The World's 10 Dirtiest Cities 286
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."
The City You're Looking For (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:You want bad air...? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bad air... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Re:It doesn't have to be that way... (Score:4, Informative)
Correct one: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1661031_1661028_1661016,00.html [time.com]
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 [forbes.com]
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
Re:Pittsburgh for University..... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/16/worlds-cleanest-cities-biz-logistics-cx_rm_0416cleanest_slide_16.html?thisSpeed=30000 [forbes.com]
I hope this link works for you guys
Re:Pittsburgh for University..... (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:It doesn't have to be that way... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Pittsburgh for University..... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
LA has gotten better (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:The list please (Score:2, Informative)
Milan, Italy
Norilsk, Russia
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Mexico City, Mexico
Dakar, Senegal
Sumgayit, Azerbaijan
Linfen, China
La Oroya, Peru
Cubatao Valley, Brazil
Kabwe, Zambia
Re:It doesn't have to be that way... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad air... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Bad air... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
additional cities (Score:1, Informative)
Caracas?
Marrakech?
Nowadays..... Naples?
Re:Does anybody know more comprehensive list? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [iht.com]
"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."
Re:Dirtiest (Score:2, Informative)
Excellent Idea, alas not new. (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Pittsburgh for University..... (Score:2, Informative)
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 [pittsburghgreenstory.org]
http://www.popcitymedia.com/inthenews/solarcity0926.aspx [popcitymedia.com]
http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/mayor/assets/08_green_up_app.pdf [pittsburgh.pa.us]
(unfortunately, Pittsburgh's typical weather doesn't allow for strikingly efficient solar power use)
Re:At Pitt... (Score:2, Informative)
That's not polluted, THIS is polluted (Score:5, Informative)
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 [bbc.co.uk] 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.
Re:Pittsburgh for University..... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Bad air... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bad air... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad air... (Score:4, Informative)
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'
Re:Bad air... (Score:3, Informative)
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.