A climate guide to your March Madness bracket
I pick the greenest cities represented in the college basketball tournaments.
This week, the NCAA kicks off its college basketball tournaments, known colloquially as March Madness.
Every year, millions of fans fill out 68-team brackets to determine who will win the men’s and women’s championships. But no one has ever picked a perfect bracket — blue-chip behemoths get upset early (like Arizona or Purdue last year), and unlikely underdogs make it deep into the tournament (like Florida Atlantic).
Since there’s no good way to pick a bracket, this year I picked my men’s and women’s college basketball teams based on how “green” their cities are.*
Though there are many ways to determine if a city is “green,” one of the biggest indicators of a climate-friendly city is transportation: Transportation accounts for the largest slice of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, so how cities design infrastructure significantly affects their carbon footprint.
Rather than rely on my super subjective personal experience, I rooted my bracket in a new report, which ranks the 100 biggest metro areas in the U.S. based on eight transportation factors that influence emissions: vehicle miles traveled, vehicle fuel economy, transit ridership, electric vehicle penetration, biking activity, pedestrian activity, truck miles traveled, and change in vehicle miles.
Using these metrics, some trends emerge: For example, dense coastal cities that prioritize bus routes, bike lanes, and rail lines are way greener than sprawling Southern cities that build wide highways and big parking lots.
And though I personally favor cities with expansive rail systems, the metrics in this report give a fuller, more realistic picture of how we can green cities in a car-centric country.
So let’s crunch the numbers and fill out the greenest men’s and women’s college basketball brackets.
*A note on the metrics: Some universities are outside metropolitan areas covered in the report, so I had to improvise:
If schools were close enough to a ranked metropolitan area, I lumped them into that area (like Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, which is only 20 minutes from Raleigh-Cary).
If schools were well outside any ranked metropolitan area, I scored them as if they were 50.5 in the report (i.e., they would lose to a team representing a city ranked 1–50 and beat a team representing a city ranked 51–100).
Men’s results
Final Four: San Diego State, Saint Mary’s, Saint Peter’s, Oakland
Winner: Saint Peter’s
Shoutout to Saint Peter’s, a private university in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York City. Unsurprisingly, the New York metro area — which is packed with people and has the country’s largest subway system — ranks high in the report.
According to the report, New York City is a top metro area for transit ridership (no. 1), biking activity (no. 1), pedestrian activity (no. 2), truck miles traveled (no. 4), change in vehicle miles (no. 4), vehicle miles traveled (no. 6), and vehicle fuel economy (no. 7).
Saint Pete’s is a 15 seed this year, which doesn’t bode well for my bracket. But they actually had a deep run in 2022 tournament, when they knocked off No. 2 Kentucky and then No. 1 Purdue to reach the Elite Eight. Go Peacocks.
Early exits: Drake, Clemson, Creighton, Houston
A couple Great Plains cities and a couple Southern cities ranked worst in each tournament region. The sprawling, concrete-laded monstrosity that is Houston — a No. 1 seed in the tourney, but a No. 78 seed in the report — is everything wrong with how to build a city.
Women’s results
Final Four: Fairfield, UCLA, Columbia, Stanford
Winner: Columbia
Both Stanford and UCLA are No. 2 seeds and pretty storied basketball programs, so the basketball fan in me isn’t as nervous as my reach for some of the men’s picks (also shoutout to the Bay Area, which ranks in the top two for vehicle fuel economy, transit ridership, biking activity, ratio of EV owners, and truck miles traveled).
But again, the real winner here is New York City. Columbia University is nestled in Upper Manhattan, a high-density urban environment that encourages walking, biking, and public transit over driving — crucial factors of a green city. Though the Lions are a No. 12 seed in the tournament, they’re a No. 1 seed in this transit-lover’s heart.
Early exits: South Carolina, Creighton, Vanderbilt, Chattanooga
University of South Carolina may be No. 1 in its tournament region, but it is nearly dead last (98th!) in the green city rankings: Columbia, South Carolina, is one of the worst cities for vehicle miles traveled and biking activity and has one of the lowest ratios of electric vehicle owners.
I did actually fill out my men’s and women’s brackets based on these green-city rankings (though they may not be public till the tournament starts). As much as I ❤️ NY, I put no money on them.
Such a clever idea!
This is such a fun idea!!