The Top Ten Greenest Cities

[hello-world]

now i'm thinking i'm really missing something here...

The Top 10 Green Cities in the U.S.: 2006 (http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/113/top10cities - broken link)

though i would love to think denver is truly one of the most green and healthy cities in the country, i have to say i am very, very surprised. it may have some nice bike paths, a decent recycle program, and lots of people that love to go jogging, but

1) it seems VERY much about driving for hours into the mountains and through the forests and to the grocery store down the street for a jug of milk, i.e., car - no, SUV - culture, despite having good buses available

2) the light rail is very limited and will be for years, maybe a decade or more to come

3) it is very, very suburbanized/decentralized and low density populated all around denver proper (maybe therein lies the confusion - the poll's not for metros? ... which would be pretty silly it seems to me)

4) it seems to me, at least, like a VERY consumerist population in the metro area

5) not long ago, it was an oil town, and it seems a bit like it

6) the air quality is actually rather poor: there is often a very impressive brown cloud hanging over the city as a result of the above and the abundant sunshine and occasional inversion...

and take a look at this (admittedly many places don't do so well here, as you'll see):

About Your Community (http://www.scorecard.org/community/index.tcl?zip_code=80203&set_community_zipcode_coo kie_p=t - broken link)

what am i missing here?

[xsloane]

Originally Posted by achtungpv

Just enough variety on that list to make sure realtor.com can sell regional advertising anywhere in the country.

That list carries about as much water as those subdivision reviews in the Sunday paper that are written by the developers.

I absolutely agree with you.
Also, the link cited regarding pollution (by hello-world) is very interesting! The data for Williamson county is incredible (bad)!
About Your Community (http://www.scorecard.org/community/index.tcl?zip_code=78681&set_community_zipcode_coo kie_p=t - broken link)
I also looked at King county, where Seattle is, and they say the same thing about air quality though (top 10% worst counties!)...
But the thing that called my attention the most, I know Austin is not Williamson County (mostly), but still, close enough, is that there is no air quality monitoring here!! Is that true? Is it the same case for Travis Co?

[tstone]

Yep, you DEFINITELY can find a lot of that green in Austin!

[love roses]

What I can't figure out is, where are all the pollutants in Williamson county coming from? There isn't any heavy industry here. Could it be the farming pesticides (my best guess)

[xsloane]

It is all about the green$$$ everywhere, isn't it?

[hello-world]

Originally Posted by love roses

What I can't figure out is, where are all the pollutants in Williamson county coming from? There isn't any heavy industry here. Could it be the farming pesticides (my best guess)

is there much traffic?

is your water treatment as effective as it could be?

are building standards effective in this way (containing site runoff, energy efficient, recycling)?

how is energy produced, and is it a source of pollution?

are there landfills?

other sources of particulates such as open burning of things?

are there lots of farms with animal "waste" leaching into streams, soil, etc. or tile draining pesticides and nutrients as you suggest?

is there high technology, so maybe waste from technology production (dell, e.g.)? could some of it be "secret"/defense oriented, so not discussed, but detected?

[xsloane]

The link provided in my previous posting (initially given by another member, but for Travis Co), you can find a list of the 10 worst pollutants of the County. And yes, Dell is one of them according to the site.

[love roses]

Thanks for the list of questions

[hello-world]

Originally Posted by love roses

Thanks for the list of questions

don't live there and don't plan on it! so don't know. but i can only guess many of those questions might be read as answers?

i gotta say, this guy has a bad attitude.

this one too probably

[love roses]

There has to be tons of counties in Texas with similar pollution problems.