America's greenest cities, Here’s a surprising entry among America’s greenest cities: Jersey City, N.J.
That city across the Hudson River from New York was once known for fires burning from a landfill under the Pulaski Skyway, a three-mile metal bridge and highway linking the city and Newark, N.J. to the west. Three decades later, its air quality is still fairly poor, according to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report.
Yet NerdWallet.com ranks it among America’s 10 greenest cities. Why? Public transit. At least 46% of workers living in Jersey City use public transit, it notes, second only to New York City’s 56%.
“We are still a diverse city of immigrants,” said Mayor Steven Fulop. “What has changed is we are building, we are developing, we are rapidly growing.”
Much of that development is oriented toward mass transit, he added.
NerdWallet based its rankings of the 150 largest cities in the U.S. on air quality, transportation, energy sources and housing density. So people living closer together, measured in this case by the percentage of residential buildings with 10 or more units, is good, while sprawl is bad. Solar use was a positive, while burning coal and wood was not.
The list also differs substantially from 2014, when NerdWallet used a narrowed set of criteria and examined only 95 cities. Then, Madison, Wis topped the list; this year it is No. 14. And Portland, Ore., the city that tops Travel & Leisure’s green list, comes in 17 here.
The least green city on NerdWallet’s list? Fontana, Calif., a city of more than 200,000 on the eastern edge of the greater Los Angeles sprawl.
Yet NerdWallet.com ranks it among America’s 10 greenest cities. Why? Public transit. At least 46% of workers living in Jersey City use public transit, it notes, second only to New York City’s 56%.
“We are still a diverse city of immigrants,” said Mayor Steven Fulop. “What has changed is we are building, we are developing, we are rapidly growing.”
Much of that development is oriented toward mass transit, he added.
NerdWallet based its rankings of the 150 largest cities in the U.S. on air quality, transportation, energy sources and housing density. So people living closer together, measured in this case by the percentage of residential buildings with 10 or more units, is good, while sprawl is bad. Solar use was a positive, while burning coal and wood was not.
The list also differs substantially from 2014, when NerdWallet used a narrowed set of criteria and examined only 95 cities. Then, Madison, Wis topped the list; this year it is No. 14. And Portland, Ore., the city that tops Travel & Leisure’s green list, comes in 17 here.
The least green city on NerdWallet’s list? Fontana, Calif., a city of more than 200,000 on the eastern edge of the greater Los Angeles sprawl.
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