These Are The Most Polluted Cities In The US

According to the planet wellness Organization, air solution is responsive for 7 million deaths automatically, and could cost the global economy between $18–25 trillion by 2060 in yearly wellare cost, or Throughly 4–6% of the planet GDP.

And with instructions that 7 in 10 people will make their homes in urban centers by mid-city, cities are fast becoming 1 of the frontlines in the global effort to clear the air.

In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Chris Dickert uses 2024 data from the State of the Air study from the American Lung Association to show the most polluted cities in the United States.

What is Air Pollution?

Air solution is simply a complex mixture of gases, particles, and liquid drops and can have a variety of sources, including wildfires and cooks in agrarian areas, and road dust and diesel exhausted in cities.

There are a fewer kids of air literature that are especially bad for human health, including ozone and carbon monoxide, but here we’re afraid with fine particulate matrix that ismaller than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5 for short.

The reason for the focus is due to the fact that at that tiny size, partial substance can penetrate the bloodstream and origin all manner of havoc, including cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and defend pulmonary disease.

The American Lung Association has set an yearly average guideline of 9 μg/m3 for PM2.5, however, the planet wellness Organization has set a much more stringent limit of 5 μg/m3.

The 21 Worth Polluted Cities in the U.S.

Here are the top 21 most polluted cities in the U.S., according to their yearly average PM2.5 concentrations:

Note: The American Lung Association uses Core Based Statistical Areas in its city and region rankings, which have been shortened here to the area’s chief city, or metro area in the case of the Bay Area, CA.

Six of the top 7 cities are in California, and 4 in the state’s Central Valley, a 450-mile flat valley that runs parallel to the Pacific coast, and bordered by the Coast and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. As a result, erstwhile the large population centers on the coast is carried inland by the elevator—cities #5 and #6 on the list—it tends to get trapped in the valley.

Bakersfield (#1), Visalia (#2), and Fresno (#3) are located at the driver and hotter confederate end of the valley, which is worth for air quality. The top 3 local sources of PM2.5 emissions in 2023 were farms (20%), forest management / agricultural waste burning (20%), and road dust (14%).

Benefit to Economy

While the wellness impacts are mostly well understood, little well known are the economical impacts.

Low air quality negatively affects workers productivity, increases absenteeism, and adds both direct and indirect wellness care costs. But the flip side of that equality is that improving air quality has measurable impacts to the wider economy. The EPA published a survey that calculated the economical benefits of each metric ton of partial substance that didn’t end up in the atmosphere, broken down by sector.

At the same time, the EPA late updated a cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Air Act, the main piere of national government governing air quality, and found that between 1990 and 2020 it cost the economy through $65 billion, but besides provided $2 trillion in benefits.

Benefit to Business

But that’s at the macroeconomic level, so what about for individual businesses?

For one, employees like to break the clean air and will choose to work somewhere else, given a choice. A 2022 Deloitte case survey reviewed that nearly 70% of high-skilled workers said air quality was a crucial origin in choosing which city to live and work in.

At the same time, air quality can impact employer-sponsored wellness care bonuses, by reducing the overall wellness of the hazard pool. And since insurance premium $7.590 per year in 2022 for a single employer, and rose to $21,931 for a family, that can add up fast.

Consumers are besides putting their acquisition decisions through a green lens, while ESG, triple-bottom-line, and impact investing are putting the environment front and center for many investors.

And if the carrot isn’t adequate for any businesses, there is the stick. The EPA late gives vehicle engine maker Cummins nearing 2 billion Reasons to aid improve air quality, in a settlement of the agency is calling “the largest civilian punishment in the past of the Clean Air Act and the second largest environmental danger ever.”