Environmental Talk

Sure, it’s environmentally friendly - but does it overlook a golf course? ….

Real estate agents have a bit of a problem these days. With the housing market in a free-fall throughout much of the country, it has become increasingly hard to attract buyers.

What’s a poor, commissioned real estate agent to do?

The answer is as clear as the recycling bin in your kitchen. Did someone say “burgeoning green market?”

Real estate agents and housing related websites are discovering what cloth shopping bag makers already know. Green is the new, well, … green.

As the housing market continues to implode, we can expect to see more nifty articles about the best neighborhoods to compost in, towns with the lowest carbon footprints and places where it’s illegal to drive anything but a unicycle.

The Private Communities website, normally a site dedicated to bringing you information about golf course condos and gated communities, has decided become increasingly populist and posted an article on 27 Environmentally Cities to Live.

The PC (irony alert!) website introduces the article by saying, “With air pollution, traffic and gas prices all on the rise, it increasingly makes sense to consider how environmentally friendly a city is before moving there.”

A friendly word of advice … you might also want to consider whether you have a job there.

Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but gas prices and traffic are on the rise pretty much everywhere, so its hard to see how moving to an environmentally friendly city is going to enable you to cut your expenses any more than you can in your current city.

While there are a lot of environmental concerns to worry about, air pollution should probably be well down the list of things that are keeping you up at night.

As the following EPA data suggests, we can only hope to do as well in other areas as we have in the realm of air pollution:

Since the mid-1960s the best available measurements show that sulfur dioxide levels have fallen by more than 80 percent, carbon monoxide levels are down more than 75 percent, nitrogen dioxide levels dropped over 40 percent, ozone levels decreased nearly 50 percent, and the level of total particulates (smoke, soot, dust) is down by more than 60 percent …

By almost any standard, air quality greatly improved between 1970 and 2000, even as U.S. population grew by 39 percent, energy use increased by 42 percent, total vehicle miles driven jumped by 143 percent, and gross domestic product soared by 149 percent.
(Source: http://www.reason.com/news/show/34800.html)

Does it still make sense to search out an environmentally friendly city?

If it matters that much to you, sure it does. Before you start packing, though, we should take a look at what constitutes an “environmentally friendly” city.

We’ll do that in our next installment as we take a look at some of the 27 cities deemed to be environmentally friendly and check out how they made the grade.

global warming, climate change, environmentally friendly cities, Jefferson Starship