Saturday is Earth Day, so LawnStarter compared the 200 biggest cities in America to find the most (and least) sustainable ones. The site looked at more than two dozen metrics in five main categories: policy, including incentives and policies that center on energy efficiency and renewables; sustainable development (think the number of zero-energy buildings, alternative-fuel stations, and land use for parks); pollution, which includes greenhouse gas emissions, landfill waste, and air quality; transportation (read: transit scores and how amenable a city is to bike riding and getting around without a car); and food production, which looks at such factors as the number of "green" restaurants and how friendly a city is to urban gardening. Here, the top 10 sustainable cities in America:
Most Sustainable
- San Francisco (No. 1 in "Sustainable Development" category)
- Boston (No. 1 in "Food Production" category)
- New York (No. 1 in "Policy" and "Transportation" categories)
- Oakland, California
- San Diego
- San Jose, California
- Seattle
- Baltimore
- Sacramento, California
- Los Angeles
Least Sustainable - Peoria, Arizona
- Shreveport, Louisiana
- Pembroke Pines, Florida
- Paterson, New Jersey (last in "Pollution" category)
- Thornton, Colorado
- Hialeah, Florida
- Surprise, Arizona (last in "Sustainable Development" category)
- Grand Prairie, Texas
- Pasadena, Texas
- Mesquite, Texas
See how other cities fared
here. (Here are the
cleanest cities in America.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
