48. Tulsa, OK

What’s in a name? Sometimes a history lesson—and particularly when your sports team are called the Drillers and the Oilers. Mayor Kathy Taylor is working hard to shed the city’s sludgy brown image, and her constituents are singing her praises. Tulsa may not be doing anything avant-garde, but it is building a solid sustainability base by adopting plans to increase curbside recycling, plant twenty thousand trees by 2010, and develop a comprehensive plan for energy conservation. Community members are also working hard to green the city. Tulsa’s green business guide is transitioning to the web, local magazines are bringing green to the mainstream, and Tulsa BioFuels, the city’s lone bio-diesel producer, is gaining popularity. “The waiting list to buy our product is so long that increasing output 10 times wouldn’t cover it,” says co-founder Todd Stephens. Looks like the city has struck green gold.

Oktoberfest Celebration in Tulsa (Photo by Don Sibley)