CityStories / City Profiles / Medium Cities
When voters passed the indoor smoking ban in November 2006, Ohio became the first Midwestern state and the first tobacco-growing state to outlaw smoking in public buildings,...
Much of Ann Arbor, Michigan's environmental progress owes its origins to the handiwork of grassroots organizations. In fact, Recycle Ann Arbor, a nonprofit organization that...
Arvada is constructing solar energy capacity at its water treatment plant in partnership with SunEdison, and will be the first city in Colorado to have a system of this size run...
Water conservation has been a major challenge for this northeast Georgia city, which relies almost entirely on surface water and has struggled with overdevelopment and an...
Most of Washington's fuel for electricity comes from clean, renewable hydropower, the process of which emits almost no air-quality-damaging emissions after construction of the...
July 2010 Update: Berkeley has been named a 2010 Smarter City for Energy. Read the article. Berkeley, just across the Bay from San Francisco, has always been a city of green...
In 2008, Boise created the Excellence in Green Building Construction awards to encourage environmentally sound construction as a part of the mayor's charge to make Boise the...
Southern California has been suffering from the eight-year-long drought on the Colorado River, little local rainfall, and a judicial order to reduce pumping from the Sacramento-...
Because buildings account for nearly half of the greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., Cambridge has instituted a Green Building Policy, which includes maintaining a Green...
Cape Coral, like much of the country, is suffering from high rates of foreclosure. But the city has worked to make it an attractive place for relocation and for businesses with...
Chesapeake adapted eight and a half miles of the former Virginia Route 17 into a multi-use trail for walkers, bicyclists, horseback riders, naturalists and wildlife enthusiasts.
El Monte's electricity is provided by Southern California Edison, which obtains 16 percent of its energy from renewable sources and is the country's largest purchaser of...
Green space makes up 16 percent of Eugene, including more than 3,000 acres of natural areas—and it is continuing to grow with the acquisition of 260 more acres of natural land...
For cities in the overcast, mountainous Pacific Northwest, hydropower provides the most feasible form of renewable energy and Everett is no exception. The Snohomish County...
July 2010 Update: Fort Collins has been named a 2010 Smarter City for Energy. Read the article.Although universities are vital to their locales, the distance between town and...
Fremont is ethnically and racially diverse, with around 46 percent of its population from Asian descent and more than 15 percent of Hispanic origin.
The Metropolitan Water District provides water to city residents and businesses. In 2009, it will begin providing California-friendly landscaping training for residents free of...
The Cascade Engineering company's headquarters, known as the "Learning Community," was the first office building in Michigan to achieve LEED-platinum certification.
Hayward's Area Park and Recreation District, or H.A.R.D., is the biggest of its kind in California, maintaining more than 100 facilities and parks.
Energy in Henderson is provided by NV Energy, which has a long-term contract to obtain solar power from Nevada Solar One, the largest solar plant built anywhere in the world in...
July 2010 Update: Huntington Beach has been named a 2010 Smarter City for Energy. Read the article.Two things are of paramount importance to the typical Huntington Beach...
Huntsville, Alabama, may be best known for its aerospace, military and technology industries; it is home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the Army's Redstone Arsenal base...
Irvine is a new planned city—formally incorporated in 1971—that has been almost entirely developed by the Irvine Company, which owns one-fifth of Orange County known as the...
February 2011 Update: Jersy City has been named a 2011 Smarter City for Transportation. Jersey City, the second largest city in New Jersey, sits on the Hackensack...
Laredo shares a metropolitan area with its neighbor across the Rio Grande, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and is dubbed the "Gateway to Mexico." With railroad expansion in the 1880s and...
The Massachusetts Smoke-Free Workplace Law prohibits smoking in workplaces, including restaurants, bars, taxis and private offices.
The capital of Wisconsin, Madison fans out from the isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, providing the city with a natural landscape its citizens enjoy year-round and...
Naperville has a strong public school system, with both high schools in District 203 ranking in the U.S. News and World Report’s top 2 to 3 percent of the country’s schools.
February 2011 Update: New Haven has been named a 2011 Smarter City for Transportation. New Haven revolves around green space. When the city was developed in the...
In order to preserve potable water for drinking, the City of Ontario is actively pushing higher use of recycled water.
Palmdale's electricity is provided by Southern California Edison, which obtains 16 percent of its energy from renewable sources and is the country's largest purchaser of green...
July 2010 Update: Reno, Nevada has been named a 2010 Smarter City for Energy. Read the article.Each year, the City of Reno hosts a Green Summit inviting all residents to...
Energy East Corporation's upstate New York subsidiaries, Rochester Gas & Electric and New York State Gas & Electric, are together ranked tenth in the country on the U.S...
The City of Salem seeks to triple the share of bicycle trips among all transportation modes by 2015, thereby decreasing emissions from vehicles and enhancing air quality.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority runs 450 buses on 75 routes and 100 light rail vehicles on more than 42.2 miles of rail from Santa Clara, at the southern tip of...
July 2010 Update: Santa Clarita has been named a 2010 Smarter City for Energy. Read the article.The city diverts 54 percent of its waste from the landfill, and even offers...
Santa Rosa, a gateway to California's wine country north of San Francisco, has adopted innovative energy practices—using unique sources such as algae and geysers—that have...
The rise of air-conditioning in the 1950s opened up swathes of the Southwest to development at an unheard of scale in extremely fragile desert ecosystems. One such community,...
Just west of the Idaho Rockies, Spokane straddles the Spokane River in the plains of Eastern Washington. A signatory to the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection...
July 2010 Update: Springfield has been named a 2010 Smarter City for Energy. Read the article.Like many Midwestern towns, Springfield, Illinois, is faced with aging power plants,...
In Stamford, the Mayor’s Youth Services Bureau has programs that teach life skills and leadership skills and build self-confidence in the city’s youth.
The city maintains an updated directory of recycling centers for hard-to-recycle items throughout the city and area, for everything ranging from diapers to mattresses to carpets...
Sunnyvale Works! is a unique initiative of the local government in Sunnyvale, California, that will fund more than $60 million in capital improvements in the city—augmented by...
Most of Washington's fuel for electricity comes from clean, renewable hydropower, the process of which emits almost no air-quality-damaging emissions after construction of the...
Tallahassee is going a long way to make its bus system, StarMetro, a popular means of transportation to get cars off the road. Florida State University and Florida A&M...
Tempe's Transportation Department supports sustainability by promoting walking, biking and alternative modes of transit, and by building a Transportation Center, which opened at...
The City of Thousand Oaks maintains a Disabled Access Appeals and Advisory Board to represent the needs of physically challenged residents of the community.
The Vallejo Neighborhood Housing Services works to rehabilitate deteriorating neighborhoods in Vallejo while simultaneously creating affordable housing.
The State of California recognized Ventura for reducing the amount of waste the city sent to the landfill by 70 percent.
Westminster, a northwest suburb of Denver, lies in close proximity to mountains and trails. In 1985, voters approved a sales tax earmarked specifically for purchasing and...
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