DC Ranks As 3rd Most 'Future-Focused' City In Nation

WASHINGTON, DC — Washington, D.C. ranks as the third most “future-focused” city in the nation, according to a new report that analyzed 50 of the biggest cities and rated them based on eight different sustainability metrics.

FinanceBuzz, a personal finance data and information company, studied data points relating to sustainability, environmental friendliness and infrastructure in its 2021 ranking of the 25 most future-focused cities in the United States.

The District of Columbia ranked behind only San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, as the most future-focused city.

According to The Trust for Public Land, the nation’s capital boasts the best parks in the country. The perfect 5.0 score that D.C. earned in the parks category combined with scores of 2.5 or higher in six of the remaining categories to place the city to the number three spot, according to FinanceBuzz.

Along with parks, the other categories assessed by the researchers were pollution, the number of socially and environmentally conscious companies (B Corporations) based in the city, electric vehicle charging stations, solar power availability, carbon emissions, bicycle friendliness and internet speed.

The only category that D.C. did not score higher than 2.5 was in the number of B Corporations located in the city.

According to FinanceBuzz, the top 10 future-focused cities in 2021 were:

1. San Francisco
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Washington, D.C.
4. San Diego,
5. Denver,
6. Seattle
7. Boston
8. Austin
9. San Jose
10. Las Vegas

The only Virginia city to make the top 25 was Richmond, which ranked No. 23.

Virginia’s state capital earned scores of 2.5 or less in six of the eight categories. However, it was still able to make the top 25 thanks to strong performances in the pollution and electric vehicle charging station categories, where the city earned scores of 3.9 and 4.5, respectively, according to FinanceBuzz.