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The World's 10 Dirtiest Cities
neever writes "You may already know about the pollution plight of Linfen, China. But how about the heavy metals Pittsburghers breathe in on a daily basis? Or the incomparable smog Milanesi put up with? PopSci has culled an eye-opening selection of some of the world's most problematic cities. From the painfully high cancer rates in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan to the acid rain destroying La Oroya, Peru, writer Jason Daley walks readers through the lowest of the low; and explains why, despite it all, there's still hope for these places."
Portland, Oregon.
Highest percapita strip club concentration, and legalized live sex shows. And while not all the ladies shave, pretty much all of them are down.
This cryptic gem is a reference to a sketch in Kentucky Fried Movie called "A Fistful of Yen", which is arguably the best sketch of the movie besides Rex Cramer -- Danger seeker.
I was staying outside of LA in a high rise hotel a few years ago, and you could see the buildings of LA on the horizon, and they looked like they were covered by a slightly yellow dome of smog. It was very discernible, and seemed to have a solid line differentiating it from the clear air above.
The boundary you saw between the smog and clean air above is from an inversion layer
Sorry to be replying myself. I made a mistake in the link above.
Correct one: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1661031_1661028_1661016,00.html
Also, here's a very different list,
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/24/pollution-baku-oil-biz-logistics-cx_tl_0226dirtycities_slide_26.html?thisSpeed=30000
using the Mercer Health and Sanitation Index Score as the ranking value.
The first five are:
- Baku, Azerbaijan
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Antananarivo, Madagascar
- Port au Prince, Haiti
- Mexico City, Mexico
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
Forbes rated it (Pittsburgh) in the top ten cleanest cities:
:/
http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/16/worlds-cleanest-cities-biz-logistics-cx_rm_0416cleanest_slide_16.html?thisSpeed=30000
I hope this link works for you guys
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Not only that, but the methodology was a lil flawed in that the main sensor was maybe a mile from the coke works and not really the city proper. What also comes in to play is the number of coal power plants still kickin' in Ohio, West Virgina, New York and central PA; that's a problem in most of the rust belt.
It certainly isn't a progressive utopia like Portland or Seattle (maybe I'm a little bitter as people I know are moving there at an impressive pace), but it's doing much better as parent post noted.That said, the only bad air I tend to notice is the stench of substandard student housing in the "college" neighborhood :P
Carp are normally vegetarian but seem to also congregate around sewage discharge into streams and rivers. So they are not necessarily a sign of a healthy environment. But I think in Japan they are popular fish, while in the US they are considered foreign invasive species. In PA you could legally shoot them with a bow and arrow.
---quote---
Ay! I've just signed myself up for four years of university in Pittsburgh. Anyone know a good method of limiting heavy metal exposure in such an environment.... Wait... Why would I want that?.. I'll be IRON MAN!
---end quote---
Pittsburgh is a very different city than many Americans picture. There's only a small part of the city that actually has the pollution levels cited in the study. Steel and coke works have given way to robotics and medical research. Disclosure: I am finishing a graduate degree at Pitt right now. I may be biased, but I do hope a new study is done that covers the city as a whole.
That's the low inversion layer and no matter how little smog there is in LA, it will always look worse.
I lived in metro LA for almost two decades and the situation was improving over that whole period.
Tokyo, Kobe and Beijing to name three cities I either lived in or visited since have far, far worse problems. Beijing is the most polluted city I've ever had the misfortune of visiting.
Milan, Italy
Norilsk, Russia
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Mexico City, Mexico
Dakar, Senegal
Sumgayit, Azerbaijan
Linfen, China
La Oroya, Peru
Cubatao Valley, Brazil
Kabwe, Zambia
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Geography also plays a large role. If a city is surrounded by mountains like Los Angeles or Mexico City, there's no way for the smog to escape.
Phoenix gets this too in the winter. The cold air caps the warm (nasty) air underneath. But then again both Phoenix and LA are build in valleys. In winter nights here the sky turns a nice red color (the same color as northern "snow sky"), from all the light pollution bouncing off the smog layer. Though Phoenix has some of the most beautiful sunsets in the world, thanks to the brown cloud, and the huge amounts of desert dust in the air.
LA, of course, is much worse. But then again, I try to avoid that place like the plague. It takes 8 hours just to pass through town.
Dersert+Valley= an idiotic place to build a city, generally.
From what I here from my friends who spend time in the megalopolis' of China, though, LA and Phoenix has NOTHING on them. Pictures of Beijing and Shanghai that I've seen, are absolutely VILE. Not only is it high-rises to the horizon, but the sky is this awesome color of brown that only LA can dream of. It is almost opaque.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The boundary you saw between the smog and clean air above is from an inversion layer.
No, it's called the West Side. That small sliver of land that runs along the coast of the Pacific Ocean where the rich, the famous, and the wanna be rich and famous live and enjoy cool ocean breezes and the California experience, while the rest of us grind out our existence in what's left, a semi-arid, hot, dirty and treeless environment where, during the days, cars swarm like locusts, but at night, disappear, leaving those endless miles of pavement open for the crack whores and gang kids to conduct their business or make that late night trip to their local 7-11. If it wasn't for the streetlights, twinkling like jewels in the night sky for everyone fortunate to live above us, you'd think no one lived here at all.
Caracas?
Marrakech?
Nowadays..... Naples?
Not a comprehensive list, but it does include some of the cities you mentioned.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/15/news/pollute.php
"The dirtiest of the major cities, ranked by micrograms of particles of pollution dust per cubic meter, was Beijing, at 142. By comparison, Paris averages around 22 micrograms, London 24 and New York 27. The WHO guideline is 20."
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
No, something can pique your interest, but GP was saying that his interest peaked, i.e. reached a high point. His usage is correct. Nice pun, though :-P
inhabitat.com -- Google Earth has an overlay that shows pollution concentration around the world. You can see all the nasty stuff you're breathing in every day.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I attend a university in Pittsburgh and it is a fine city dealing with an overshadowing past. For proof of its green "transformation", check out some of the initiatives:
http://www.pittsburghgreenstory.org/html/index.html
http://www.popcitymedia.com/inthenews/solarcity0926.aspx
http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/mayor/assets/08_green_up_app.pdf
(unfortunately, Pittsburgh's typical weather doesn't allow for strikingly efficient solar power use)
"Someday I would like to quote myself."
Incorrect. I LIVE in Oakland. It is not "right next" to "Da Hood" (though boundary-wise it technically is "next to" Oakland). Unfortunately the route to downtown goes through the Bluff (a.k.a the Hill District), but Oakland itself is rarely affected by the blight that sits there. Oakland's problem is more bike theft than anything else, and while certain areas of Pittsburgh city are exposed to high violent crime (like the Hill District, or less and less East Liberty), if you went to Pitt you certainly know that the universities are excellent at keeping their campuses safe. Additionally (reading on), the Pittsburgh metro area has the "lowest crime among the 25 largest metro [areas]."
"Someday I would like to quote myself."
Dzerzhinsk FTW!
:(
Dioxin and phenol levels 7 orders of magnitude above the safe limit, an annual death rate exceeding the birth rate by 260% (life expectancies: M=42, F=47) and generally more soviet era chem-weapons-chem than you can shake a mutant-whatever at.
The wiki doesn't really do it justice...I saw the BBC doco once, and it was appalling. There's a `pond' so choked with chemicals that it appears to have a consistency closer to foam rubber than water, and a huge pit in the ground with hundreds of barrels of toxic waste spilling out the top of it. It's hard to believe that people actually live there. Truly tragic.
Was in Pittsburgh a week or two ago for a conference and had already read that the city was supposedly polluted, etc... but it was beautiful there. Of course I could still have been breathing arsenic for all I know since I haven't yet taken to carrying around a dosimeter, but visually at least, the place is as near to spotless as I have ever seen anywhere. Additionally, by comparison to many major cities people tend on the whole to be friendly/harmless and, while it rains quite a lot, the bonus is that you also get some really nice skies...
I'd recommend the place. In fact it was so unexpectedly nice that I'm still slightly in shock about it.
I don't think it's so much about the high buildings as it is simply the air quality itself. I was in Shanghai less than a year ago, and while waiting for my flight to start boarding, I watched another take off. It seemed barely a mile away when it became completely obscured by the brown-yellow haze of smog.
When I found myself in Minneapolis about 16 hours later, it was amazing and refreshing that I could watch that plane fly away until it was so small as to be unrecognizable.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
The US is not dirty in any sense of the way I understand 'dirty'
I live in a Manila high rise condo (Philippines), nice part of town, but I travel almost daily across the city. My usual journey leaves me thinking that most of those pictures look about as clean as the queens bathroom in comparison.
This country has some world class areas, stunning in fact, yet you take a peek over the fence line and you'll see shanties 5 stories high filling up absolutely every bit of space left vacant for more than a few minutes. (Outside of Manila is a different story, not clean, but not disgustingly dirty either, provincial cities are generally far better than Manila)
The Philippines, definitely not as bad as parts of China, but really, the US is far from dirty. It shouldn't even be in the list.
Stick in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and a few others in the region and you'll have yourself a list of dirty, in every possible way :-)
They are getting polluted for you. Bcoz of stricter pollution control in the US. China is getting polluted bcoz it is the manufacturing hun for all things bought in the US. How deep are US pockets, looks like you have not noticed the hole Dubya has created. Besides the UN is run by Washington Bureacrats, so your ire should be pointed towards them.
I don't suspect you understand the atmospheric conditions surrounding Los Angeles.
What you are seeing is what locals refer to as 'June Gloom' or 'Marine Layer' - what the rest of the world likes to refer to as common fog.
As for the actual air quality - having lived here for the last 5 years, I can attest that it isn't bad - compared to when I visited in the 90's, or worse, 80's. If you look around the roads of LA you will notice that almost all vehicles are late model - due to the strick emission standards the state has placed.
The only time I have ever seen actual 'smog' is driving into the core city, from the 101 freeway, on a day at about 105 degrees, stuck in massive traffic. Then you see a very slight 'cloud'
Not only did you not RTFA, you evidently did not even R the F summary. That's Milan as in Italy listed as one of the world's worst polluted cities. And you're telling me that the people of Azerbaijan are building too many McMansions!? The vast majority of pollution is caused by industry (and particularly by uncontrolled industry), not wasteful citizens. And anyway, I do not agree that the air and water in Europe is better than in the US. Italy and Greece have real problems with air pollution eating away at their antiquities, and the Mediteranean is barely better than a cess-pool off Spain.
I agree that American culture is very wasteful and we should change our ways, but please don't just make crap up to support the idea.