Green building isn’t just big business—it’s also become big news. Maybe it’s the intense heat that’s still beating down on most of the country. Or maybe it’s just the next best real estate story now that the housing market has slowed. But around the country, and particularly in major cities, newspapers have suddenly become hot for green building stories.

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story last weekend about Hunters Point, a section of the city, according to the paper, that’s “known for its toxic soil and polluted air.” Turns out it might soon be known for running on renewable energy. A new development in the former navy yard will contain 1600 new homes, built out of “environmentally friendly” materials and powered almost entirely by solar cells (the rest of the electricity would be hydro-generated).

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that green apartment buildings have been sprouting up around the city, with at least six buildings “designed to meet elevated standards for energy efficiency and for the use of environmentally friendly materials” constructed in the past three years. The Solaire, a Tribeca tower with a green roof and solar power, even goes so far as to use eco-friendly cleaning products in the common areas.

And in Chicago, a city whose green building boom has been winning accolades lately, the Tribune reported recently on GM’s new LEED-certified factory in Lansing, Michigan (the building is eco-friendly, even if the cars produced there aren’t). Among other features, the GM plant features a rainwater-catchment system on its roof, whose water is used to flush the building’s toilets.

Media hype aside, green building is catching on—but it’s still the exception. On the Colorado high plains east of the Rockies, where it’s nothing but sprawl, the only thing green about the countless subdivisions being erected is the two-inch-high, perfectly mowed strips of non-native, water-sucking Kentucky bluegrass. There’s nothing but sunshine out there, and not a tree for miles, and yet the communities are running on coal-fired power. Maybe the folks out there haven’t been reading the papers.