Raleigh named most sustainable mid-sized community

RALEIGH -- Raleigh was named the country's most sustainable mid-sized community by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the latest green-friendly honor for the city.

Mayor Charles Meeker announced the award today at City Hall, saying Raleigh has not wavered from its commitment to the environment even during the recession.

The city "is a careful steward of the environment and has a long-term vision for a prosperous future," Meeker said in a prepared statement.

The chamber recognized Raleigh for a green-building worker training course that taught more than 200 people in the first year; an electric plug-in vehicle program that will bring up to 30 charging stations by September; and one of the nation's two convention centers with a LEED silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The other is in Pittsburgh.

Raleigh beat 49 cities that applied in the mid-sized category (50,000 to 500,000 residents), including finalists North Little Rock, Ark., and Pittsburgh. The winners were honored Tuesday night in Philadelphia at a national Chamber conference.

The prize comes with a $20,000 award that will pay for trees along public streets through the NeighborWoods program, which already has added 10,000 trees to Raleigh's canopy.

Previous winners in the mid-sized category are Grand Rapids, Mich., Anaheim, Calif., and Chapel Hill-Carrboro.

This year, the winner among large cities was San Jose, Calif.

The small community prize went to Greensburg, Kan., a two-mile-wide town leveled by a tornado in 2007. The town is rebuilding from the ground up based on sustainable principles.

Raleigh also was ranked No. 3 last month among "America's Least Toxic Cities" by Forbes.com. The website examined the 80 largest U.S. metro areas for which toxicity data is available.