#6 New York City: Sustainability Out of Necessity

New York City has the qualities that make many global cities livable: It's densely populated, with an exceptional subway and rail system and a diversity of local businesses that are most easily accessed by foot.

In many ways, New York City is an anomaly in the United States. The limitations of the city--its geographic boundaries and population density, which at 25,000 per square mile is more than six times that of #1 ranked Portland, Oregon--have forced it to be more sustainable than most US cities. Without an excellent public transportation system, plenty of parks, and forward-thinking planning, it's hard to imagine so many people coexisting so successfully.

And now, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city is going big in sustainability.

It is developing PlaNYC2030, which seeks citizen, business and community input in forging a more sustainable city. The plan is being managed by a new director of long-term planning and sustainability, who was appointed in 2006 by the mayor, and has an advisory committee of local real estate, scientific and academic big-wigs.

Healthy Living

If you're a New Yorker, locally grown food is always close at hand. At any of the whopping 72 farmers markets throughout the five boroughs, food is sold by the people who grew, raised, foraged, or caught it. The city also has the largest urban gardening program in the nation, Green Thumb, which was founded in 1978 and now supports more than 700 community gardens.

Local food isn't the only thing helping New Yorkers stay healthy. The city ranks #3 for city land devoted to parks. These parks provide an easy way to escape the city's congestion. On a sunny day, you'll find throngs of people enjoying lunch, talking, or going for a stroll.

New Yorkers also benefit from excellent drinking water from the Catskill and Croton area watershed, though we were unable to rank the water quality due to lack of currently available data. The Catskills are one of the largest protected urban watersheds, and the city's water supply needs little chemical doctoring to produce good-tasting and healthy tap water.

As can be expected in such a dense urban environment, New York City's air isn't so good, ranking #42. The city doesn't comply with Clean Air Act standards for ozone, and the air sometimes has dangerous levels of large and small particulate matter. New York's growing green municipal fleet and ultra-low sulfur diesel rules for garbage trucks, sightseeing buses, and city school buses should help reduce this danger somewhat.

Getting Around

The New York subway began service in 1904--long before the automobile age--facilitating a high-density city with minimal sprawl. Less than a quarter of Manhattan residents own a car (the national average is 92%). In fact, people use as much gas in New York City today as the average American did in the 1920s. More than half of the population uses public transportation to commute to work, tops in our study.

Economic Factors

Green skyscrapers? It's true. New York has the highest-profile green building mix with corporate headquarters, such as the Bank of America building, speculative office towers, green apartment blocks, and mixed-use and institutional projects.

New York also has a burgeoning community of small businesses--media organizations, clothing designers, retail boutiques, furniture makers, dry cleaners, architecture firms--dedicated to green and sustainable alternatives.

Of course, New York is also among the least affordable cities in the study, ranking #46, with housing costs that are prohibitive for many. It's also a laggard when it comes to renewable energy, though the city is working on a pilot project that uses turbines in the East River to generate power from tidal energy.

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