Kent Portney's "Our Green Cities" Blog

New National Rankings Posted

We have posted the latest rankings of U.S. cities on the OurGreenCities web site.  This is the most recent update since 2007.  This new set of rankings considers the 54 largest cities in the country plus Pittsburgh (currently the 59th largest city).  As before, the rankings are based on an assessment of how many of the 38 different specific policies and programs each city has enacted and implemented.  This is the only set of rankings that explicitly looks at local policies and programs, and is truly city-based (rather than metropolitan, county, or regionally based).  The cities of Portland, Denver, and Seattle are tied for first place.  Check the web site for more information, and let me know if you have any questions about the methodologies employed in these assessments.

NRDC "Smarter Cities" Rankings

The Natural Resources Defense Council now has its own version of city rankings available on their web site.  The rankings are based on a number of measures of environmental and related performance that look an awful lot like sustainability measures, even if the NRDC doesn't specifically use this term.  The measures do not capture what cities are doing in their policies and programs to try to become more sustainable -- like most other rankings, they focus on air quality, water quality, etc.  Obviously, these are essential measures of sustainability.  But they don't tell us, as my rankings try to do, how much city governments are doing to affect those sustainability results.  To check the NRDC's rankings for large cities (250,000 people or more) go to http://smartercities.nrdc.org/rankings/large .  For medium sized cities (populations of 100,000-249,999) go to http://smartercities.nrdc.org/rankings/medium . And for small cities (50,000-99,999 people) go to http://smartercities.nrdc.org/rankings/small .  I will have more to report about this and other rankings in the weeks ahead.

Sustainable Cities Rankings in Canada

The newest rankings of Canadian cities has been recently published, and these rankings show that among larger cities, Edmonton and Toronto are the most sustainable.  Among medium sized cities, Halifax and Quebec are the top of the list. And among small cities, Yellowknife and Saskatoon are tops.  These rankings are found in an article called "Green Space: CK's Third Annual Sustainable Cities Ranking" by Melissa Shin.