10 CA Cities Among Top 50 For Urban Sustainability Progress

CALIFORNIA — Cities across California are working to improve their sustainability efforts, but how do they compare to the rest of the U.S.?

Commercial Café, a commercial real estate website, ranked the top 50 cities nationwide who are making the largest strides in urban sustainability. California cities dominated the list, with 10 cities ranking among the top 50.

For each city, Commercial Café analyzed at the reduction in CO2 emissions, improvements in air quality, differences over time in the share of walking and biking commuters, the increase in number of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications earned, the growth in environmentally focused occupations, as well as ratings given by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

Los Angeles was the highest-scoring California city to make the list, due to its significant increase in LEED-certified buildings and sustainable city policies, the website said. San Francisco made the list thanks to the increase in walking and biking commuters, as well as sustainability oriented city policies. Long Beach rounded out the top 20 due to ongoing efforts to convert vehicles and energy consumption to efficient alternatives, and its reduction in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, according to Commercial Café.

Although Bakersfield barely made the top 50 list, it was one of the highest cities ranked for improvement of median air quality. Bakersfield's median air quality improved 14 percent between 2014 and 2018, according to EPA data obtained by Commercial Café.

Here are the California cities that made the list, along with their ranking:

• Los Angeles: 5
• San Francisco: 12
• Long Beach: 20
• San Jose: 22
• San Diego: 23
• Oakland: 27
• Sacramento: 29
• Riverside: 30
• Bakersfield: 43
• Chula Vista: 50

The top 10 ranked by progress in urban sustainability are:

1. Washington, D.C.
2. New York, NY
3. Denver, CO
4. Boston, MA
5. Los Angeles, CA
6. Chicago, IL
7. Seattle, WA
8. Baltimore, MD
9. Atlanta, GA
10. Portland, OR

To read more about urban sustainability progress, view the Commercial Café report.

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Commercial Café's Methodology:

As a follow-up to Commercial Café's previous study of the most sustainably powered cities in the U.S., they wanted to look into which cities have made the most progress in sustainability and improving the lives of their residents by “going green.” The starting point of Commercial Café's research was this year’s green policy report released by ACEEE. Of the cities included in that report, Commercial Café assigned composite scores based on several metrics to the 60 urban centers with populations of 300,000 or more. Population totals considered for city selection are according to U.S. Census estimates for 2017, but this criterion was not factored into the scoring system.

The 50 U.S. cities that ranked above the rest are: Atlanta, GA; Aurora, CO; Austin, TX; Bakersfield, CA; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Chula Vista, CA; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Fort Worth, TX; Honolulu, HI; Houston, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Jacksonville, FL; Kansas City, MO; Las Vegas, NV; Long Beach, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN; Mesa, AZ; Miami, FL; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; Nashville, TN; New York City, NY; Oakland, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; Raleigh, NC; Riverside, CA; Sacramento, CA; Saint Paul, MN; San Antonio, TX; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; St. Louis, MO; St. Petersburg, FL; Virginia Beach, VA; Washington, D.C.

For each metric, the number of maximum points was evenly distributed between the lowest and highest metric values. On this scale, a score was calculated for each city based on its metric values. The factors (metrics) on which Commercial Café based the composite scores are explained below. For energy-related CO2 emissions reduction, the number of points awarded is inversely proportional to the metric values. For all other indicators, the number of points awarded is directly proportional to the metric values.