For the second year in a row, a ranking of how 100 U.S. cities are performing on reaching the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, set in 2015, shows them lagging behind–especially on gender, poverty, and inequality, reports Fast Company's Eillie Anzilotti.
As many as 62 cities are less than half of the way toward making good on the 15 of the 17 SDGs that apply to urban areas, the analysis shows. The best performing metro area, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (which also topped this list last year) is only 68% of the way toward meeting the SDGs for urban areas.
As spotty as some of the data may be, though, some clear trends emerge in the second report. The main barriers to achieving the SDGs should be familiar to anyone who has spent time in an American city: poverty, racial inequity, climate inaction, and failure to provide healthy food to all residents. While these issues are not unique to cities in the U.S., there are certain aspects of American politics and culture that render them especially difficult to overcome.
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