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How We Rated Cities
For this ranking, the data analyzed included park percentage per total city land area (from the Trust for Public Land) as well as a sprawl ranking developed by Smart Growth America in a 2002 study of US cities. SustainLane primary research of cities' pedestrian and bicycle access and planning, transit-oriented development and regional planning efforts rounded out the final rankings.
New York ranks number one overall in planning, with about 20 percent of its land devoted to parks, combined with a sprawl rating that is best out of the nation's top 50 cities. San Francisco, Portland, Boston, Albuquerque, Austin and New Orleans follow.
Although Atlanta ranks low in park space this time around, we look forward to seeing the city's finished "BeltLine" greenspace, trails, transit, and new development project light a fire under the city's future planning/ land use ranking.
Reference Material
Future city planning students and deep down urbanists, don’t miss:
Cities trailing in the Planning/Land Use category may benefit from reading NAC's interview with James Kunstler and Nikos Salingaros, "Respect for the Human Scale." Every city in our survey can and will probably be doing better in this category by the time you read this page. Some cities are advantaged by historical circumstance; others have plenty of room for improvement. Let the race for more parks and walkable neighborhoods begin!
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Click here to comment!Philadelphia is happy to be in good company among the top ten cities, but our goal for the next ranking is to break into the top five and ultimately become number one. Our plan is to become a strategic consumer, manager and producer of energy. The City will use a growing demand for conservation to drive our workforce investments and guide our job training. We also want every Philadelphian to have equitable access to healthy environments. This would include, for example, every person having to walk no more than 10 minutes to purchase healthy food. It's important for Philadelphia’s citizens, corporations and government to partner together to meet our sustainability goal of becoming the greenest city in America. —Mayor Michael Nutter, Philadelphia
US City Rankings, next edition!