2017’s Greenest Cities in the U.S.

Anchorage, Alaska, has more green space than any city in the country, while Lubbock, Texas, has the worst air quality. Residents of Honolulu, Hawaii, have access to the most farmers markets per capita, while walking is hardly an option in Chesapeake, Virginia. How do all of these factors — and many more — play into the United States’ greenest cities?

WalletHub looked at the country’s 100 largest cities across 22 indicators of environmental friendliness in four dimensions: environment, transportation, energy sources, and lifestyle and policy. After crunching the numbers on everything from water quality to miles of bicycle lanes to community garden plots, here are the cities that came out on top:

San Francisco, CA
San Diego, CA
Fremont, CA
Honolulu, HI
San Jose, CA
Washington, D.C.
Sacramento, CA
Irvine, CA
Portland, OR
Oakland, CA

Source:

WalletHub

On the other end of the spectrum, some cities didn’t so so well on the green rankings. Here are the country’s worst performers:

100. Corpus Christi, TX
99. Baton Rouge, LA
98. Jacksonville, FL
97. Louisville, KY
96. St. Petersburg, FL
95. Tulsa, OK
94. Toledo, OH
93. Lexington-Fayette, KY
92. Cleveland, OH
91. Oklahoma City, OK

One key component that’s missing from the rankings? Recycling services. According to WalletHub:

Although recycling is vital to the sustainability efforts of each city, the types and sizes of recycling facilities vary widely by city. We therefore were unable to include — due to the lack of comparable city-level data — metrics that either measure the availability of recycling programs or the amount of waste recycled in each city.

What do you think? Does anything on the greenest cities list surprise you? Can Corpus Christi change its ways? Does California deserve seven of the top 10 spots? Check out the full results, along with opinions from experts, here.

Feature image courtesy of Adobe