If you are looking for a town with a high quality of life, consider a new measure that considers urban sustainability.
Offered by the two-year old San Francisco-based SustainLane, this quality-of-life report card isn't about crime, education, schools and income.
Instead a city's public transit, renewable energy, local food, and development approaches, among other factors, go under the microscope.
The idea is to determine how a town's quality of life will limit or intensify the negative economic and environmental impacts of fossil fuel dependence.
Why? Global warming is impacting how and where we live.
Founded in 2004, SustainLane provides sustainability resources for government, business and consumers. It also ranks cities' levels of sustainability based on a host of factors including energy crisis preparedness, natural disaster risk, quality-of-life indicators such as local food availability, tap water quality, air quality, walkability, park space and roadway congestion.
The SustainLane 2006 US City Rankings explain how people's quality of life and city economic and management preparedness are likely to fare in the face of a future dominated by global climatic change.
Among the top 50 towns, the top five towns are:
- Portland -- This town's "It's Not Easy Being Green" slogan reflects a commitment to maintaining sustainability. The town offers loads of parks and bike paths, an ample supply of neighborhood integrated retail which encourages non-petrol modes of mobility. Portland also ranks high in air and water quality, public transportation and mixed-use development. It was the first city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and has a unique locally grown and retailed food movement.
Portland also has a standing $2.5 million fund for green residential and commercial building incentives and is a leader in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) buildings.
- San Francisco -- With the second to highest housing cost ranking among the 50 top sustainability cities, San Francisco is nevertheless successful (like much of California) in the development of solar energy, recycling and large-scale composting, integrated pest management, bike transportation, green buildings, and local food systems.
With a sustainability plan that's almost a decade old, it must tackle housing costs that force workers to travel in from as far away as the Nevada Sierra Foothills, public transportation woes, traffic congestion and a related earthquake risk.
Still it ranks high in clean air, good water, local food system, parklands, making it a healthy place to live. Despite growing pains it public transit is one of the nation's best.
- Seattle -- Seattle's landscape and climate have been a part of the culture forever helping residents develop an affinity for the environment which offers easy access to sailing, skiing, rock climbing, rafting, spelunking, hiking, and camping.
Seattle's air quality is high thanks to the same Pacific breezes that clear San Francisco, the town leads in use of biodiesel and the famous Pike Place market and 70 community gardens offers an ample supply of local food.
The town also ranks high in green building. Its Green Home Remodel program offers free online guides to green remodeling, a lecture series, and free classes that make it easy to add sustainability practices into the remodel process.
Remarkably, water quality suffers with nine contaminants, three of which exceed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommendations.
- Chicago -- Rooftop garden king (2.5 million square feet worth of habitats to help conserve building energy, filter rainwater, and may even nudge summertime temperatures down), the Windy City had high scores virtually across the board, including city innovation, energy and climate change policy, commute to work, and regional public transportation ridership.
Toward the development of a new urban environment, Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration began almost fanatically planting trees -- about a half-million since 1989. The town has become a living laboratory for studying the “urban heat island” effect. Green building is also a city mandate.
Lake Michigan, Lincoln and Millennium parks, an extensive network of paths along the lake, a local food network of regional producers, flourishing city community gardens all help put the town on the sustainability map.
The city is however, air, water and climate quality-challenged.
- Oakland -- It's tough to say "Oakland" without considering its high murder rate but the outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown managed to bring 10,000 new residents into a redeveloped city center to help reduce sprawl, and make public transit more efficient. A history of regional farmers markets, community gardens, and green buildings further support the city's move toward sustainability.
Less expensive than other Bay Area cities, including San Francisco and San Jose, Oakland is also one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the nation.
Fresh clean bayside air, moderate temperatures and the Lake Merritt greens for walkers, joggers, bikers, and people watchers, along with 65 city parks and 29 regional parks in the area, make the town a gem of outdoor living.
Along with a high crime rate, water quality ranks below average, with 18 pollutants found in the water by the EPA, 5 of which exceed the agency's recommended limits.
