Is Your Town SUSTAINABLE?

I was reading a copy of Midwest Living Magazine and came across a small little article that was titled, Midwest Metros Get Green. This article talked about cities that had been ranked as being among the most sustainable in America.

Midwest Living Magazine Logo I was reading a copy of Midwest Living Magazine, and came across a small little article that was titled, "Midwest Metros Get Green". The title caught my eye, so I read a little more....

This article was talking about cities that had been ranked as being among the most 'sustainable' in America. To be considered 'sustainable', the group who did the ranking looked at public transportation, local food sources, energy usage, water and air quality, park space, walkability, and more. Other factors they looked at, in the event of how well a city can perform in the face of emergencies, was energy crisis preparedness and natural disaster risk.

SustainLane.com is the group that did this ranking. In addition to the above factors, they also took into consideration the quality of building done in the area - green buildings, clean technology development, quality of life in areas, and city planning and management.

The highest ranked city for 2006 was Portland Oregon, due to their high quality of life factors, the involvement of a high number of residents in city policy and planning, as well as a number of other factors. Portland's motto is, "It's Not Easy Being Green".

Other cities that ranked highly were: San Francisco in second place; Seattle; Chicago, Oakland, New York City, and Boston. Boston was the only city here in New England that made this list. Denver continues to garner accolades, just as they did on America's Smartest Cities survey awhile back. I would have thought Portland Maine would have made it, but their name wasn't mentioned. Burlington Vermont is another New England city that seems to me should have been on that list as well.

I was disappointed that they didn't do any type of rankings for smaller cities and/or towns. Perhaps next time, I guess! If they had, I'm sure we would have seen several New Hampshire towns on that list, including Portsmouth New Hampshire. We would rank pretty highly on a number of the factors they took a look at, especially on the walkablity - this is a terrific walking town; park space - we have all kinds parks all over the town; and of course our quality of life in Portsmouth and New Hampshire is just wonderful!

How did YOUR city fare? Check out the list online to see!

AnnCummings.com