Green is Grand Burlington tops magazine survey

Author: Tamara Hilmes, Local News Editor

While we may consider ourselves pretty crunchy with our granola in the dining halls and Thursday night string band performances in the Gamut Room, in actuality it is the students at the University of Vermont who can claim their status as true hippies as Burlington was recently named the Greenest City in America. Burlington received its title from Country Home Magazine's "Country Home 2007 Best Green Places Report" which is a part of their April issue that is entirely devoted to "green living."
The magazine, along with Sperling's Best Places, compiled a list of the 379 greenest cities in the United States based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Green Building Council. According to Country Home's website, the rankings are based on "air and watershed quality, miles of mass transit, and green power to farmers markets, organic groceries, and more."
Although you may have only wandered down Church Street in past visits to the city that rests just one hour North of Middlebury on Route 7, the true essence of Burlington lies in its commitment to preserving open space within the city, its carpooling rate and its use of renewable energy sources. Burlington, the only city in Vermont to be ranked by the magazine, has created its eco-friendly reputation through various programs that have been implemented in the past few years.
One of the areas in which Burlington topped other American cities is with its programs related to the food industry. According to the Associated Press, "The Burlington metropolitan area's 16 farmers' markets, five organic producers and three food co-ops" helped the city top the list. The city's laws prohibiting the use of pesticides on public land and waterways also raised the score of Vermont's largest city.
Burlington also boasts "a compost facility that collects food scraps from restaurants, supermarkets and food manufacturers and sells the compost to farmers, gardeners and landscapers."
Additionally, The city also has a program in place called "Burlington Legacy," a program that, according to the city's website, was developed in 1999 to "help maintain those qualities that we all cherish about our city, and create a comprehensive plan to guide change for the economic, environmental, and social health of Burlington for years to come." Burlington Legacy encompasses a broad range of councils and committees that all work together to uphold the city's reputation as not only "green," but also as being a livable city, for offering a vibrant lifestyle and for being a place where people can choose to raise families."
Burlington's debut as America's most earth-friendly place to live could not have come at a more appropriate time, as Earth Day, the national holiday instituted in 1970 to bring about national awareness of the environment, takes place each year on March 21, the first day of spring. In celebration of both their top ranking and the annual holiday, the citizens of Burlington are continuing to lead a lifestyle that leaves the rest of the nation "green" with envy.