Sustainlane -- which describes itself as a "community-generated guide for living a better life" -- recently posted a ranking of 25 American cities on sustainability concerns. The leaders should come as no surprise (SF #1, Portland #2, Berkeley #3, Seattle #4, Santa Monica #5), and the list is (by and large) further confirmation of the correlation between sustainable urban centers and "cultural creative" centers. What makes the Sustainlane list particularly valuable, however, is that they are transparent with their methodology, and did more than simply count the number of hybrids or LEED buildings. Interestingly, none of the leading cities scored well in every category, and all but the #1 (San Francisco) had at least one aspect measured as a "sustainability laggard" or worse.
Commenters at Cascadia Scorecard debated whether the good-but-not-great ranking of New York (#7) was too low, and whether the rankings gave too great a weight to plans instead of actions. That's the good thing about transparency of method -- if you disagree with how Sustainlane came to its conclusions, it's easy to draw your own.
