New England cities not among the greenest in America - but population a factor

As a native Californian, I was proud when I saw WalletHub’s latest press release, but as a longtime New Englander felt far less satisfied.

In 2021, the greenest city in the Union is San Diego, CA according to WalletHub data, which takes into account transportation, the environment, energy sources and lifestyle and policy.

Other West Coast states also fared well - Portland, OR at number three; Irvine, CA at four and Fremont, CA at six. Not surprisingly, Honolulu enjoys ranking fifth of 100 cities studied for the survey.

In order to determine the greenest cities in the U.S., WalletHub compared the ten dozen most populated. They then evaluated those dimensions using 28 metrics. However, decisions had to be made and some issues and practices had to be excluded. WalletHub states that "although recycling is vital to the sustainability efforts of each city, the types and sizes of recycling facilities vary widely by city. We therefore were unable to include - due to the lack of comparable city-level data - metrics that either measure the availiabity of recycling programs or the amount of waste recycled in each city."

Each category was broken down into sub-categories such as air quality, water quality and share of green hotels under the Environment umbrella. Transportation included a “walk score”, the annual excess fuel consumption of a city and an average commute time by car.

Hartford and New Haven do not rank at all, no doubt due to their smaller size relative to other big U.S. cities, but Boston does. Its residents can be proud that it ranks fifth in terms of lowest percentage of commuters who drive. It comes in a respectable, though hardly staggering, 24th best in the green rankings. Other notable nuggets: our neighbor, New York City, came in just above Beantown at 23rd; Jersey City is 60th; and Buffalo a fairly impressive 13th.

Although not part of the study, as we slog through the remainder of this pandemic, it is important for Americans to note that mask waste is a growing problem. As a walker, I must trod over three or four masks per mile, typically, here in Branford, CT. Let's do better. Let's reuse/wash our masks and never, ever just toss them on the ground.

PHOTO: By Port of San Diego - Flickr: Cruise Ships Visit Port of San Diego (October 2012), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21961437

Read more about the study.