Rankings Galore: Cities Ranked for Solar Footprint, Job Seekers, Equality, and Unionization

There are plenty of new rankings floating out there measuring up cities in California, so we’ll give you a rundown on the latest lists.

First up is a report from the Environment California Research and Policy Center. In this analysis, cities that use solar power the most are ranked and San Diego comes out on top. The detailed report shows how cities rank in terms of the number of solar installations per 100 residents, the results are separated by population levels of towns with 1,000 to 10,000 residents, by cities with 10,000 to 50,000 residents, and by those with populations of more than 50,000. The report notes that “If San Diego were a nation unto itself, it would rank among the top 25 nations in the world in terms of solar capacity, with more solar power than the entire nation of Mexico.” Other highlights from the report include:

  • “Los Angeles ranks second, with more than 4,000 solar installations adding up to more than 36 MW of power generation capacity.
  • San Jose ranks third, with more than 2,700 solar installations and 31 MW of solar electric generation capacity.
  • In addition, San Francisco, Fresno, Bakersfield, Santa Rosa, Roseville, Clovis, Sacramento and Oakland all have more than 1,000 solar installations. In terms of generation capacity, Fresno, San Francisco, Bakersfield, Sacramento, and Santa Rosa all have more than 10 MW installed.

You can read the full report here.

US News & World Report also has a few rankings out, starting with the 10 Worst Cities for Finding a Job. Unfortunately, quite a few California cities/metro areas make the list due to unemployment rates and various job industries that have experienced significant losses. In fact, a majority of the list is comprised of CA cities/metro areas. They list is as follows:

  1. Merced
  2. Fresno
  3. Modesto
  4. Stockton
  5. Visalia-Porterville, CA
  6. Atlantic City, N.J.
  7. Bakersfield-Delano
  8. Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton
  9. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario
  10. Brownsville, Texas

You can see the rankings here. US News has also ranked the 13 Least Equal U.S. Cities. See that list here.

And US News has also ranked the 10 Most Unionized Cities. See what CA cities make the ranks.

Submitted by jbrown on Wed, 01/25/2012 - 2:10pm