Print edition: 
City leaders may be tempted to ignore a recent study that ranked Wichita last in the nation in environmental livability. After all, rankings are a dime a dozen these days, and some of the study’s measurement criteria seem impractical.
But besides doing the right thing, here is one reason why our leaders should care: The young professionals this city needs to recruit and retain care about the environment. And given the choice, they are less likely to want to live in a city that is considered environmentally backward.
The 2011 Sustainability Rankings (http://ourgreencities.com/) analyzed the 55 largest U.S. cities by population. It looked at whether the cities had environmentally friendly policies on growth, land use, transportation, pollution reduction, energy conservation and other sustainability issues.
Not only did Wichita come in dead last, it wasn’t even close. The city with the second-worst ranking — Colorado Springs — scored more than twice as high as Wichita.
Population size helps drive some environmental policies. For example, most of the cities that ranked highest in the study are much larger than Wichita and have traffic problems. When it only takes about 15 minutes to drive anywhere in Wichita, and when there are plenty of places to park, there isn’t a pressing need here for an expansive public transportation system or carpool lanes.
Still, Kay Johnson, director of environmental initiatives at the city, reviewed the data used to rate Wichita and concluded that, all in all, the study was fair.
One of Wichita’s obvious flaws is that it doesn’t have a residential recycling program. This is what makes newcomers to Wichita shake their heads and think they have gone back in time. Instead of having a municipal or franchised trash system like nearly every other large city (and most of our suburban neighbors), Wichita has an expensive free-market system that charges extra for recycling. Unlike many other cities, Wichita also doesn’t have a sustainability policy, though the city has been working with Visioneering Wichita on a community plan. A big reason why Wichita is behind other cities has been a lack of leadership.
Not only have many city officials not shown much interest in environmental issues
(unless they negatively impact developers), some have bragged from the bench about how they don’t recycle and have mocked environmental sustainability.
Still, Wichita has been improving. The plan to add bike lanes to Douglas and the recent addition of bike racks in Delano are positive steps. And Old Town received a smart growth award from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2007. The city’s water-recharge project also shows smart planning.
What’s also encouraging is that most of the cities that rank high for environmental livability got that way because of grassroots efforts. Citizens initiated environmental projects that eventually led to public policies.
Wichita needs to have policies that make sense for its needs and should-n’t, for example, build a light-rail system just to boost its environmental rating. But if it cares about attracting young professionals, it needs to care more for the environment.
