Jacksonville Ranked No. 3 Cleanest City

[Charleston native]

I think this is awesome news, especially for some of the forumers here who hate on Jax a bit. It is very conceivable that Florida would dominate in the amount of cleanest cities, primarily because all of the primary metro areas in Florida are not dependent on manufacturing factories that pollute considerably.

Best Places
America's Cleanest Cities
Tom Van Riper

Want to live where the air is sweet, the water is pure and the streets are clean? Try the country. But what if you don't like the sticks? Then try Florida.

Led by Miami, the Sunshine State dominates our 2008 list of America's Cleanest Cities with four metro areas in the top 10--Jacksonville (No. 3), Orlando (No. 4) and Tampa-St. Petersburg (No. 8 ) all make appearances. Clearly, a state that relies so heavily on tourism and part-time snow-bird residents knows the value of keeping itself spruced up for company.

With the built-in advantage of weather patterns that blow out smog, these large metropolitan areas, together with No. 2-ranked Seattle and No. 5 Portland, Ore., top our 2008 list. But it's more than just sea breezes pushing these metros up the list. These big cities are also reaping the rewards of investing in efforts to keep clean, even as their populations boom.

In Pictures: America's 10 Cleanest Cities
In recent years, Florida's Department of Environmental Protection has launched programs aimed at providing power plants with the equipment needed to scrub out harmful emissions before they're discharged. The agency has singled out the Tampa Electric Co. (other-otc: TAECM - news - people ) for going beyond federal and state requirements on emission reductions.

On the water side, the agency has aimed its budget not only on fighting direct discharges into public waters but on indirect spillage from things like storm drain runoff.

The same is true elsewhere. Portland, for example, is 10 years into a 14-year, $2 billion investment aimed at cleaning up the Willamette River. In addition, the city's added more light rail, sidewalks and biofuels to its bus fleet. It's gone a long way toward reducing air pollution in the region.

"The investments we've made on land use and transportation over the past two decades are paying off," says Portland city council commissioner Dan Saltzman.

Air quality is a huge health factor for urban dwellers, so we made it a very big deal in our study. To determine the cleanest major cities in the U.S., we initially measured the rankings for air pollution and ozone levels among all 49 U.S. metro areas with populations exceeding 1 million, using data from the American Lung Association. After eliminating those areas that ranked poorest in air quality, we measured the remaining 29 cities on the additional but less-weighted factors of water quality and per-capita spending on Superfund site cleanup and solid-waste management. From this list, we drew our top 10.

All figures were based on Metropolitan Statistical Areas (which include the city and surrounding area) with the exception of waste-management spending, which was based exclusively on the city proper.

Water cleanliness rankings were derived from statistics compiled by the University of Cincinnati from local reports of EPA violations. Metros were ranked based on reports of bacteria, chlorine byproducts and chemicals or metals such as arsenic, copper and lead in the drinking water. Operational expenditures for solid-waste management are recorded at city-data.com.

Beyond health, cleanliness appears to have an important economic impact. While nine of our 10 cleanest cities showed population increases between 2000 and 2006, major metro areas losing residents over that period tend to rank near the bottom of the cleanliness list; they include Philadelphia, Chicago, Buffalo, N.Y., and Detroit. Many factors, notably economic ones, go into a person's choice to move, of course. But a reputation for clean air, water and streets seems to count as well.

The migration has been most pronounced in the Sunbelt, with Jacksonville growing its population 8% and Miami 11.5% since the start of the decade. Can they keep clean with all this growth? That's the challenge of the coming decades. Here's hoping they can.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/17/miami-seattle-orlando-biz-logistics-cx_tvr_0317cleanest.html

[downtownparks]

Call me skeptical, but Im not sure they didnt mean Jacksonville Oregon?

[Jason]

The criteria sound pretty solid to me.  Being residents we are a bit more aware of the details of our our own polution than somebody just passing through asking some questions and looking into a few things.

The one thing that I continually notice about our region as compared to other areas to the south is that in Jax there seems to be a hatred for cutting grass.  Buisnesses do a good jub keeping the green trimmed and neat but the city does a horrible job of keeping many of the public areas cut on a regular basis.  Roadway medians on almost all of our major thoroughfares are only cut monthly at best and look overgrown and unkept the rest of the time.  South and Central Florida do a much better job of keeping the grass under control thereby bettering their perception of cleanliness to visitors and residents alike.

[Charleston native]

Actually Jason, that makes sense because the regions in South and Central Florida are more tourist related, and like the article said, the regions seem to have the desire to make their cities very attractive for frequent visitations.

However, you guys really have no idea how good you have it. Up here in South Carolina, our roads and medians are in far worse shape. Notice none of our cities made it on this list, not even my hometown.

[Jason]

Hey, if grass cutting is the only thing I can come up with (in regards to cleanliness) to gripe about, I'd say we're doing pretty good.

[Lunican]

I'm not so sure I buy this. There are huge portions of Jacksonville designated as contaminated brownfields.

Currently, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has noted 248 areas of inquiry for environmental issues in Jacksonville. Overwhelmingly, low income and minority areas are represented in that number, with more contamination per inch than anywhere else in the city. As winds shift, the potential for contamination in other areas becomes greater. Residents in several areas around Jacksonville are currently engaged in improving air quality.

In addition to air quality, is the fact that these neighborhoods deal with Brownfields, which are abandoned, idle, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. If Brownfield sites are not cleaned up, it could signal a slow death for the surrounding communities. Unfortunately, this clean-up is hindered by the EPA and environmental requirements prior to clean-up.

Today’s discussion is less about air quality and more about contaminated lands and how they can negatively affect air quality. For example, East Jacksonville has high concentrations of air pollutants that don’t show up in testing done for air quality compliance.

[Lunican]

EPA selected the City of Jacksonville for a Brownfields Pilot. Historically, Jacksonville's port has served as a major commercial center. Agricultural, petroleum, and paper product industries, in particular, have dominated the commercial market supporting Jacksonville. Commerce that flourished for more than a century has subsided, leaving more than 100 downtown sites with known or suspected soil and groundwater contamination.

http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/html-doc/jacksnv2.htm

[Jason]

Maybe the writer has a bias because he/she lives in Jax?  Either that or may other cities around the country are that much worse...

[RiversideGator]

I think a lot of this has to do with air quality.  Being a coastal city, we get winds which blow out most pollution plus we dont have the heavy industry which creates it in the first place.  No need to be downers - this is legitimate.

[K]

I wonder then, about this article - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_go_ot/dirty_air - from last Wednesday, about the new EPA standards for air quality. 

"...they will require 345 counties â€" out of more than 700 that are monitored â€" to make air quality improvements because they now have dirtier air than is healthy."

At the EPA website map related to their press release, Duval is one of the 345 red counties, like some in So. Cal. and Houston.  Wouldn't this mean that our current level of air pollution is already pretty bad?

[RiversideGator]

I wonder then, about this article - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_go_ot/dirty_air - from last Wednesday, about the new EPA standards for air quality. 

"...they will require 345 counties â€" out of more than 700 that are monitored â€" to make air quality improvements because they now have dirtier air than is healthy."

At the EPA website map related to their press release, Duval is one of the 345 red counties, like some in So. Cal. and Houston.  Wouldn't this mean that our current level of air pollution is already pretty bad?

I believe they are considering only large MSAs.  Obviously, a city with 2000 people will have better air quality than Jacksonville.  But, when compared to other fairly large to large MSAs, we must do ok.

[raheem942]

if you ever been to downtown miami then u can smell this lie.......downtown miami and opa locka and carolcity  look like shit

[thelakelander]

For those who want an visual view of downtown Miami's streets, click here:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/694/118/

[Jason]

Downtown Miami looks pretty clean to me Raheem....