It's a Quantity Thing...

It's interesting to see the yardstick in which trends are measured... in the case of green roofs, it's pretty easy to add up square footage and declare a winner. A recent post on Land8Lounge showed the annual sizing up of metropolitan areas in North America... and impressive listing for sure with a total of over 3 million square feet installed in one year.


:: image via Land8Lounge

Top Ten Metropolitan Area – Green Roof Square Footage Installed, 2008
City, State - Square Footage (source: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities)

:: Chicago, Illinois - 534,507
:: Washington D.C. - 501,042
:: New York, New York - 358,986
:: Vancouver, British Columbia - 320,000
:: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 196,820
:: Baltimore, Maryland - 150,032
:: Montreal, Quebec - 75,700
:: Grand Rapids, Michigan - 74,784
:: Princeton, New Jersey - 56,250
:: Newtown Square, Pennsylvania - 48,130

Now I'm pretty sure that Portland had more than 10th place Newtown Square, with a bit over an acre... so curious to see who dropped the ball at the City of Portland on this reporting. Not that it matters, in size war, Portland will never be the leader for square footage, with our minimalist 200' square blocks and our smaller economy - but with the rapid growth and bountiful incentives, it's actually somewhat embarrassing to see the city absent from this list. I'll do some digging and see where we did end up in the 2008 tally.