What Makes Some Cities Greener Than Others

This week I’ve been looking at green cities. Today I turn my attention to the economic, demographic, and other factors associated with cities and metros that have lower levels of carbon emissions. Martin Prosperity Institute colleagues José Lobo, Charlotta Mellander, Kevin Stolarick, and I took a simple, straightforward statistical look at several things research and common sense suggest should be associated with higher and lower levels of carbon emissions. We measure emissions three ways, as a function of population (per capita), workforce (per worker), and economic output (per economic output). All the caveats regarding correlation not being causation apply. However, our findings underscore the fact that carbon emissions are linked as much to the way we live as how we produce and manufacture things. One of the most surprising concerns manufacturing. Intuitively, you’d think that carbon emissions must be a function of the intensity of industrial manufacturing activity. When the subject is pollution, smoke belching factories are among the very first things that come to mind. See full Article.