34. Miami, FL

One has only to tune into CSI: Miami and spy the features the city’s long been known for: rowdy nightlife, beautiful people and breathtaking beaches. Those, combined with Miami’s warm weather and plentiful sunshine are a major draw for tourists, who come by the plane, car and cruise ship-full. But did you also know that Miami is doing a lot to increase awareness of environmental issues? The Dream-In-Green Foundation is reaching out to public schools through the “Green Schools Challenge,” a program that has high school students conducting carbon footprint inventories for their schools and homes and assisting in recycling and tree-planting campaigns. The city’s sustainability initiative, called the Miami Green Commission, includes a master tree-planting plan that calls for a thirty percent tree-canopy by 2020 and a goal of 1,000 green city vehicles. It’s also documenting contaminated “brownfield” sites for potential EPA funding and cleanup. Miami is already seeing benefits from Mayor Manuel Diaz’s leadership—Forbes named it “America’s Cleanest City” in 2008.

(Photo by Mark Averette)