Where To Live in an America With $4 Gas
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.18.08
Matthew Blackett of Spacing points out a study ranking the 50 largest US cities by their readiness to deal with $4 gasoline. TreeHugger readers will be familiar with the argument that denser cities with good transit use less fossil fuel per person; this study by Warren Karlenzig of Common Current goes further and looks at degree of sprawl, rate of usage of oil for heating, percentage of people who telework and use of transit.
Best Cities to Live In
1. San Francisco
2. New York
3. Chicago
4. Washington, DC
5. Seattle
6. Portland, OR
7. Boston
8. Philadelphia
9. Oakland, CA
10. Denver
" Ranking highest were cities with strong public transit system ridership, well-organized and dense city centers, a high degree of mixed real estate uses (retail, commercial, residential), and medium to high population density. Some cities, such as Honolulu, were reduced in the overall ranking by their use of oil for electricity, while Boston and New York were slightly reduced in their ranking because of their use of oil for heating. "
Worst Cities to Live In
41. Virginia Beach, VA
42. Forth Worth, TX
43. Nashville, TN
44. Arlington, TX
45. Jacksonville, FL
46. Indianapolis, IN
47. Memphis, TN
48. Louisville, KY
49. Tulsa, OK
50. Oklahoma City, OK
Interestingly, "With the exception of Indianapolis, all ten of these cities lie within what has been called the nation’s Sunbelt. The region experienced tremendous population growth during the 1960s and 1970s with development that can often be characterized as urban or exurban sprawl. "
Download the full report, "Major US City Preparedness for an Oil Crisis" (PDF)
More TreeHugger on Cities and Density:
Tall Cities = Green Cities?
Packed Like Sardines – Density is Good
Other Lists:
America's 50 Greenest Cities : Popular Science Ranks 'Em
Best Green Place to Live in America: Country Home Magazine Ranks 'Em
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- Urban Design After the Age of Oil: Notes from Day 1
- Is This What Life With the World's Highest Gas Prices Looks Like?
- Election Day A Boon For Mass-Transit
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Thanks for the list.
I know my city is certainly not prepared and not even really trying to get prepared for $4, 5 or 6+ dollar gas.
I thought Austin would be on the list but I guess not.
I thought DART in Dallas was a pretty good system.
In any case, the list certainly helps me determine where I want to live when I leave Arkansas. =]
Tulsa is actually fairly compact. Most commutes are relatively short compared to major metro areas like Dallas or Chicago or San Francisco or LA. Yes, Tulsa's mass transit sucks. It's always sucked. The cost of living is cheaper here and it's not suffering from massive foreclosures like CA and FL are.
I have that Tulsa sign hanging about 4 feet above me right now :P
But I'm sad because I love Tulsa, but I hate that it's on the bad list, but it probably deserves to be.
I'd like to live in San Francisco, beautiful city. However, I live in the very rural midwest, 35 miles from a small city. With the current market, home sales are WAY down and I can't afford to move unless I sell my house. Any suggestions for me?
The only problem with the Dallas DART system is that most people that work in Dallas don't live in Dallas or close to a Dart station. There's a lot of people that use it that live close to them and conveniently work near the stops downtown.
ok not to be nit picky, but Dallas isn't on the list, Ft. Worth & arlington are and deserve to be. Yes Dallas is part of the metroplex and for that alone probably deserves to be on the crummy list, but it's really not that close. Talk about sprawl You couldn't get any where in Ft. Worth with out a car I don't know if they even have a public transportation system at all. I may have seen one bus in the 10 years I lived there. Not to mention the fact that there are like 10 other cities that all mesh together to create this giant blob of highways and billboards.
Seattle is above Portland? What are they smoking? I've lived in both cities and I can tell you, hands down, that Portland is far more transit friendly. Seattle it too hilly to be bike friendly, they don't have a useful light rail system, and most of the good jobs require you to sit in traffic for 30 minutes on one of the only two bridges across Lake Washington. In Portland you can take the train to Intel & Nike.
It's funny to note that all the top cities are not Southern, while most of the bottom list cities are Southern cities.
is it really funny quikboy -- or just a little? take a look at per capita income for each state and see if you notice any correlation to "readiness for $4/gal": http://maps.howstuffworks.com/united-states-per-capita-income-map.htm
So, Tulsa's on the bad list. It is cheaper & less polluted so I'm moving from NYC back to Tulsa. I can use mass transportation in NYC, but the pollutants I inhale daily from buses, noxious fumes, contruction zones & in the subway, I think that it's healthier to move! So, you pt. out that it's bad, so help us w/ a solution so when I move there I'll be of more help to get us off the bad list!
I would take Denver off the list having lived here for 12 years. If you live in the outllying nabes, bus transit to downtown work areas is slow, infrequent, and often blocks from one's house. LIving in Aurora CO but working in downtown Denver, a drive to a park and ride is about halfway to work already, and bus service to downtown takes about an hour. By car, it's about 25 minutes. Denver is a huge sprawl. Also, rapid transit to DIA, promised by the mayor when the airport was under construction, magically never appeared, thanks to the taxi and shuttle unions. And the traffic is insane.
@ Nugget
Buy a scooter or small engine motorcycle or bike. Tulsa is fairly bicycle and biker friendly despite nay-sayers. Oh, and live in mid-town. South Tulsa sucks! BA sucks! Jenks sucks! Owasso sucks! west Tulsa sucks! Bixby sucks!
I guess this is good, in reference to the rising gas prices. But I am disappointed that Tree Hugger would promote this information, considering the other amount of pollution and cost of living for these top ten cities, which was failed to be mentioned anywhere in this study.
We don't need good transit here in OKC, we're getting an NBA hoops team! Wake up!!!! Don't you understand economics!!!!
We live in the west part of Denver (as opposed to the previous post in east Denver), and I have to say, I think it does deserve to be on the top 10. The "sprawl" previously mentioned is housing, but everything you need is within 10 min. of your house and it's very bike friendly. For those that have to commute to work, it may take longer to use public transportation, but there are plenty of stops, stations, and bike trails to get you where you need to go. So you at least have a choice. Denver (at least west) has good public transport for the handicap individuals as well. The BIG difference I see in west vs. east Denver, is that you always see lots of people riding bikes where we are. They ride to the bus, or light rail or all the way to work. Yes, you do have to get up a little earlier, but it's better for the environment and your health.