Popular Science Lists Boston as Third Greenest City

During Steve’s presentation in class yesterday on Popular Science’s Web site, I was intrigued by the magazine’s lead story on America’s 50 greenest cities. I was curious to see where Boston fit on this list and was surprised to see it ranked third.

The magazine used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and National Geographic Society’s Green Guide to evaluate cities on four categories:

Electricity (E; 10 points): Cities score points for drawing their energy
from renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power, as
well as for offering incentives for residents to invest in their own power
sources, like roof-mounted solar panels.

Transportation (T; 10 points): High scores go to cities whose commuters
take public transportation or carpool. Air quality also plays a role.

Green living (G; 5 points): Cities earn points for the number of
buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, as well as for devoting
area to green space, such as public parks and nature preserves.

Recycling and green perspective (R; 5 points): This measures how
comprehensive a city’s recycling program is (if the city collects old
electronics, for example) and how important its citizens consider environmental
issues.

In Boston, the magazine emphasized a plan for a new power plant that turns grass and leaves clippings into electricity through the feeding of anaerobic bacteria on grass. The remaining material’s decomposition into compost will be accelerated through heat and agitation.

I am fairly surprised little has been reported in the Boston media on this power plant. A quick Google search turned up nothing on the project. Perhaps the plan is still in its infancy and, therefore, has not garnered much attention. The City of Boston’s official Web site does briefly list steps Beantown is taking to reduce its dependency on foreign oil, but again no mention of this venture. Unfortunately the Popular Science magazine only provided a brief paragraph on the project. If anyone has more info, feel free to leave a comment with the link.

In addition to the list and a brief explanatory article, Popular Science included a slideshow of six specific programs cities are implementing, from zero emission buses in Oakland, Calif. to heating homes with waste in Salt Lake City. Each slide contains a diagram and a text block with background information (but nothing extremely technical). Despite this general lack of technical information in the text, each diagram provides a colorful visual of how the program works.

Cambridge, Mass. was the only other New England location on the list, coming in as the sixth greenest city in America. Cambridge beat Boston in the electricity and green living categories but lost in the transportation and recycling/perspective evaluations.

Besides the raw data, Popular Science does not provide much explanation for why certain cities scored higher than others. While this online package was interesting, it could have been tremendously enhanced with additional explanation.