EPA Releases Top Cities with Most Green Buildings as of 2009
The green building revolution is well under way. The EPA has releases its list of top cities with the most green building as of 2009 and the usual suspects are found at the top.
The idea of green building arguably started as a bit of a flower child movement in the 1960s as people went off grid with solar and what have you. The movement has come a very long way when you consider the Yurt was the green building standard then and skyscrapers in our biggest cities are the new platform.
The Environmental Protection Agency has kept tabs on the progress of green building in the country. It annually releases a list of the cities that are leading the way. The 2009 list is out and it is no surprise that Los Angeles leads. Here's the list:
1 Los Angeles
2 Washington, DC
3 San Francisco
4 Denver, CO
5 Chicago, IL
6 Houston, TX
7 Lakeland, FL
8 Dallas-Fort Worth
9 Atlanta
10 New York
11 Minneapolis-St. Paul
12 Portland, OR
13 Boston
14 Seattle
15 Detroit, MI
16 Sacramento
17 San Diego
18 Austin, TX
19 Miami,
20 Phoenix,
21 Ogden, UT
22 Charlotte, NC
23 Indianapolis
24 Des Moines, IA
Fort Collins, CO
Philadelphia
25 Louisville
So, what can we take from this list? It is actually fairly fascinating. Not only do we see the dominant big city movements one might expect like with Los Angeles and New York, but we also see smaller cities dotting the list. The irony is cities often considered to be very green Texas, actually are lower on the list than cities in their state that are not thought of in this light. For instance, Austin, Texas comes in at number 18, but is lower on the list than Houston and Dallas which are in the sixth and eighth positions.
The green building movement makes sense in so many ways that it is rather surprising that it actually seems as though it is being implemented on a large scale. Usually a good idea like this gets tripped up by politics and the like!