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Ranking of the largest metros (from smallest to largest footprint).
02. Los Angeles
03. Portland
04. New York
05. Seattle
07. San Jose
08. San Francisco
10. San Diego
15. Chicago
18. Las Vegas
20. Boston
21. Phoenix
27. Philadelphia
28. Miami
29. New Orleans
31. Cleveland
33. San Antonio
34. Pittsburgh
37. Detroit
42. Denver
44. Milwaukee
45. Minneapolis
47. Tampa
54. Orlando
55. Austin
57. Dallas
58. Portland
67. Atlanta
69. Baltimore
72. Charlotte
76. Raleigh
77. Memphis
80. Jacksonville
89. Washington, DC
94. St. Louis
95. Nashville
98. Cincinnati
99. Indianapolis
Metros with a milder climate and maybe less industry do better. Though I'm surprised DC does so badly. I suspect it also depends on how dirty the electricity sources are. DC gets a lot of power from Appalachian coal plants, West Coast cities get a lot of hydro.
Metros with a milder climate and maybe less industry do better. Though I'm surprised DC does so badly. I suspect it also depends on how dirty the electricity sources are. DC gets a lot of power from Appalachian coal plants, West Coast cities get a lot of hydro.
The DC area does get a lot of its power from coal. But it's less reliant on fossil fuels overall than Atlanta.
I think one needs to consider city core when considering carbon footprint. Orlando has got to have one of the highest carbon footprints in that respect with it's "core" population of 240K (and size) seriously dwarfed by it's 4,000 square miles of sprawl, that continues to evolve further and further out.
Metros with a milder climate and maybe less industry do better. Though I'm surprised DC does so badly. I suspect it also depends on how dirty the electricity sources are. DC gets a lot of power from Appalachian coal plants, West Coast cities get a lot of hydro.
The study talked a lot about density and commute times, and I think that's reflected by some of the lower rated metros. Metro St. Louis, for example, has a massive amount of its geographic area in the state of Illinois (probably less than half, but definitely more than a 1/3 of the metro's geographic area), but only 1/4 of the MSA's population.
You can go from downtown St. Louis to cornfields in Illinois in 10 minutes, and many of the suburbs on the Illinois side simply aren't contiguous in terms of development, as you'll drive down two to four lane state highways that go through cornfields in seemingly rural areas to get from one town to another in a lot of places.
This isn't to say that there isn't sprawl on the Missouri side, but the fact that the Missouri side is so much more built up than the Illinois side had to hurt St. Louis. I'd also bet that similar development hurt cities like Cincinnati, Memphis, and Kansas City as well. KC wasn't listed in BajanYankee's post, but it's in the mid 80s if you look at the link.
New York - 6.17%
Washington - 4.35%
Baltimore - 3.76%
Chicago - 3.21%
Atlanta - 3.02%
Los Angeles - 2.99%
San Francisco - 2.95%
Philadelphia - 2.93%
Boston - 2.87%
Seattle - 2.45%
Houston - 2.09%
Miami - 2.03%
Dallas - 1.83%
The study talked a lot about density and commute times, and I think that's reflected by some of the lower rated metros. Metro St. Louis, for example, has a massive amount of its geographic area in the state of Illinois (probably less than half, but definitely more than a 1/3 of the metro's geographic area), but only 1/4 of the MSA's population.
You can go from downtown St. Louis to cornfields in Illinois in 10 minutes, and many of the suburbs on the Illinois side simply aren't contiguous in terms of development, as you'll drive down two to four lane state highways that go through cornfields in seemingly rural areas to get from one town to another in a lot of places.
This isn't to say that there isn't sprawl on the Missouri side, but the fact that the Missouri side is so much more built up than the Illinois side had to hurt St. Louis. I'd also bet that similar development hurt cities like Cincinnati, Memphis, and Kansas City as well. KC wasn't listed in BajanYankee's post, but it's in the mid 80s if you look at the link.
You see, San Jose did better than Chicago when SJ is included.
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