Portland named one of America's greenest cities by Travel & Leisure

By Ramona Du Houx

April 4th, 2012 ? Filed under: Business & Innovation, Community Maine, Environment ? No Comments

This month, Travel & Leisure named the City of Portland the 7th Greenest City in the US. Citing the city?s farm-to-table restaurants, microbrews and access to the outdoors, Travel & Leisure readers selected Portland as a green, clean, pedestrian friendly city with pristine parks and open spaces. As a part of Travel & Leisure?s annual America?s Favorite Cities survey, readers ranked thirty-five metropolitan areas on a variety of travel-friendly qualities and based upon these results identified the greenest cities.

?It?s nice to see the city get this well-deserved national attention,? remarked Mayor Michael Brennan. ?From our farmers markets to miles of trails, the city has embraced policies that make it easier for our residents and businesses to live safe, healthy lives in a clean and supportive environment. This green quality of life doesn?t just make Portland a great place to live and work, but attracts new people and businesses looking for a community that shares their values.?

Portland earned high marks from both visitors and residents for cleanliness, access to the outdoors and pedestrian friendliness. Portland has more than nine hundred acres of parks and open spaces and at least seventy-five miles of trails. A little more than a quarter of this acreage is forested, which explains why in the mid-nineteenth century Portland earned the moniker Forest City. The city has supported the local food movement by supporting local farmers markets and expanding and encouraging access to community gardening. Currently, the city has one hundred and thirty community garden plots at four locations and at all but two of the city?s schools. In consultation with the community, the city is engaged in a public process to identify other potential locations for additional gardens.

The city has also adopted a number of initiatives to encourage waste reduction and recycling, which has driven up the city?s recycling rates with more than half of all city waste being recycled. Beyond recycling the city is working to make it easier for residents to compost by offering compost bins and rain barrels at reduced rates and in collaboration with the school system has created a food scrap composting facility for food waste from school cafeterias. Thanks in part to a Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant, the city has been able to expand efforts to promote walking and biking throughout the city from the creation of a neighborhood byway to the expansion of safe routes to schools.

For more information, visit Travel & Leisure http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/americas-greenest-cities .

Maine's quality of life

occupy rose parade vesta williams stanford stanford oklahoma state university badgers badgers