June 15th, 2007 categories: Columbus News

With Green being at least as hot a topic/buzzword as anything else in the local housing markets, you’d think Columbus might be close to being America’s greenest city.  I think most of the buzz from City Hall is lip service, ditto the bigger developers, though some are putting their green-backs into going green.

I couldn’t help but notice Ann Arbor came in at number 11 for crying out loud.  That should be all it takes to get Columbus in to the top 10.

So, without further ado, Country Home magazine, with help from Sperling’s Best Places, examined all 379 major metropolitan areas in the country, ranking them according to how green they were.

Qualifications for top ranking included air and watershed quality, miles of mass transit, power usage, farmers’ markets, organic producers, and the number of green-certified buildings.

Here are the magazine’s picks for the 25 greenest cities in America:

1. Burlington-South Burlington, Vt.
2. Ithaca, N.Y.
3. Corvallis, Ore.

4. Springfield, Mass.
5. Wenatchee, Wash.
6. Charlottesville, Va.
7. Boulder, Colo.
8. Madison, Wis.
9. Binghamton, N.Y.
10. Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
11. Ann Arbor, Mich.
12. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif.
13. La Crosse, Wis.
14. Pittsfield, Mass.
15. Eau Claire, Wis.
16. Durham, N.C.
17. Norwich-New London, Conn.
18. Eugene-Springfield, Ore.
19. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, Calif.
20. Chico, Calif.
21. Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pa.
22. Barnstable Town, Mass.
23. Utica-Rome, N.Y.
24. Missoula, Mont.
25. Asheville, N.C.

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