Oklahoma City ranks 49th in list of environmentally friendly cites
Photo/Shannon Cornman
OKCBusiness Staff
9/23/2008

SustainLane released its annual list of environmentally friendly cities today with Oklahoma City making the list at No. 49.
SustainLane’s survey ranks the largest 50 U.S. cities in terms of their sustainability practices in 16 categories.

Oklahoma City made the list of sustainability leaders in the water quality and metro street congestion categories. In the areas of housing affordability, water supply and air quality, SustainLane ranked Oklahoma City for Sustainability Advances. Oklahoma City ranked 50th in planning and land use and metro transit ridership.

hmmm - we ranked high in not having bad traffic but low in mass transit ridership. Well duh. That would only make sense wouldn't it. People in large cities take mass transit because they have to unless they want to spend 2 hours on the road each way. I ma getting tired of dumb-asses doing these studies.

This is an example of poor quality journalism. You would think - by reading the headline - that OKC was the 49th Most Environmentally Friendly city in the country. In reality, they only ranked the Top 50 cities. So of course OKC "made the list." Every big city "made the list" in one place or another.

Yes but hopefully the 49th out of 50 rankings will be more evidence to our city leaders that we can't keep playing dumb on the mass-transit and environmental/sustainability front. It is a serious issue we MUST address.

Yes but hopefully the 49th out of 50 rankings will be more evidence to our city leaders that we can't keep playing dumb on the mass-transit and environmental/sustainability front. It is a serious issue we MUST address.

That and curtailing sprawl should be bigger priorities for the city, IMO.

This is an example of poor quality journalism. You would think - by reading the headline - that OKC was the 49th Most Environmentally Friendly city in the country. In reality, they only ranked the Top 50 cities. So of course OKC "made the list." Every big city "made the list" in one place or another.

So what you're saying is that this is really a good article because we are now considered a top-50 city in something?

No, No, No. I am saying exactly the opposite. Not only is it bad news - we are 49th out of 50 in such an important metric; but it was made worse by the packaging of the article which made it appear that the writers of the story didn't realize it was such bad news.

As I recall, a lot of our problems this year in the environmental area have to do with water quality. I seem to have read that somewhere.

I can only assume that this list is the product of some meta-study, so I wonder how old that measurement is and whether there are any outside factors responsible for that metric (e.g., last year's flooding).

Here is a story (http://blog.newsok.com/gogreen/2008/09/23/okc-and-tulsa-among-least-green-cities/) by John Sutter - Environmental Writer at The Oklahoman about the study.

It seems like he hit it pretty well in the summary of the study and also gave a nice addition from the Wall Street Journal talking about it as well.

No, No, No. I am saying exactly the opposite. Not only is it bad news - we are 49th out of 50 in such an important metric; but it was made worse by the packaging of the article which made it appear that the writers of the story didn't realize it was such bad news.

I didn't read the article, but I don't think anyone on this board was implying that this was good news at all.

Here's how they came up with the rankings...

The SustainLane Methodology - SustainLane (http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/articles/the-sustainlane-methodology/JXICFDNN7CF9H7MD7P8USMW9Y78J)

Just as I suspected - the criteria were a bunch of left-wing gobbledy-guk. What a waste of time, resources, and money. Thank goodness OKC ranks at the bottom of this list.

People in large cities take mass transit because they have to

They build it because they have to. However, I often take mass transit when I can and when I lived in a city that offered it, in large part because it's usually a lot more relaxing and enjoyable, not to mention more convenient, than driving a car. It's usually far from being the lesser of two evils, if it's done right.

Just as I suspected - the criteria were a bunch of left-wing gobbledy-guk. What a waste of time, resources, and money. Thank goodness OKC ranks at the bottom of this list.

?? Left wingers are the only people who care about these things?

I agree with what STL is saying, initially reading the list you would think OKC making it was for some sort of progress. Then, after reading that they took the 50 largest cities, OF COURSE Oklahoma City would be somewhere on that list, since it is the 29th largest city.

Then, with that consideration - the story doesn't look good for OKC, being next to last. That said, I agree with Metro and BG , that this should raise an eyebrow for city leaders about sprawl and mass transit, reducing and increasing respectfully! In the same manner that the Overweight Cities list prompted the 1 million pounds loss (which should have been either 550K pounds or 1.3M pounds, city or metro losing 1 pound each - although you could say city losing 2 pounds each too).

Nevertheless, just like that ranking placed OKC low and it did something, perhaps this one will too. But I agree, the journalism didnt even point this out, that OKC was on the bottom; but instead made it appear like a good thing that the city even made the list - well, of course it will, it's #29 in population.

At least we have the 8th best Tap Water. That seems more important than a lot of the other categories.

I thought it was the best tap water, for the 50 largest cities.

It says 8th here: Tap Water Quality - 2008 US Cities Sustainability Ranking by SustainLane.com (http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/categories/tap-water-quality)

oh, the 2008 study. I was thinking of a year or two ago, when OKC was #1

?? Left wingers are the only people who care about these things?

No, but this was clearly an agenda driven study. Atlanta has more mass transit use but you tell me which city's daily commute is worse for the environment. However, Atlanta receives high marks in the study. You see, environmental impact was the stated objective of the study but the cities with the largest "carbon footprint" get the best scores. Why? Because they buy into the left-wing environmentalist agenda the most.

Don't believe me? Just check out the LEED category. Portland ranks high because they have a lot of new LEED buildings. However OKC ranks low because we don't have very many. However, that makes sense because OKC has relatively few new building to begin with. So actually, OKCs lack of construction is better for the environment than Portland's green buildings. In other words, no building is better than a green building, at least from the environments point of view.

Do I need to keep going?

oh, the 2008 study. I was thinking of a year or two ago, when OKC was #1

Well, there are lots of these rankings. You're probably thinking of the taste test thing a year or 2 ago in Toronto were we were proclaimed best tap water in North America.

No, but this was clearly an agenda driven study. Atlanta has more mass transit use but you tell me which city's daily commute is worse for the environment. However, Atlanta receives high marks in the study. You see, environmental impact was the stated objective of the study but the cities with the largest "carbon footprint" get the best scores.

If Atlants gets high marks, then the study is flawed. Atlanta's MARTA system is woefully underutilized (perfect example of mass transit that didn't accomplish mass transit goals) and its' highways are parking lots. The fact that it took my daughter an hour and a half to drive 19 miles, but she wouldn't consider using MARTA (despite the fact that it went right to her place of business), tells you Atlanta shouldn't be getting high marks.

I ride MARTA at least 1 time a month and it is usually very crowded. When the Clemson/Alabama games was at the Georgia Dome a few weeks ago I took my kids on it from the North Springs station to Downtown and it was standing room only. In fact , I would say that 75% of the time I ride I have to stand. The problem with MARTA is that it doesn't go enough places. I live in Marietta 4 days a week and we don't have any MARTA service at all. Atlanta will soon be putting in street cars downtown to Buckhead so it will make moving around downtown easier. Your daughter should consider MARTA; 51% of riders are female.

Actually, she just moved to Chicago. And she rides the bus, not the El, because the bus goes far more places, and stops near her apartment. As you said, the problem with train lines is that they don't go a lot of the places people want to go. Even in London, where they have an amazing subway system that doesn't have to worry about where the buildings are, I take the bus as much as the Tube. I want a great bus system here, and we can have buses that run on natural gas.

We are definitely going to have to have a much better bus system on top of any rail we add, because we just don't have the density to have rail that goes EVERYWHERE like in Manhattan and London.