Do you take Seattle for granted? Grist looks at lesser known green cities
I’ll admit it: I often take Seattle’s environmentally friendliness for granted, even though I know it’s a leader in many areas.
Renewable energy? City buys it. Green building? City does that too. Recycling? Um, duh.
Sometimes, it takes an ice cold swim in reality to remember these things we take for granted, aren’t commonplace. Today that dose of reality came in the form of a quiz from Grist.org. To take it for yourself, click here.
I took the quiz and for most of the questions I couldn’t for the life of me click the obviously negative answers (excepting, of course, the traffic categories). I found myself naively wondering… are there actually places in the U.S. where all of these negative answers are normal? Keep reading to learn about the quiz and what lesser known green cities are doing
Yes, I can drink tap water without being deathly afraid. No, I do not drive more than 400 miles a week (YIKES!). And no, my city did not “used to have recycling, but they took it away.” Instead, they’re going to require you to compost next year.
Then I remembered living in Boston where not five years ago, I was throwing away garbage bags full of paper office documents because my employer told me there were no recycling services for businesses in Boston’s downtown financial district (I still don’t know if this was true or not). Being a native Seattlelite, my hair just about stood on end.
Or visiting family right outside of Chicago that can recycle everything but envelopes because of their adhesives.
The quiz is part of a Grist series running from May 12 to 16 that looks at not the stars of city sustainability - Seattle, Portland, Chicago - but at the “C” list pupils - like Phoenix, Cleveland and Atlanta - that are doing something, but often don’t get any credit or recognition.
Kudos to Grist. Being an environmental reporter, I get press releases about sustainability efforts in New York and San Francisco all the time… but never about Tampa or Dallas or Chattanooga.
If you’re interested in what these cities are doing and more, go here for an overview, go here to learn about Phoenix (pictured at left), here for Albuquerque, Dallas and Las Vegas, here for Arlington, Chattanooga and Tampa, and here for Atlanta, here for Cleveland, and here for Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. They’ve got some great stories to tell.
If you have stories to tell, please comment. I’d like to know what you’re experiences are in your city…. is city leadership crucial to getting businesses to act?
Tags: Albuquerque, Arlington, Boston, Chattanooga, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, New York City, Overview, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ratings, Seattle, Syracuse, Tampa
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May 18th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
This is a very interest post. I think it is true that places vary GREATLY on how much they try to help the environment. It is also interesting how some the cities themselves help out more than others, but also at times the level of commitment by the people varies quite a bit. The varying levels of people commitment is not necessarily linked to the city commitment either, although I do think it helps. When cities pick up recycling bins at the curb, it is difficult to understand why everyone can’t seem to recycle.