#4 Chicago: The Wind at Its Back

Chicago notched high scores nearly across the board: knowledge base (#1), city innovation (#5), energy and climate change policy (#5), commute-to-work (#6), and regional public transportation ridership (#2). The city has been moving toward a new type of urban environment since Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration began almost maniacally planting trees--about a half-million since Daley took office in 1989.

Mayor Daley's plan to make Chicago "the greenest city in America" soon blossomed into urban roof gardens, starting with City Hall in 2000. About three million square feet of planted rooftops now conserve building energy, filter rainwater, and may nudge summertime temperatures down.

Chicago has become the nation's living laboratory for studying the "urban heat island" effect, which can raise a city's temperatures 4 to 10 degrees on a scorching summer day. Lowering those temperatures by even a degree or two would save the city untold amounts of energy while lowering air-conditioning costs.

Healthy Living

Lake Michigan permeates Chicago life.

The lake is the place for recreation, and it's within blocks of everything from baseball's Wrigley Field, to Lincoln and Millennium parks, down to the University of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side. The extensive network of paths along the lake pulse with thousands of recreational runners, walkers, and bike riders during summer, and provide bike commuters with dedicated pathways throughout the year.

Millennium Park, formerly an abandoned industrial site, is now one of the nation's top havens for tourists and locals alike. Anchored by a Frank Gehry-designed band shell and public interactive art installations, the park also features a giant green native plant rooftop, the nation's largest, over an underground garage and native plant educational displays.

Local food from a network of regional producers is available at 33 farmers markets and at many restaurants and cafes. More than 400 city community gardens flourish as neighborhood educational centers show how food, community, and art can be mutually supportive.

Chicago is more challenged when it comes to the quality of its air and tap water. While Lake Michigan provides a plentiful source, Chicago tap water ranks below average at #29, with 17 contaminants resulting from industrial agriculture, other industries, and urban runoff. Four contaminants are over the EPA's recommended levels.

Air quality ranks #45, with the South Side near the Calumet industrial region still showing signs of small and large particulate pollution from its cluster of manufacturing, especially during

winter.

Getting Around

The "thousand-columned El," as writer Nelson Algren called it, makes its way through most neighborhoods of the city and into the suburbs. Chicago and its suburbs have one of the highest rates of public transit commuting in the nation (though commuter ridership fell from 26 percent in 2000 to less than 24 percent in 2004), though significantly increased travel times on the El have many long-time riders considering other transit options.

Economic Factors

Chicago has set a goal of having 20 percent of its energy come from renewable sources by 2010. With its renewable level currently at 2.5 percent, the city has a ways to go, but it is boosting the effort with the Chicago Center for Green Technology, a LEED Platinum building featuring a solar assembly company office and a green building demonstration center.

The ever-expanding metro area is surrounded in Illinois by industrial agriculture, but a renaissance of small producers from orchards and farms in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan is underway through the Local Organic Initiative. Fresh produce is becoming big business everywhere from farmers markets to supermarkets to upscale cafes. The Chicago area market buys $300 million in organic food each year, according to Chicago-based Sustain.

Chicago ranks #15 in green building, and its regional service and manufacturing economy is beginning to reap the benefits of solar power, wind energy, architecture, landscaping, and innovative design technologies. Developers who do construct green buildings are granted permits much more quickly than those who don't.

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