St. Louis Not Prepared for Oil Crisis
SustainLane has created a ranking of “50 Largest cities Ranked by Readiness for an Oil Crisis” (see list at right). St. Louis didn’t even make the list! My hometown of Oklahoma City, known for its massive sprawl, was ranked ahead of St. Louis at #50.
From SustainLane:
SustainLane analyzed commute trend data within major cities–how many people rode, drove, carpooled, walked, or biked to work. Then we looked at how much people rode public transit in the general metro area, and metro area road congestion. Sprawl, local food, and wireless connectivity made up our final areas of data analysis (see chart below for weighting of these criteria). The index did not take into consideration energy impacts associated with heating or electricity, which would be largely dependent on non-oil energy sources, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. Only one U.S. city in our study, Boston, uses a significant amount of heating oil. For this reason Boston, ranked #2, gets an asterisk: if heating oil usage were used as a criteria its rank would be somewhat lower.
As fuel prices continue to rise the St. Louis region will lag behind these other regions. The time to act is now.
What Can The Most Vulnerable Cities Do?
It’s not impossible for cities that are now the most vulnerable to an oil crisis to become more prepared.One city that is taking comprehensive actions to lessen its economic and physical dependence on the automobile is Denver. Ranked #15 on our oil crisis preparedness index, Denver has bet its future on new multi-modal public transportation as part of an economic strategy known as Transit Oriented Development.
The city passed the largest regional transportation funding measure in America’s history in 2003. The measure, which was led by Mayor John Hickenlooper and regional mayors, garnered 73 percent voter approval for a $4.7 billion initiative that combines funding for multiple new light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit lines. There will even be a ski train to zip adventurers into the nearby constellation of Rockies resorts.
While other regions are funding and building state of the art transportation systems we are looking at spending massive sums on rebuilding an existing highway and building a new bridge. Our priorities need to be changed. We also need a leader to help guide the region to a more sustainable model.
Full Story here. Thanks to reader Jim Zavist for the link.
UPDATE 4/11/06 @ 6:45pm
The rankings have been called into question for this study. From the methodology on their related US City Rankings we know they considered all cities with a population greater than 100,000. With the City of St. Louis in the mid-300s we would have part of the study group but simply failed to make a showing on the top 50 list. As evidence, the City of Arlington TX has a population less than the City of St. Louis but appears as #43 on the list. I’ve sent SustainLane an email asking to clarify the ranking of St. Louis.
UPDATE 4/12/06 @ 7:45am
Well, turns out I was wrong and Publiceye was correct. Warren from SustainLane added a comment below to clarify the methodology for their sustainable cities project was different than that used to rank cities for oil crisis preparedness. In short they took the top 50 cities by population figures. Arlington TX was behind St. Louis in the 2000 Census but by the 2004 update that was used they had pulled ahead. So we don’t really know where we’d rank because we are too small to be counted.
– Steve
“We also need a leader to help guide the region to a more sustainable model.”
That is the operative statement of the entire post.
Who in office today would lead such a mission?
Slay has shown leadership. Dooley has shown leadership.
Maybe if the two of them shared in the leadership.
That said, I would put my St. Louis city automobile commute up against the schmoes in most of those other cities any day of the week.
Without looking at the cost of heating and cooling, the list certainly makes temperate St. Louis look bad. I wonder where we’d rank if the study looked at all of the fossil fuel factors that make up these cities.
I hardly think that LA could do well in an oil crisis!
“My hometown of Oklahoma City, known for its massive sprawl, was ranked ahead of St. Louis at #50.”
Steve, I think you might be misreading the data. The Table ranks the 50 largest cities by scores on a matrix. St. Louis’s place on the scale isn’t behind #50 OKC, because St. Louis wasn’t ranked at all . . . because it wasn’t one of the 50 largest cities in the country.
[REPLY – Sorry Publiceye, I am reading the data correctly. In their studies of cities they used those cities with a population greater than 100,000 which thankfully includes St. Louis. Arlington TX made the list at #43 despite having a population less than St. Louis’ St. Louis didn’t make the list because they don’t think we are among the top 50 in being prepared for an oil crisis. – SLP]
“‘My hometown of Oklahoma City, known for its massive sprawl, was ranked ahead of St. Louis at #50.’
Steve, I think you might be misreading the data. The Table ranks the 50 largest cities by scores on a matrix. St. Louis’s place on the scale isn’t behind #50 OKC, because St. Louis wasn’t ranked at all . . . because it wasn’t one of the 50 largest cities in the country.”
St. Louis should be in the top 50. The only way it wouldn’t be is if it looked at top 50 cities, as in the city proper. If this is how it were done, St. Louis City’s roughly 350,000 would have to be greater than several of the others on the list.
Lots of things about this confuse me.
[REPLY – Looks like they took cities with a population over 100,000 and then applied the other criteria to create a ranking. St. Louis simply didn’t make their cut. – SLP]
52nd City, etc.
I take the Hampton Bus and Metrolink, and that is my solution.
Thanks for checking, Steve. The methodology link you provided seems to be for something else. You are right, though, that Arlington, TX is smaller than St. Louis. By eyeball, is there any other city on the list smaller than St. Louis?
[REPLY – I checked all the cities that I thought might have a smaller population than St. Louis but most of them, due to their large land areas, have greater population. I will do a new post when I find out where St. Louis ranked. – SLP]
I’m ready!
The SustainLane oil crisis preparedness list did indeed analyze the largest 50 US cities, of which St. Louis has dropped out of based on 2004 population data.
The methodology you cite above is from overall SustainLane US sustainability rankings, which come out in June and are separate form this oil crisis preparedness list.
The sustainability rankings do look at renewable energy use, air quality, water quality, local food, sprawl, transportation, planning, city innovation, green economy and many other data points while the SustainLane oil crisis preparedness list only looks at mobility, local food, sprawl and wireless networks of the 50 largest US cities.
One more argument for merger . . . the only reason Louisville is on the list is their recent merger of the the old city of Louisville and Jefferson County. What study really needed to look at is metropolitan areas, not specific cities. Metro St. Louis has, what, 200+ cities in two states, while OKC, Indianapolis, Lexington and Louisville all have the bulk of their population in their respective merged city-counties.
I think it’s ridiculous to conduct any studies based on city limits instead of metro areas. Most people don’t shop, work, live or study based on artificial borders – they act like citizens of a wider metro area. Any such studies are basically meaningless, especially as regards St. Louis. Try again, SustainLane.
SustainLane used regional transportation statistics for their oil crisis preparedness index and regional land use (sprawl) data for the largest 50 US cities and their respective metro areas.
[REPLY The problem many of us are having is the selection criteria — the 50 largest cities based on population. My hometown of Oklahoma City has a greater population than the City of St. Louis but it has also sprawled all over the plains. In contrast, the City of St. Louis has been consitutionally land-locked since 1876 to a scant 62 +/- square miles. Looking at the 50 largest regions would have been a much better comparison. – SLP]
I checked the Census website for SMSA’s – Los Angeles and Long Beach are in one (#2), Dallas, Arlington and Ft. Worth are in another (#5), San Francisco and Oakland another (#12), and Phoenix and Mesa are in another (#14). St. Louis is #18, while New Orleans was #40, Tucson is #52, Honolulu is #54, Tulsa is #55, Albuquerque is #62 . . . Just goes to show you can manipulate statistics pretty much any way you want to . . . .