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Making the Grade By Making the Most Of Natural Resources
Parks were one criteria on which cities were judged, along with air and water quality, energy policies and public transit. This is Portland's Washington Park.
(Portland Oregon Visitors Association)
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New York did especially well on commuting, the only category to be weighted more heavily in the rankings than other criteria, he said. The study looked at measures such as public-transit usage, how many people walk, bike or carpool to work, and the percentage who drive alone to their jobs, he said.
"One thing common to the bottom of the list is an almost complete lack of public transit," Karlenzig said. "Out of the bottom 10 cities, with the exception of Detroit, they all have less than 5 percent public-transit ridership." Columbus, Ohio, came in at the very bottom of the list. Also in the last 10 were Nashville, Memphis, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
Such low numbers may reflect limited bus routes, irregular service hours and underserved areas, all of which can threaten a city's transit future, he said. "If cities don't have 5 percent ridership, people don't really think it's there. It's almost like it doesn't exist."
Surveys such as SustainLane's "go a long way in terms of helping the nation understand what constitutes a better and more sustainable urban environment," said Nicholas C. Zaferatos, associate professor of urban planning at Western Washington University's Huxley College of the Environment in Bellingham.
Green building materials, for example, may be 5 to 10 percent more expensive upfront, but the investment pays off in seven years on average, he said.
Eric Pallant, environmental science professor at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., 80-100 miles from Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo, said sustainability rankings may motivate some cities to improve their infrastructure and planning.
But those whose residents are less educated and affluent face bigger obstacles in making the transformation, he said. "I live in a place where it's so hard to do. These are poor, Rust Belt communities. These are not people who think environment first. They're thinking of day-to-day survival first."
Regional job loss, especially in manufacturing, has led more young people to settle in distant, economically vibrant cities, many of which are more likely to support alternative technologies and planning strategies, Pallant said.
It often takes resources for cities to attract resources, Zaferatos said. "If they're losing jobs, if there's no tax base, it's awfully difficult to invest in those places. That's the unfair advantage that these leaders on the Top 10 list have. Money is coming in."
But it also takes political will, he said. "When you match investment money, investment power along with a forward-thinking sustainable urban policy, then you get redevelopment of the waterfront, of older industrial parts of the city, and they become live, active, enjoyable neighborhoods people tend to love, and as a result rank as good cities."
Still, a growing number of communities are taking it upon themselves to impose new standards, Pallant said. "The really remarkable thing is despite national policies that are anti-sustainable in almost every respect, the number of grass-roots organizations doing good work in these places, unheralded, is amazing."
