The Overview:
The Smarter Cities website presents the results of a 2008 survey of hundreds of American cities, evaluating them on the progress each city has made and is making with environmental stewardship and sustainable growth.

The Site:
The CityGrid, built in Flash, allows users to sort over 600 cities by name or criteria to see how their city—or cities near them—did in the survey.   The cities featured in either the Top 15 or Top 10 Criteria rankings are detailed in City Profile pages.

A Google-based map, also built in Flash, shows at a glance where these cities are—and to see how different regions of the country compared.  Small info cards attached to each point on the map and each city name in the grid, provides more information about the city and an opportunity for the user to easily access the City Profile.

Interactive quizzes, photo galleries, user-submitted questions/answers, and blog feeds from the parent Natural Resources Defense Council website help keep this website updated, even as researchers and editors begin work on the 2009 survey.

The site is built with a Drupal 6 CMS backend, allowing editors to easily make updates and additions to the website.