America's dirtiest cities are revealed

Release time：2024-05-29 00:07:10 Source：Worldly Weaves news portal

It has earnt a reputation for its trash-filled, rat-riddled sidewalks but New York is not America's dirtiest city, according to a new study. 

Research published by LawnStarter ranked the filthiest metros across the country, taking into account factors such as air quality, infrastructure problems, and the number of pests scurrying around in people's homes.

Its findings showed Houston, Texas, is now the dirtiest city in the US after overtaking Newark, New Jersey, from last year.

Newark, which is across the Hudson River from New York City, still ranked in second place.

And while the Big Apple didn't claim the number one spot, it did secure 12th place. 

Houston surpassed Newark as the dirtiest city in 2023, largely due to issues with pollution and cockroach infestations

Across the 152 cities that were analyzed, Houston was the third most polluted overall and had the third worst greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities. 

The city of 2.3 million also has the biggest cockroach problem, according to data LawnStarter's sister site PestGnome pulled from the Census Bureau.

Southern states in general appear to have far more cockroach-infested homes as San Antonio, Texas and Tampa, Florida rounded out the top three.

And Americans terrified of mice or rats should steer clear of Boston, Philadelphia or Baltimore, which were the top three cities for rodents to populate in homes.  

California also had a number of bad showings on the list despite its billions of dollars of spending to clean up homeless shelters over the last five years.

By comparison, San Francisco spent a record $72.5 million on street cleaning in 2019 and has been ranked among the cleaner half of cities in the US. 

Since then, the street cleaning division of the city's Department of Public Works received a $16.7 million budget increase in 2023, CBS reported.

The Golden Gate Bridge tower with San Francisco cityscape in the background

Afternoon view of the downtown skyline of San Bernardino, California, which was the fourth dirtiest city in America due to its poor air quality. Many other cities in the Golden State have bad air quality from pollution

Ontario, California is pictured from overhead. The city is tied with San Bernadino for the worst air quality in the country

Riverside, California, also has the worst air quality in the country alongside Ontario and San Bernadino. All three cities are east of Los Angeles and near many factories and warehouses

San Bernadino, colloquially known as the 'armpit' of California among locals, was the fourth dirtiest city mostly because of its poor air quality. 

Riverside and Ontario, which are also in the Los Angeles metro area, were tied with San Bernardino for the worst air quality in the country.

These LA adjacent cities, once filled with orange groves and grape vineyards, have largely been replaced with pollution-heavy warehouses. About 1 billion square feet of warehouse space to be exact, The Verge reported in 2022.

Residents of San Bernadino were the most dissatisfied with the cleanliness of their city for the second year in a row, according to data from the study.

The LawnStarter study also claimed the southwestern US had problems with drinking water contamination.

'Except for Salt Lake City, every Southwest city we ranked violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once in 2020, the year of the most recent EPA data,' according to the study.

Las Vegas - the 19th dirtiest overall - had the most unsafe water in the southwest.

Las Vegas had the most unsafe water in the southwestern US, according to the study

Salt Lake City, Utah, was the only city in the southwest that didn't have major drinking water violations in 2020, per the most recent EPA data

Virginia Beach, Virginia was ranked the cleanest city in the US. It was tied with three other cities in California and New Jersey for having the fewest greenhouse gas emissions from large facilities per capita

However, the most obvious image that comes to mind when one thinks of a dirty city is littering. 

Interestingly, the authors of the study claim that Ohioans specifically has a unique habit of flicking their used cigarettes on the ground.

Local media in northeast Ohio has picked up on the sheer amount of discarded cigarette butts in the state, with cleveland.com reporting on information campaigns back in 2021 to discourage people from littering.

Five Ohio cities that LawnStarter ranked were among localities with the highest share of smokers in the US. 

Many cities that were close to water in California, Virginia and North Carolina were the cleanest on the list. 

Virginia Beach, Virginia was ranked the cleanest city in the US, though the study said being on the coast isn't the end all be all to having a metro free of waste.

In fact, inland cities such as Fremont, California and Winston-Salem, North Carolina were also among the most immaculate.

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