I’ve just come from a two-day discussion among a group of a dozen experts from a cross section of fields related to sustainability - energy, transportation, water and economic development, to name a few. We brought them together to select the recipients of The Home Depot Foundation Awards of Excellence for Sustainable Community Development. That’s a lot of words strung together, but we were looking for cities - large and small - that are 1) thinking about sustainability in the broadest sense and what it means for their community, 2) creating a plan that sets out the ways they are committing to make their cities healthier over the long term from an economic development, public health, social equity and environmental stewardship standpoint and that defines the objective standards they will use to measure progress and 3) completing projects that help move them toward their goals. After reviewing the applications, I can confidently say that cities across the country are undertaking some truly amazing sustainability efforts right now, despite the dire budget forecasts they are facing. (I can’t tell you who we thought was doing the best work yet, but you can check out the videos of last year’s award recipients.)
I think what the conversation underscored for me is what Kermit said so many years ago, “It’s not easy being green.” It takes an enormous dedication of resources, time and expertise to bring the benefits of sustainability to our cities. In fact, it requires that leaders, staff and citizens re-think everything they are doing from paving roads and building police stations to buying paper and installing streetlights. Hard questions need to be asked about the true health of a community and the actual opportunities that are available to its residents. This requires looking at, among other things, the rates of energy and water use, accessibility of transportation options, affordability of quality housing, levels of pollution in the air and water, success of local businesses and prevalence of obesity and related diseases. And not only do they need to investigate all of this, they also have to figure out what needs improvement and set goals, prioritize the list and come up with money to pay for it. They then must measure what they’ve done and report back. Whew!
After reading that last paragraph, you may be thinking that this is too much to ask of any local government. It’s too hard; the economy is too bad; for now, they should just focus on getting through the next week, month, year.
But that’s my point, right? It’s not just “for now.” The choices that are being made today are determining what our tomorrows are going to look like across this broad spectrum of issues. We are creating roads, light rail lines, buildings and parks that are going to be with us for decades. To a large extent, through the decisions made today, we are determining what taxes our children will pay, what kinds of homes they will live in, what kind of jobs they will have and whether they will enjoy healthy lives. After all, much of what we live with today is because of what our fathers (and mothers) did: encouraging sprawl, eliminating green space, buying energy gobbling cars and homes and dumping pollution into our rivers.
So hopefully, you can see that although it’s hard, this is important work that must be done. I hope, though, that you can also be convinced to take it one step further to realize that this is a once-in-a-lifetime, exciting opportunity. We have the chance to really make a difference and to improve the way cities operate and govern. We can make cities run more efficiently, more productively and more sustainably. We can transform them!
Cities, after all, have a lot of infrastructure and history and policies, but they are made up of, and created for, people. By making cities run better, we are getting to the core of what we do as a foundation: we help people to achieve their dreams of success for their families and to live better lives. 
To learn more about how you can take action to make your city more sustainable, visit www.SustainableCitiesInstitute.org.
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