Most Sustainable City- Portland, Oregon has captured the top spot for the fourth year in a row as most sustainable of the top 50 largest US cities. The rankings by Sustainlane.com take 16 factors into consideration, which the organization summarizes as “ which cities are most self sufficient, prepared for the unexpected, and taking steps toward preserving and enhancing their quality of life”. Here’s the top 10:
1. Portland
2. San Francisco
3. Seattle
4. Chicago
5. New York City
6. Boston
7. Minneapolis
8. Philadelphia
9. Oakland
10. Baltimore
I was happy to see so many East coast cities slugging it out with the West. Bottom of the list went to cities like: Mesa, Las Vegas, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis and Nashville.
Podcar City: Ithaca- Ithaca, NY is by all means a small bucolic college town (Cornell, Ithaca College, etc) so, traffic congestion should be low on its priority list, but just last week it hosted the Sustainable Transportation Conference. Sponsored by Swedish Institute for Sustainable Transportation the conference focused on something called the Podcar. The Podcar model is cool as it runs on an elevated track and for the most part you have a more private car versus the subway model. The efficiency is built into the notion that there is no idling in traffic and it provides a direct path to common points in a city. Basically, a commuter can summon the car to their stop, program in their destination and all for the cost of anywhere from 50 cents to $1.50 per trip. Ithaca is being considered as a test market in America due to the size of the Cornell College population estimated at 30,000 students, professors and staff. Additionally, it has a well-educated population and the developers are curious how well the system would work in snow. Curious idea that also includes a serious price tag, but forward thinking requires some risk.
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