How Green is Your City?

In our peak oil, post-Katarina world, how do America's largest cities stack up in terms of sustainability? Which cities are self-sufficient and well-prepared for our uncertain future, and which cities are operating business-as-usual? This book examines the outcome of a sustainability study of the 50 largest US cities compiled by sustainlane.com. Sustainable Cities Ranking employed 15 standards to measure each city's performance and ranked them according to the cumulative results. Those standards are: Public Transit, Air and Tap Water Quality, Planning and Land Use, City Innovation, Affordability, Energy/Climate, Local Food/Agriculture, Green Economy. Portland, Oregon with its high quality of life and commitment to green building technology, leads the pack, while Columbus, Ohio with dependence on the car and poor public transport, ranks at the bottom. The book offers an in-depth analysis of each city's policies, strengths and challenges, as well as the emerging job and tax base expansion with the growth of clean technologies.