Zipcar: DC Is A Leading "Future Metropolis"

• March 5th 2012

by Shilpi Paul

In Zipcar’s recently published Future Metropolis Index, DC came in second overall, tied with Seattle and behind San Francisco, reported Atlantic Cities.

The index from the car sharing company ranked 36 U.S. cities based on five factors: innovation, sustainability, vibrancy/creativity, efficiency, and livability/optimism. It gathered information on things like public transportation usage, crime stats, and the prevalence of artsy jobs, layering the data for the final rankings and reporting on the individual outcomes as well.

It seems like DC is included on a new list/set of rankings almost weekly, and as ridiculous and unscientific as these lists can be, we were generally impressed by the data that Zipcar used to come up with the rankings.

Efficiency was based on things like public transportation usage, vibrancy/creativity on park space and arts-related jobs, innovation (where we ranked 4th) on free wireless hotspots and the number of universities (among other things), sustainability on the prevalence of bicycle lanes and hybrid car ownership, and livability/optimism on unemployment and violent and property crime. Data was collected between July 2011 and January 2012 with the help of KRC Research.

Based on the methodology, the District is at or near the top of the pack for efficiency (#1) and vibrancy/creativity (#2), but at the bottom for livability/optimism (#24).

Some other interesting finds: the top five cities for sustainability were all out West, East Coast cities were deemed the most efficient (DC, New York, Boston and Atlanta ranked high above the rest of the pack), and New York ranked second for livability/optimism, behind El Paso, TX.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/zipcar_says_dc_second_leading_future_metropolis/5238.