Popular Science poses a question; “Want to see a model for successful and rapid environmental action? Don’t look to the federal government—check out your own town. Here, our list of the 50 communities that are leading the way. Does yours make the cut?”
According to Popular Science in their quest to determine the Top 50 Greenest U.S. cities, “We used raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geographic Society’s Green Guide, which collected survey data and government statistics for American cities of over 100,000 people in more than 30 categories, including air quality, electricity use and transportation habits. We then compiled these statistics into four broad categories, each scored out of either 5 or 10 possible points. The sum of these four scores determines a city’s place in the rankings. “
Categories for Looked at for Determining how Green a City was are:
- Electricity
- Transportation
- Green living
- Recycling and green perspective
In this you would think that a study such as this one would produce cities such as Eugene Oregon, Seattle Washington, and Denver Colorodo to name a few. It did. What it also produced were results that showed Athens Georiga to be among the list of Greenest Cities in the U.S. today. Athens landed particularly good scores on both “Green Living” and “Recycling and Green Perspective” categories. According to the Popular Science scale this means that Athens was deemed to have a “number of buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, as well as for devoting area to green space, such as public parks and nature preserves.” It also shows how “comprehensive the city’s recycling program is and how important its citizens consider environmental issues.”
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