30,000 makes a city?

I thought so too. I mean, I've never even heard of many of those cities. It's probably because Yahoo! probably couldn't pay enough to supply all those taxis and whatnot to a major U.S. city.

If anything, these are the greenest towns in America. Not cities.

Actually, I just visited the Hastings Nebraska tourist site and it says there are only 24,000 people in Hastings. http://www.visithastingsnebraska.com/About/CVB_ABOUT.htm

Not really a city, but . . .
it's great that they're doing what they're doing and we should applaud their efforts. I just think it's a bit of a stretch for Yahoo to call them, "The Greenest CITY in America."

I drive by Hastings every time I go home to visit my folks. It's a cute little town (sporting its own private college), and pretty big by Nebraska standards. I'm glad to hear they're making some community-wide eco-decisions.

That they cited ethanol production as something 'green' is kind of dubious, though. The Hastings plants are all corn ethanol (as of about a year ago), which is heavily subsidized and may not be a net-gain environmentally. (Sure takes a lot of diesel fuel to cultivate and transport corn, not to mention the water necessary to irrigate the corn.)

I live in Hastings, Nebraska. Why are you so critical as to the population making a city a city? A city has to do with so much more than how many people live there. Hastings has many things that make it a wonderful city. Why can't you just be happy for us, are you jealous? Maybe instead of saying negative things about a city of which you do not live, you should try to improve the environment in your own city! Yahoo paying for taxis has nothing to do with this competition, maybe you should read a little more about the Yahoo competition before commenting on it.

I grew up in Hastings, NE. I have lived in several BIG cities since then and Hastings can compete with them all. We have our own art galleries, dowtown shopping, restaurants, mall, colleges, night life, public transportation, bike trails, hiking paths, parks, lakes and the most important thing that we have that a BIG city doesn't have is a real sense of community. A place where you know your neighbors and people take pride in where they live. How else do you get a whole city to join a movement to better their city, their state and their earth? If we all took that sense of pride to the places we live maybe the BIG cities would have a chance to compete with the smaller cities. So my suggestion is take the positive ideas and results from my little city and implement them in your home town, city, village, state where ever you live and be happy that people are rising up and becoming a part of a better earth.

Erin,
Thank you for leaving this comment. I think you’re absolutely right. We can learn a lot from the smaller communities doing things right. My post was not meant to offend, but rather draw attention to Yahoo’s campaign and Hasting’s work. I realize, however, my language (especially at the beginning of the post) is condescending. This was not an effort to put Hastings down but rather draw readers into the story. Again, I think we can learn a lot from Hastings and other cities doing great work to take on eco-initiatives. Please update me with any new projects that Hastings is taking on. I would like to share them with the TreeHugger community.

Olivia Zaleski

I have lived in Hastings, Ne. for business for the last seven months. Outside of my current endeavors, I reside in Portland, Or. I would just like to say that a city, town, community, etc that is voted the "greenest city in America" just might think about recycling. You would be hard pressed to find a household in Hastings knows how to separate the trash that they produce. No separation of paper, bottles, aluminum, plastic etc. This is a serious display of eco ignorance!
KC

I'm sure there are just as many people in Hastings, Ne that recycle that there are in any other city of this size. I know that at least one of our trash companies (I know mine does) offer recycling services and many people use these bins. At any rate, Hastings may not be as environmentally advanced as many other places, but at least it is trying. To me, this award is more about being a progressive city than many other things. I do refer to Hastings as a city because, like other people have posted, in comparison to a lot of Nebraska cities, Hastings is pretty big. It is one of the semi-large cities in the Tri-City area that sits nearly an hour and a half from the bigger metro areas of Lincoln. So, for this part of Nebraska it serves an important function. It seems ridiculous to me to ignore a city the size of Hastings just beacuse of its population...why not let the smaller communities in the midwest enjoy the good things they offer on a larger scale?

Let me just say, I live in Hastings, and it is not a city! It is a town run by old money who keeps businesses out; mainly cause they think it's going to hurt there own business. It's hard to find a job in this town; at least one that pays well. There are very few restaurants. Many people have to travel 25 miles north to Grand Island to enjoy a nice restaurant atmosphere. The people who live here are well above average for nice people, but the problem is they're to laid back and don't see what this town really needs to strive. And yes we do have a nice private college which is nationally ranked, with enrollment around 1200 students, but do you think any of them stay here when they graduate? Not at all. There's nothing here for them. That is one thing the city should count on, but they don't do anything for it. Like I said; 'old money. I hope people who live in this town read this and open there eyes; cause this town could be GREAT!!!

p.s. If Hastings doesn' take
advantage of this 'green city'
thing, we will look like fools!

I live in Hastings and I'm so proud of it. I was so happy to see that we were voted greenest city! I think we can go even farther by using our own cloth bags at the store instead of using the plastic ones. I'm currently trying to convince Walmart to carry Earth Friendly Products on their shelves. We can be the change that the world needs right now. Please call Walmart and talk to Bob- ask for earth friendly products that won't contaminate our water supplies. Small cities are a small change and all good things came from one small change :) I hope we can inspire bigger cities to make an even bigger change! :)