On January 4, Seattle inaugurated a new, ultra-green mayor, which got me thinking comparatively. Which of the three largest Cascadian cities is the greenest? Not in plans and intentions and declarations but in facts? I recently pored over data from the Cascadia Scorecard and other sources.
The answer? No contest: Vancouver, BC.
It’s not so much Vancouver’s new rail transit line under downtown that goes to the airport (which Seattle now boasts too). It’s not the city’s progressive green mayor, who ran an exceptional, grassroots campaign against a candidate with the support of the business community. (Portland and Seattle have similar mayors, similarly elected.) It’s that Vancouver has, among large Northwest cities, the highest urban density, the most cycling, the most walking, the most transit ridership, the fewest cars—and the least driving—per person, the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita by far (thanks to its car-lite ways and to its carbon-free electricity), the lowest teen birth rate and family size, the highest life expectancy, and the lowest poverty rate. There’s hardly a category of the Cascadia Scorecard in which the soon-to-be Olympic city doesn’t take gold.
But that’s not a surprise, is it?
What’s more interesting is the next question, Who takes second? By reputation, Portland—darling of planners, cycling mecca of the United States, transit innovator, street-food leader—seems the obvious silver medalist. As Dan Shapley writes on Huffington Post, “What other city can boast of 200 miles of walking and bicycling trails, a fast transit hub to the airport, fare-free light rail in the city core and free parking for electric cars? The city replaced a six-lane highway with a waterfront park, and it has 50 LEED-certified buildings.” In fact, the consulting group SustainLane ranks Portland the greenest city in the United States, based on its index of adopted policies plus various other measures. I expected PDX to take second, but didn’t count Seattle out. I checked the five (of seven) Cascadia Scorecard indicators for which relevant local data are available: health, economy, population, sprawl, and energy. And for the purposes of this essay, I tried to compare cities, not metropolitan areas (although as noted at the end, I had to rely on sometimes-mismatched data).
1. Health. Which city is healthier overall, as measured by life expectancy?
Seattle
A baby born last year in Seattle can expect to live 79.6 years, three years longer than a baby born in Portland. That’s a huge gap. On the league tables of life expectancy, Seattle is by Germany and the United Kingdom; Portland is down with Albania and Uruguay.
2. Economy. Where are ordinary people faring better economically?
Seattle
The poverty rate in Seattle (12.5 percent) is almost 3 points lower than in Portland (15.2 percent). The unemployment rate in Seattle (9.1 percent) is almost 2 points lower than in Portland (10.9 percent). Median household income—the mid-point of the income ladder—in Seattle ($61,000) is 24 percent higher than in Portland ($49,000). Again, a huge gap in Seattle’s favor.
3. Population. Which city has smaller families (a reflection of both women’s equality and slow population increase)?
Tied.
Both cities have average family sizes of 1.7 children per woman. Both cities are almost European in their fertility patterns: women in Portland and Seattle have few children, late in life.
4. Sprawl. Which city does better at growing in compact neighborhoods?
Greater Portland is more compact than greater Seattle, thanks to its tighter urban boundary, regional governance, and more-consistent planning. At last count (way back in 2000 when the last census was completed), about 28 percent of residents of greater Portland lived in neighborhoods that were compact enough to support good transit service and local stores. (Call these places, with at least 12 people per acre, “transit neighborhoods.”) Greater Seattle lagged at 23 percent.
But within city boundaries, the two switch places. The city of Seattle outperforms the city of Portland. In Portland, somewhere around 45 percent of residents live in transit neighborhoods. In Seattle, the comparable figure is 57 percent. Or that was the situation in 2000. We’ll have to wait a year to get new census numbers. Still, both cities have seemed committed to in-fill development in the “aughties.” I’d be surprised if Portland has closed the gap.
Even more impressive, at the time of the last census, before the surge of residential development in Portland’s Pearl District and around downtown Seattle, some 11 percent of Seattleites lived in urban neighborhoods with density in the “walking zone” sweet spot above 40 people per acre. Just 4 percent of Portlanders lived in such walking neighborhoods. (Of course, in Vancouver, BC, the figure was 27 percent, as of 2006!)
Reputations aside, Seattle proper beat Portland proper in compact growth.
5. Energy. Which city is ahead in the clean-energy economy?
Portlanders drive less than Seattleites. They also ride transit more and bike much more. (Portlanders bike on about 4 percent of all commutes—beating not only Seattle but even Vancouver, BC. About 9,000 Portlanders bike into downtown Portland each day, three times as many as bike into downtown Vancouver or downtown Seattle.) But Seattleites appear to walk more. More importantly, Seattle has carbon-neutral electricity, thanks to its all-hydro municipal utility. Portland, on the other hand, gets some of its electricity from a coal-fired power plant in Boardman, Oregon, courtesy of Portland General Electric, majority owner of the plant. This plant is responsible for 8% of Oregon’s total greenhouse-gas emissions.
So Portland is striding more decisively away from oil, while Seattle has already (mostly) weaned itself off coal. Which city wins the game?
Portland’s estimated 2008 greenhouse gas emissions came to 11.9 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per person. Seattle’s were 11.3 tons (and the real gap probably favors Seattle more strongly, because Seattle’s inventory of emissions is more comprehensive than Portland’s, as discussed below).
Silver and Bronze
Seattle takes game, set, and match, to win the silver medal. Portland takes bronze.
This outcome surprised me. I expected Portland to win silver. I was doubly surprised by how one-sided the contest was: four games to Seattle, one draw. How’s that for inauguration-day gift for Seattle’s new mayor?
In fairness, as I note below, some of the data are weak. Other indicators might have favored Portland.
Furthermore, the standings are not necessarily reflections of effort or intentions. Many other causes are in play. Seattle has carbon-neutral electricity, for example, mostly because the city utility locked up some of the best hydropower locations in the Northwest a century ago. It has a denser center city than Portland partly because it is the heart of a much larger metropolitan area. It’s health and prosperity are reflections of the greater wealth and economic dynamism of the state and metropolis it centers.
Meanwhile, all of the cities’ standings are reflections of scores of decisions, many of them made decades ago, often for unrelated reasons. Neighborhood opposition to freeway building stopped Vancouver from following Seattle and Portland’s leads and building downtown freeways. Now, the city benefits from a less car-dependent urban form.
Still, in the end, sustainable progress is measured in facts, not intentions. So whatever the reasons, the standings matter.
It probably also warrants saying that sustainability isn’t a reality TV show or a celebrity cage fight (though the mayors of Portland and Vancouver have launched an official eco-rivalry).
No Northwest city is yet close to the destination of sustainability: carbon neutrality; widely shared prosperity; stable populations in strong communities; educational and economic opportunity for all; hyper-efficient use of natural resources; zero-pollution industries; and low-stuff, high-satisfaction lives.
To achieve these goals, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver—and all the other communities in Cascadia—will best succeed if they not only compete for the lead but also cooperate, sharing lessons. In the race for sustainability, we all win only when we all finish.
Still, competition can motivate us onward. And the city of Seattle, it turns out, is currently leading the city of Portland. Who knew?
Notes about Data and Sources
Here are some of my sources. I didn’t record every single one, because it’s a blog post, not a report.
I used a variety of sources to gather these data, and I also had to use different geographic areas as proxies for the cities. Consequently, you should take this post with a spoonful of salt. If Sightline were to complete a full study on this question, we’d find better data or rely on a consistent set of geographic definitions. But these data are good first approximations.
Life expectancy data are for King and Multnomah Counties, not Seattle and Portland proper. Both counties encompass suburban cities and towns in addition to their respective big cities. City-only life expectancy data are not readily available. The data come from datasets we collect from state and federal agencies in the vital statistics series. (See Cascadia Scorecard for details.)
Poverty and median income data are for the cities hemselves. Poverty and median income data are from the US Census’s American Community Survey, as reported on the Census FactFinde. Unemployment rates are for metropolitan statistical areas, which include some suburban cities, from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics: .
Family sizes (technically, total fertility rates) are for King and Multnomah Counties.
Sprawl data are from the US Census, as analyzed in the Cascadia Scorecard. Certain Portland-specific data were interpolated from findings originally made for Multnomah County overall. For example, I assumed that all of Multnomah County’s “walking neighborhoods” (where more than 40 people live on each acre) were inside the city of Portland.
Greenhouse gas emissions: Seattle from the city’s new greenhouse gas inventory (see page 4). (Find interesting discussion of the inventory on former Sightliner Dan Bertolet’s blog, starting here, then here and here, too.) Portland’s inventory (see page 12) covers all of Multnomah County and uses a different, less-comprehensive methodology than Seattle’s. For example, Seattle includes its share of air travel from Sea-Tac Airport, while Portland does not include air travel. From my preliminary analysis, it appears that if Seattle had used the same methodology as Portland, its carbon footprint would have appeared to be at least 20 percent smaller than reported.
Photo of Mayor Sam Adams courtesy of Flickr photographer PDX Pixels, photo of Mayor Mike McGinn courtesy of Flickr photographer Holy Outlaw, and photo of Mayor Gregor Robertson courtesy of Flickr photographer kk+ under the Creative Commons license.
joshuadf
Are the “walking neighborhoods” individual census tracts? Out of curiosity, what stats software do you use?
Alan Durning
JoshuaDF,The walking neighborhoods are actually based on an original method we developed for the Cascadia Scorecard. It goes to the most granular level. You can read about it in the 2004 edition of Cascadia Scorecard, which you can find on our publications page at sightline.org.Alan
Jon Stahl
Interesting, fun and surprising post, Alan! A great reminder that data often give the lie to “conventional wisdom.”
Eric de Place
JoshuaDF,What’s more, the Walkscore ranking of city walkability—based on distance from residences to services—also gives Seattle a meaningful edge over Portland: http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/most-walkable-cities.php.
Bill B
Aren’t we in a way deluding ourselves with this type of story. The major industries in our region – airplanes and war – are hardly green or sustainable. How much of our carbon footprint is externalized? Plasma screes, iPhones, server farms supporting our e-babble… where is this accounted for?Population growth, consumption, how we live are lives and what we do are all out of sight….
Wells
Dream on, Sightline. Maybe you’ll catch up to Portland in the real measurements of sustainability one day, but not if you rest on your laurels (what there are of them) and pretend twisted statistics may defy reality. You’re just jealous and vain.
Joe Brewer
Thanks for writing this article and helping clarify our thinking about sustainable development in the Pacific Northwest. Your timing is excellent because there is a growing community of changemakers here in Seattle who have taken Alex Steffen’s call for Seattle to become the first carbon neutral city by 2030 as a very serious idea.Indeed, we’ve even gone so far as to engage in stimulating and productive conversations throughout the last three months and have drafted a prospectus for Seattle’s Innovation Engine to drive us to carbon neutral.It will be a pleasure to work with Sightline and everyone else here in Puget Sound to make this goal a reality.Best,Joe BrewerDirector, Cognitive Policy WorksProject Coordinator, Seattle’s Innovation Engine
Arie
Seattle is a geographically small city, only 84 square miles not including water. Portland has 134 square miles. If you reduced Portland down to its core, my guess is that it would do just as well in density. Likewise if you took Seattle and threw in Tukwila, Burien and Lake Forest Park you might find we’re not so dense after all. (That didn’t come off sounding right.)
Lynn Best
Alan, interesting article, nicely done. However, I don’t think you give Seattle sufficient credit for its carbon neutral electric energy in your discussion on intention versus luck. While it is true that it is easier to become GHG neutral when you are largely hydro, Seattle City Light made thoughtful decisions to get rid of its ownership of a coal plant and not renew a long term contract for power from a combustion turbine. Instead it relies on conservation, new renewables such as wind, and hydro efficiency improvements to meet load growth. It also offsets those emissions from its operations (such as trucks) and the “market” component in its power contracts that it cannot eliminate. Offset projects such as providing clean shore power to cruise ships when they are in port, the first City in the contiguous US to do this. This effort has been a catalyst for similar actions in other port cities. Thanks,Lynn
Brent A.
It was hard for me not to be miffed when I first read this. I am a Portland native who recently (and hopefully temporarily) moved to Seattle do to a job change. I can’t tell you how disappointing I am in Seattle. I live downtown and my experience has been one of extremely aggressive drivers, endless traffic, and dangerous streets for pedestrians and cyclists. Everyone seems to be much more concerned about what they wear, what they drive, and how pretty they are. I find it worse than my experience living in San Francisco. I know I am drawing broad stereotypes, but it is my personal experience, and I feel a palpable difference in attitude and lifestyle between Portland and Seattle. Your statistics and “facts” are presented in a very city rivalry sort of way with your language, “game, set, match” and “which city wins the game?” Are you a Sounder fan looking for a fight or argument? What does how much money you make have to do with the greeness of your city? Portland’s high unemployment, poverty statistics, etc. has much to do with a tremendous number of people moving here without jobs. Portland has become a mecca for young creative green-types, most of whom arrive without work. I wonder why they can’t seem to see Seattle’s superior greeness and livability? Why can’t I see it? I am so happy to now be living in a city where I will live three years longer, but the high suicide rate does seem to make me wonder how happy I will be living those extra years.I don’t want to bash Seattle. There is much to like about it, but honestly this is no green mecca. Where are all the hippies? I’ve checked out Fremont but it is all $$$$. I enjoyed a recent visit to Vashon, but it is quite a commute. Is there any neighborhoods where a former Portland resident would fit in? Alan, I think Sustainlane’s analysis is more on target.Peace ~
Morgan M
It is so interesting how the “facts” and one’s experience can vary so significantly. I lived in Seattle for 11 years before moving to Portland where I have now lived for 4 years. I have had the exact opposite experience of almost everything that is mentioned in the article. I primarily drove my car in Seattle to get around and was as a result about 20 pounds heavier than I am now. Now I ride my bike and only drive when carrying heavy loads such as groceries. My income in Seattle was HALF as much as I make here in Portland. My experience with Seattle was one of narcissism, elite classes, and a constant struggle to “get ahead”. Portland has been the exact opposite and however successful, or unsuccessful we may be as Portlanders, I have always felt their goal to be sustainable is genuine whereas for Seattle it always felt “trendy”. BRENT A—West Seattle has a glimmer of hope still in it for living in a nice community. I lived there for many years and it feels like a smaller town in the city; people think it is really far away because you have to take a bridge to get there but it only takes 10 minutes by bus to get downtown! Having lived in many of the neighborhoods in Seattle I would only live in West Seattle if I had to move back.
Sheilagh
Alan,Too bad you were not able to get pics of all the mayors on bikes. I know that both Adams and McGinn have been seen doing business on bikes. I would suspect Robertson also spends some time bike commuting.How about electric car populations? I would be curious to see where Portland and Seattle fare on that… Portland is very electic car friendly. We have one and we have chosen green power. My sister-in-law has one and has a solar panel to charge her car and the electic surplus is adding to her power in her home. Three wonderful cities with their own unique personalities. I would be interested in the total populations of each city for comparison sake also. I know you are looking at per capita issues however there are some things that are harder for a smaller city and I suspect Portland is smaller than either Vancouver or Seattle. Just some thoughts – interesting article. I am tempted to cry foul since I know Alan is in Seattle, although who am I to cry I am in Portland. I also know this is where I want to be. She
Brent A.
Thank you Morgan M! I can totally relate to your experience in both cities. I haven’t had a chance to check out West Seattle, but will put it on my list based on your recommendation.
Ted
Good work. Portland has a disappointing habit of patting its own back rather. For the Portlanders who dispute this; check out Metro’s predictions on green house gas emissions. Even under the most optimistic scenarios of smart growth and infill, the region will not meet state mandates for carbon and VMT reduction. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of lifestyle to change, and a lot of political capital to build if we want to be sustainable in a meaningful way.But look; you can’t consider Portland by itself against Seattle by itself. It’s an abstraction to separate cities from their suburbs, and it contributes to sprawl and environmental degradation. That’s why we have real regional government in the Portland area, and a robust growth boundary. You have to consider the whole metro region, and Metro does, every day. How would this analysis change if we brought in Seattle’s suburbs? I’m guessing it wouldn’t be so kind.
Keith
There are some other factors to consider in the economic comparison between Portland and Seattle. Cost of living in Seattle is higher than in Portland. Check out apartment rental rates within the city limits. Quite a few goods and services also come at a higher price in Seattle.Another factor that negates some of the salary disparity is that there is no sales tax in Portland. And finally, as mentioned by another respondent, riding a bike in Seattle is far hairier than riding one in Portland.
richard wilson
What good is Seattles “green” kudos and hubris when it’s murder rate is almost double that of Portland???And auto theft is more than double???Seems many Seattle -ites didnt get the memo to “go green” and ride a bike. And, yes, Im from Portland, born and raised, 1968.
Eric de Place
Richard,To the contrary, Seattle’s murder rate is almost identical to Portland’s—and both are exceedingly low by national standards. It’s true that for many years Seattle had a very high rate of auto theft (though it’s declined recently), but it’s also true that Portland’s rate of “forcible rape” has for a long time been much higher than Seattle’s. I invite you to peruse the FBI crime stats:http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_08.htmlOr other databases, such as this one:http://www.cityrating.com/crimestatistics.asp
Peter Whitelaw
Interesting piece, one I’m coming late to…First and foremost, the blog highlights the difficulty not only of measuring progress, but of comparing different places with different challenges. Kudos to Alan for trying, and to Sightline for its Scorecard. The real benefit is in encouraging each city to improve, and to look at the right stuff and the broader picture. The fact that we’re measuring all of these and not just GDP tells a great story about the sophistication of our region and of the conversations we have.I’m interested that Vancouver is hands down a winner. The story here for me is the regional story – Vancouver has great physical bones (retail streets, streetcar-based buses, etc), hydro power, an affluent population, and many other advantages. Sure we built lots of housing in and near the downtown, and we’re reaping the rewards, but find your way to the suburbs and into traffic gridlock, expanding highways and bridges, greater obesity, (somewhat hidden) drug, alcohol, and gang problems. I’d love to see a comparison of the three regions, the three cities, and a discussion of the context that makes them different. In an ideal world, the comparison would also highlight the key strategies that each could adopt from the others, enabling us all to raise the bar and compete – yes, compete – with other leaders in North America to raise it even further.
Jules
I agree, Peter. Vancouver as the overall winner was actually a bit of a surprise. Maybe it was the phrasing, “hands down.” I’m intrigued by your other phrasing “Compete” as well. I’d love to see it.