By Chris Joseph Tue., May 13 2014
At a time when climate change is the big topic of discussion and debate between scientists and politicians, Fort Lauderdale is at least doing its part to make sure things get green.
The city is doing so much for the environment, in fact, that it was named among the top ten greenest midsized cities in the U.S.
Add this to the fact that it has been found at the top of the list in safest cities, cities with best downtowns, and most exciting cities and it's just more evidence that Fort Lauderdale is all kinds of awesome.
The folks over at mylife.com put together the green list by scouring through 189 midsized cities, determined by population via the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau.
From there, they broke things down with a ranking system (1 being tops; 189 being the pits) in several categories, including the number of public parks each city had and the number of recycling centers residents have access to.
They also broke down just how eco-friendly the residents of each city are and how big of a carbon footprint they leave determined by how much walking they do as opposed to driving.
With the help of websites like Yelp.com and walkscore.com, MyLife was able to tally up the scores and found that, among the 189 cities studied, Fort Lauderdale ranks number five. Not too shabby.
"Each city was given a score based on their rankings in each category," the website says. "Scores from each category were combined and divided to find an average. The lower the average number was, the better the city ranked."
Finishing just ahead of Fort Lauderdale: Alexandria, Virginia; Hayward, California; Pasadena, California; and Richmond, Virginia.
From mylife.com:
A city with palm trees and pristine beaches showed itself to be quite easy to get around without a car; Fort Lauderdale ranked 33rd out of 189 cities in walk score. They also ranked in the top ten in the number of public parks and number of recycling centers categories.
Fort Lauderdale is the only midsized city to get anywhere near the top ten in Florida, with West Palm Beach coming in at 43, Pompano Beach at 45, and Hollywood at 67.
Other Florida midsized cities were ranked toward the bottom, with Tallahassee at 93, Clearwater at 143. Miami Gardens 172, Miramar 181 and Palm Bay 184.
Florida cities also made up the bottom two, with Cape Coral at 188 and Port St. Lucie at 189.
You can see the Top Ten List here.
