Top 10 Overall Performances

San Francisco

Washington, D.C.

Seattle

Boston

New York City

Minneapolis

Denver

Portland, Ore

Los Angeles

Chicago

These cities earned the highest combined scores. In order to earn a spot on this list, cities had to rank highly on positive lists (such as "best public transit") and rank low or not at all on negative lists (such as "worst allergies").

Top 10 Most Frequent List Appearances

New York

San Francisco

Washington, D.C.

Seattle

Boston

Minneapolis

Denve

Los Angeles

Chicago

Miami

These cities showed up most frequently on the lists featured in Scientific American's top 10 cities lists for the past four days (green living, health, air quality, technology). New York City, the overall winner, appeared on more than 60 percent of all the collected lists, whereas the cities that tied for second earned spots on almost half the lists; the third-place cities showed up in the rankings about 30 percent of the time.

Not all of the lists on which these overall scores are based were created using conventional statistical or scientific methods, therefore their validity should be suspect. We have presented this information mainly for discussion. Scientific American gathered the lists from several online sources. To earn a place on the "overall performance" list, cities had to appear on multiple lists, and earned points based on their rankings. Each city's points were added up to arrive at the overall score. A high rank on a positive list such as "best public transit" earned a city points whereas a spot on a negative list such as "worst allergies" detracted points. Each city's points added up to its overall score.

Part 1—The Top 10 Greenest Cities

Part 2—The Top 10 Healthiest Cities

Part 3—The Cities Ranked by Cleanest and Dirtiest Air

Part 4—The Top 10 Technologically Advanced Cities