According to an index compiled by the Business Courier of Cincinnati, Portland is the greenest U.S. city. The American City Business Journals' Green Cities Index rated metropolitan areas
on several points including the use of public transit, sprawl, pollution, and green jobs per capita. Portland’s poorest ranking was for commute travel time, but the city received high marks for LEED-certified building projects and a lack of sprawl.
Portland often ranks high on the environmental scale: In 2008, Popular Science found Portland to be the most environmentally friendly city and it squeaked onto the thedailygreen.com’s top 10 most walkable cities of the world list. The website, SustainLane ranked Portland as the most sustainable city in 2008 and Entrepreneur magazine’s August 2009 issue ranked Portland the second-best startup city in America. The March 2010 National Geographic Traveler proclaimed it is the most bike-friendly city in North America.
Though the ranking is being reported and discussed this week as new news, it was in 2009 that Business Week determined that Portland is the most depressed American city. That ranking looked at divorce rates, cloudy days, crime, unemployment and antidepressant sale statistics. The photo they chose to illustrate the finding shows a lot of people enjoying a day at Waterfront Park.
A little Internet cruise will reveal that some people who have lived in Portland find it depressing, and its people rude and hostile.
How can this be? How can a population that has such a positive environmental outlook and such a green city be depressed, rude and hostile?
The online discussions include a lot of speculation: Some say that people who move to the Rose City from sunnier places simply have difficulty adjusting. Many happy Portlanders point out that the gray skies are comforting and earth-greening.
As for rudeness - since what is rude in one place is not considered rude in another, could the perception of rudeness, like the perception of ‘depressingly gray skies,’ be a simple matter of acculturation and cross-cultural misunderstanding? Or, is Portland increasingly green and sustainable but populated by a lot of depressed, rude and hostile inhabitants?
©2010 Katie Cordrey. You may repost with copyright notice and link back to this original article!
Please share this story or subscribe to the Portland Sustainable Living Examiner channel using the buttons above the article.
Comments