Irvine is the Greenest Big City in Orange County Based on National Rankings

No large Orange County cities crack the top 10 in rankings of the “greenest” cities in America, so with Irvine checking in at No. 30, that would make it the greenest in the County of Orange.

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The personal finance site WalletHub has Irvine sandwiched between No. 29 Dallas and No. 31 Chula Vista because the OC city got a total score of 50.55 when metrics such as “environmental quality rating” (63); “greenness of transportation” (51); and “greenness of energy sources (10) were averaged out.

Other Orange County cities that make the list are Anaheim (65) and Santa Ana (79). Long Beach bests both at No. 35.

New York City is ranked the greenest city in America, while Baton Rouge, LA, is the worst among the 100 big cities ranked.

It's important to do well with greenness, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, who find “more jobs are created for each unit of electricity generated from renewable sources than from fossil fuels.”

WalletHub also points to a different report this year, this one from the Solar Foundation, which concluded the solar industry has created jobs at a rate nearly 20 times faster than the national economy.

Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

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