Honolulu ranked best U.S. city in which to raise a family...

In May, Honolulu was named the best city in which to raise a family by Best Life magazine, which used student-teacher ratios, test scores, budgets and other categories and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Education Statistics and others to rank 257 U.S. cities as the best and worst places to raise a family.

Honolulu was ranked No. 1 for low unemployment, beaches and for the almost $9,000 schools spend on each student. Virginia Beach, Va., and Billings, Mont., came in second and third. The worst cities included Alexandria, Va., Winston-Salem, N.C., and Lexington, Ky.

... and it has the smallest 'carbon footprint,' too

Honolulu has the lowest carbon footprint among the largest 100 cities in the United States, according to research by the Brookings Institution reported by the Pacific Business news on May 29.

Honolulu's per capita footprint from transportation and residential energy use increased, however, by about 10.2 percent between 2000 and 2005, the newspaper reported. That's substantially more than the average urban area increase of 1.1 percent. Still, an average Honolulu resident emitted 1.356 tons of carbon from highway transportation and residential energy in 2005, garnering it the first place ranking.

The average per capita footprint of the 100 largest metro areas rose 1.1 percent and the nation increased 2.2 percent from 2000 to 2005. The average 100-metro resident emitted 2.24 tons of carbon from transportation and residential energy, while the average American emitted 2.6 tons of carbon.  Worst on the list was Lexington, Ky., with 3.455 tons, while the average footprint for the 100 cities was 2.235 tons.