Should this article not be titled "The 50 Greenest Cities in the United States"?
If the writer of this article intended it to be about the 50 Greenest Cities of the United States OF America, she should have titled it as such. As a citizen of Canada, one of the countries of the Americas, and a recent immigrant to the United States, I am continually reminded how the people and government of the United States has usurped the title of American for themselves.
Unfortunately this is incorrect and every citizen of North, Central and South America deserve and are entitled to use the term American.
I hope this comment reminds the many professional writers out there that the country is the United States OF America and not America itself.

This is actually kind of disheartening. Seriously, on a 30 point scale, the 50th cleanest city only has 10 points? And, only 12 cities score in the 20's. Now, I realize that they couldn't have evaluated every single city in the USA, but there's a lot of cities out there. With the technologies that we have today, I would think that we could easily have all 50 cities in the 20's by this scale's ratings.

koalaklb, I'm not going to argue that people in the USA don't think that America means the USA, but... I have lived outside of the USA for or a majority of the last 6 years of my life. If you mention "America" to the people in the countries that I have been in, which numbers 4, they would all immediately think of the USA. So, before you get too down on the citizens of the USA for thinking this way, remember that much of the world is in the same boat.

koalaklb, I am a Canadian, living in Vancouver and I don't know of any fellow Canadians who really are concerned about your problem. Americans are people from the US, period. That is how the language has evolved. Anything else is just silly semantics that make Canadians look foolish, grasping, and overly insecure.

Dreambrother808 is right on the money. I live in North Carolina, United States. All a person has to say is the United States and everybody knows you come from the United States of America. Also, Zielmann is right. All the cities could be in the 20s but they are at least making some improvements. Fluorescent bulbs are a good start, but there is also a good amount of mercury in them to so there are pros-and-cons.

What was that topic again? Whining Canadian immigrates to America from a country in the Americas? Green with envy perhaps?

Yeah sure, I know that I'll receive a bunch of junk from you guys but hey, some cities are a little more advanced than the article says. For instance I live in Greensboro, NC which happens to be last on the list. I'm glad that we made it and all but there are some things that the article doesn't take into account like the fact that Greensboro already has its own Green Hotel: The Proximity Hotel. It's not something that has been planned for the future, unlike the rating Boston got for something it doesn't have already, it is here now. I'm actually doing an investigative study through the International Baccalaureate Program on the Proximity's facility, it's quite interesting. It is going for its Gold LEED rating and will eventually go for Platinum, the first building ever. Also, Guilford County, where Greensboro resides, just bought $15 million of land from a developer to save it from becoming parasitic suburbia and made it an extension of a state park. I am not trying to raise the status of my city, however, I just believe that the study was not comprehensive enough to allow the average city a fair chance. Also, the article only provides a list but no real data and information about the other cities and why they received their respective rating. At least make it available on the internet or something. Plus this would be helpful for my IB Group 4 Project which will help me compare other Green buildings to the Proximity Hotel.

I enjoy an article about the green rating of our cities. It's a shame this isn't much more important to our country and that the best city on this list is only a 23.1, thats 7 points missed out of a 30 point scale and it is in first place. We definitely need to shoot higher for our green policies so we can be known as a green nation. I would like to thank Elizabeth Svoboda, Eric Mika and Saba Berhie for there time and realization that people don't like to have to search through an article to find the results, it was plainly listed in one clear page with a rubric and grading scale.

I'm glad to see Austin in the Top 10, but I agree there is much work to be done. This kind of dataset is easier to visualize/digest when overlayed on a map. Here is an example of how PopSci.com can do so in the future:

InspiredAustin.com - Map of 50 Greenest Cities

Check out this US Carbon Footprint Map, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States to Cities. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State & City energy consumptions, demographics and much more down to your local US City level...

http://www.eredux.com/states/