The top 10 most sustainable midsized cities
Climate change is something that is affecting cities of all sizes across the country, leading local governments to develop sustainability programs for energy, construction and transportation departments.
American City & County recently reported on an analysis by AdvisorSmith that examined data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the U.S. Census Bureau (American Community Survey) to study the cities that are the most sustainable nationwide. The study calculated a sustainability score for 457 metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. that they considered “cities,” and looked at factors such as the greenhouse gas emissions per capita, the transportation patterns of commuters and the mix of renewable energy in each city. AdvisorSmith developed a model that assigned a score for each of the considered factors to each city and weighted each of the factors and aggregated the score across all weighted factors to create a sustainability score for each city.
Previously, AC&C listed the 10 most sustainable small cities, according to AdvisorSmith. Here, we look at midsized cities, which included those cities that had between 150,000 and 350,000 residents. The report found that among midsize cities, the average carbon dioxide emissions per capita were 15.7 metric tons, and an average of 80 percent of commuters drove to work alone. Above are the top 10 most sustainable midsized cities.
