austin, TX showed its commitment to renewable energy by adopting the nation’s most aggressive short-term goal: 20 percent of its energy needs met through efficiency and renewables by 2020.
- Cities ahead of the curve. San Francisco is really an eco-trendsetter. The first big U.S. city to adopt a "climate action plan," SF boasts the largest city-owned solar power installation and 700+ electric buses, with plans to fully convert the fleet by 2020. The city also recycles two-thirds of its garbage.
Personally Speaking
Heather would like to point out that while New York is not exactly a green city (actually, it’s one of the dirtier ones), its mass transit system carries a whopping 53% of residents (including herself) around the city car-free.Wanna Try?
- America's Top 10 Green Cities - from Austin to Seattle, The Green Guide's top picks.
- Scorecard - punch in your ZIP code for an in-depth report on your community, including air pollution, water quality and chemical emissions.
- Wanna help "green" your town? Find tools and resources at the U.S. EPA's Green Communities site.
Jan 26,2006
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All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.
A Tale of 5 Cities
I like big, crazy, overrun, dirty cities. I have absolutely no idea why. I grew up in a little town (6,000), so it doesn't really make a lot of sense. But for me, I live for tiny villages and huge cities - in fact, anything that smacks of suburbia makes me a bit suicidal.
But I do like my cities. And I should hope so - I've lived in enough of them. In the past 10 years, I've lived in 5 different cities, so here's my own little rundown of my big 5:
Washington, DC (91-96) - OK, so it was college and grad school. I don't remember worrying about whether or not I had easy access to recycling. I do remember being shocked at how green and waxy the city was, though.
San Francisco (96-98) - This is the only one that can rival New York for me. On my 30th birthday (singing karaoke in NYC), a friend sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" to me, and it's true. I love that town. The fact that it ranks high on every possible green scale doesn't hurt a bit.
Los Angeles (98-2000) - While the city - with its complete dependency on cars and concrete slabs everywhere - isn't the best in the green department, I can say this: when I looked out at the apartment recycling area, homeless people would be sorting it all and taking it in.
London (2000-2002) - A true, true gem of a city - the entire town seems to be a dripping green park and windows with flowerboxes. Of course, if you want to continue to feel like you are in the cleanest city on earth, you should never blow your nose after a day of riding the Tube. Can anyone tell me what that black gunk is?
New York (2002-2006) - The City that Never Sleeps also seems to have a hard time with trash collection, but I can forgive them that, since I never have to drive a car, and I can get organic anything at my corner deli.
Does your town support your own green lifestyle?
-Heather... off to get organic milk for my fair trade coffee...
Biter Comments...
NYC is actually the #7 sustainable large city in the country! Check this out: http://www.sustainlane.com/cityindex/citypage/ranking/
As a dense big city, lots of people in NYC share a little space. So each person shares resources rather efficiently with their neighbors - much more so than in suburbs and exurbs, where miles of cable are needed to get electricity to each house and where the grocery store is miles away.
I'd like to plug Chicago, one of two cities in the nation that has 2 LEED Platinum buildings (the highest rating for green buildings). Our mayor actively promotes green roofs and we have incentive programs to renovate historic buildings to be green. We have one of the best transit systems in the nation (ok, not one of the best in the world) and we are home to I-GO Car Sharing which helps residents sell their cars by offering an alternative to owning. (Did you know that each car share car takes 5-20 cars off the road?) Plus you can't go anywhere without someone crafting something out of some recycled/reused something or other. I heart Chicago very much.
Not sure what its actual ratings are, but Ireland probably has a lot to catch up with in the green stakes. Its moving slowly though, and the annual Tidy Towns competition certainly ups the ante. This quaint competition encourages every town to clean up and green up, and the winner is given broad coverage in the national media. On the flip side, environmental "black holes" are also named and shamed. Definitely a few steps in the right direction.
I've used the city study at SustainLane too, but for me it's been to see how different cities compare because I'm picking and applying to grad schools. It's actually really helpful, as is other stuff that's on their site. The address for them is http://www.sustainlane.com. The city study page can be found on the right side if you scroll down a bit. It's pretty cool.
I live in Westminster, Colorado - about halfway between über-green Boulder and somewhat-greening Denver. Personally, I don't see Westminster making the same effort, but I'm clearly missing something:
"Westminster takes top honor at international competition for sustainable communities
The City of Westminster took the top award for environmentally sensitive practices and a silver award in its population category during the recent finals of LivCom, an international competition sponsored by the United Nations to promote livable, sustainable communities.
Competing against 53 finalists from 20 countries across the globe, Westminster won the prestigious award for Environmentally Sensitive Practices, one of five main judging categories. Judges recognized the city for excellence in water and waste management and land use and protection. In addition, the city took an overall silver award in its population category, 75,001 to 200,000.
Westminster was the only city from the United States to make it to this year's finals. Past winners from the United States include Honolulu, Chicago and Seattle.
"Being a part of an international competition such as the LivCom awards was an experience that none of us will soon forget," said Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally. "It was so rewarding to be recognized for the something that we already know - that Westminster, Colorado, is one of the most livable, best communities in the world!"
In addition to Westminster's win in the Environmentally Sensitive Practices judging category, other winners were Whittlesea, Australia (Enhancement of the Landscape); Pilsen, Czech Republic (Heritage Management); Tshwane, South Africa (Community Sustainability); and Whistler, Canada (Planning for the Future).
The top community in Westminster's population category was Songjiang, China. Other winners by population category were Dungannon, Ireland (up to 20,000); Erandio, Spain (up to 75,000); Coventry, England (up to 750,000); and Tshwane, South Africa (over 750,000).
The awards were presented Nov. 7 in La Coruna, Spain, by the global coordinator of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development, Jan-Gustav Strandenaes.
"What LivCom brings to the task of increasing sustainable development, is in the area of grass roots mobilization," said Strandenaes. "If only one community implements sustainable policies, they are alone, but if they know that communities around the world are doing it, they are strong."
Alan Smith, director of LivCom said, "The finals of LivCom once again provided a very high standard of finalists with important information exchanged and partnerships between towns, cities and nations forged that will be mutually beneficial for years to come."
The standards that the finalists are now achieving in their towns and cities is rising all the time as the,
"LivCom is the benchmark for livable communities, and as we have seen this year, the benchmark is rising all the time and across the globe irrespective of financial and social backgrounds," said Gabe de Buysscher, chairman of the judging panel.
The full results, citations and photographs of the winners are available at http://www.livcomawards.com/ and click on "Media."
I'm in Berkeley CA, and one of our claims to fame here is banning polystyrene food packing at the end of the 1970s (which happened partly because McDonald's came to town).
Another claim to fame is that our recycling program still picks up two separate streams of material: commingled containers and then paper fibers. This means that residents are real serious about their recycling here, and that the brokers who purchase the sorted and bundled/baled/bunkered materials are happy with the quality they're getting. Materials that come from single-stream programs are almost always of lesser quality.
Our garbage and recycling fleets are also running on B-20, a blend of biodiesel and standard dino-diesel.
I live a half-hour inland from Berkeley (if you drive - if you bike or walk or take BART, a wee bit longer), in the unincorporated township of Bay Point. Not the greenest place on Earth as Contra Costa County is a big refinery and power plant area, though one of my neighbors a few blocks away calls his pad the Peace House and has a huge garden, and the area boasts a number of farmer's markets and a couple of organic shops. There is a recycling place along the 680 in Walnut Creek which I visit regularly, as it keeps bins out in an area open 24 hours.
I love your city collection. I live in Toronto but I've been to all of the above cities. I love the hustle and the bustle and can't live in a small sleepy town. Washington is one of my all time favourite though.
We recycle almost all plastic witch I am very proud of.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: The Fair Witch of Nitch | January 26, 2006 at 06:49 AM