City Profiles / Large Cities / San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, California

San Francisco has long been an incubator for progressive movements, and its vanguard efforts—which stretch back to the 1892 foundation of the Sierra Club—have made it a green leader in the U.S. Its eco-friendly status is only enhanced by the fact that unlike many cities in California, it has remained compact, with one of the densest populations in the country inhabiting its tiny peninsula.

Aggressive in its pursuit of solar, tidal and wave power, the city is creating a local carbon offset fund to which city employees must contribute 13 percent of air travel costs to offset their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Mayor Gavin Newsom has pledged to outstrip the Kyoto Protocol by committing San Francisco to a 20 percent reduction of 1990-level emissions by 2012.

Since the 1960s, the local food movement has also boomed there, with famed organic restaurants drawing from the riches that surround the city. Farm production in this foodshed creates about 20 million tons of diverse food each year—including 80 different crops and livestock—which is about 20 times what the city consumes in a year. To further local food consumption, Mayor Newsom and nonprofit Garden for the Environment have organized edible urban gardens, and Newsom partnered with the nonprofit Slow Food to turn San Francisco's City Hall lawn into an organic garden.

Named the country's most walkable city by WalkScore.com—nearly 30 percent of trips are made on foot, another 16 percent via public transit—San Francisco can boast that only one percent of residents live in car-dependent neighborhoods. This means that people are on the streets and in the parks—the most notable of which is the 1,000-acre Golden Gate Park, which houses the new California Academy of Sciences—a LEED-platinum-ranked building with 2.5 acres of green roof.

First in the U.S. to ban plastic grocery bags, San Francisco has also banned polystyrene foam food-service ware and has restricted plastic water bottles in city offices and for sale at public events. Furthermore, San Francisco is closer than any other city to the zero-waste goal; it diverts 70 percent of its waste from the landfill—the highest in the country. In 2006 it had the lowest disposal to the landfill in more than 30 years, despite growth. Maintaining its position as a green innovator, the city has seen its successes imitated by other cities, while it continues to rise to the challenges posed by urban living.