A Sustainability Assessment of St. Paul Using LEED-EN

Today, 82 percent of North America\u27s population lives in cities. To address the challenge of sustainable development in growing cities, a number of certifications have been created to ensure the living quality of urban areas. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is one sustainable development certification in the U.S. with 1.85 million certified square feet as of January 2015. This study applies 12 criteria from LEED for Existing Neighborhoods (LEED-EN) to 40-acre samples in St. Paul, Minnesota to see how scores vary by a variety of factors, including location, income and building age variables. We show that variables measuring density and connectivity exhibit the greatest difference between high and low-scoring samples. We also find that proximity to city center and large transit networks appears positively correlated with sample scores, while the median age of the sample\u27s buildings is negatively correlated