SustainLane 2006 US City Sustainability Ranking
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 1999. Throughout the city you can find attractive rooftop habitats for people and wildlife. Two and a half 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.
Chicago's forward-looking creativity extends to renewable energy, both solar and wind, which the city has been developing since the late 1990s.
