This article was featured in the Sunday, April 25 News-Record Ideas column.

Earth Day was celebrated Thursday, and the news was filled with stories highlighting events and green business successes. By all accounts, one would believe that the Greensboro-High Point market is an enthusiastic participant in all things green and sustainable. But is it? Perhaps an independent assessment would be appropriate.

The American City Business Journals (publisher of the Triad Business Journal) recently analyzed data from 43 U.S. markets where it publishes weekly business papers regarding the levels of green planning, building and green business activities. All were ranked in 20 categories under five broad criteria: daily commute time, use of public transit, sprawl, the number of LEED-certified projects and the number of green jobs per capita.

Analysis such as this is not an end in and of itself, but it could gauge whether intelligent local land use, economic development foresight, citizen participation, adaptive training capacity and a cutting-edge knowledge work force are in place.

Read the rest here…