EARTHFRIENDLY CITIES

“Cities are on the front lines of climate impact,” says Hilary Firestone of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and interim director of the American Cities Climate Challenge. Those that make Mother Earth a priority give us more opportunities to do the right thing.They care about traffic congestion, public transportation, biking and walking options, renewable energy sources, tree canopies, good air quality and access to healthy food, like farmers markets, says Jill Gonzalez, senior analyst for WalletHub, which ranks the United States’ greenest cities every year on 28 different metrics. Here are five cities that get our green thumbs-up.

Want to live somewhere that makes it easier to be green? You can if you know where to look.

Where Trees Keep It Cool

Louisville is known for bourbon, baseball bats (the Louisville Slugger) and a boxer (Muhammad Ali). It’s also a city facing environmental challenges—in 2014, it was deemed one of the fastest-warming cities in the U.S.

Being an “urban heat island” means the city captures the sun’s heat, boosting temps by as much as 10 degrees and trapping air pollutants. One solution? Trees, which capture

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$30 rebate for each tree they plant (up to three trees per household per year), and non

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as wealthier neighborhoods, some shade. They plant 1,000 trees a year and help inner city residents install and maintain community gardens. The University of Louisville’s Green Heart project is studying the impact of green spaces on air quality and health and planting trees to see how more trees affect residents’ health.

The city is committed to other cooling solutions too, like installing “cool” roofs that re

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been making their own path forward,” says Katie Walsh of CDP (formerly the Carbon Dis

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impact. In fact, Louisville made CDP’s 2020 “A List” of enviro-friendly U.S. cities.