America’s Cleanest (and Dirtiest) Cities

As a followup to my previous post on the world’s most costly cities, I thought I’d mention another article that I recently ran across in Reader’s Digest — this time it’s a list ranking America’s fifty largest cities in terms of cleanliness. These rankings are based on air and water quality, industrial pollution, the presence of Superfund sites, and sanitation. Interestingly, the country’s most expensive city (New York) is the second dirtiest, and the second most expensive city (Los Angeles) is ninth from the bottom — who says you get what you pay for? Read on for the full list…

Drumroll please… And the winner is… Portland, Oregon!

1. Portland (OR)
2. San Jose
3. Buffalo
4. Columbus
5. San Francisco
6. Denver
7. Rochester (NY)
8. Austin
9. Orlando
10. San Diego
11. Hartford
12. Sacramento
13. Las Vegas
14. San Antonio
15. Oklahoma City
16. Minneapolis
17. Indianapolis
18. Salt Lake City
19. Jacksonville
20. Charlotte
21. Virginia Beach
22. Cincinnati
23. Nashville
24. Riverside (CA)
25. New Orleans
26. Milwaukee
27. Seattle
28. Baltimore
29. Miami
30. Dallas
31. Tampa
32. Memphis
33. Providence
34. Louisville
35. Washington (DC)
36. Phoenix
37. Detroit
38. Richmond
39. Cleveland
40. Atlanta
41. Houston
42. Los Angeles
43. Boston
44. Philadelphia
45. Kansas City
46. Birmingham
47. St. Louis
48. Pittsburgh
49. New York
50. Chicago

If you’re interested in seeing the full table, including rankings for each of the criteria, you can visit the original article by going here.