Cities With the Worst Air Pollution in the US
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More than 40% of people live in places with unhealthy air quality, according to a recent report.
More than 40% of U.S. residents—about 135 million people—live in places with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, and cities in the West and Southwest dominate the list, according to a report by the American Lung Association.
Even breathing in small amounts of ozone can cause throat irritation, chest pain, coughing and shortness of breath, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It also can worsen chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and hurt the body’s ability to fight off infections.
Here are the cities most polluted by ozone:
| Ranking | City |
| 1 | Los Angeles-Long Beach, California |
| 2 | Bakersfield, California |
| 3 | Visalia, California |
| 4 | Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California |
| 5 | Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona |
| 6 | Sacramento-Roseville, California |
| 7 | San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, California |
| 8 | Denver-Aurora, Colorado |
| 9 | Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, Utah |
| 10 | San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, California |
| 11 | Houston-The Woodlands, Texas |
| 12 | Las Vegas-Henderson, Nevada |
| 13 | El Paso-Las Cruces, Texas-New Mexico |
| 14 | New York City-Newark, New Jersey New York-New Jersey-Connecticut-Pennsylvania |
| 15 | El Centro, California |
| 16 | Chicago-Naperville, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin |
| 17 | Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas-Oklahoma |
| 18 | Fort Collins, Colorado |
| 19 | Chico, California |
| 20 | Redding-Red Blu, California |
The list of cities with the worst ozone pollution remains the same as in last year’s report, although a few moved around in the rankings. Nevertheless, the 25 most ozone-polluted cities experienced fewer bad air days on average from 2017 to 2019 than did those in last year’s report covering 2016 to 2018.
In 2017, 2018 and 2019, more than 123.2 million people lived in the 163 U.S. counties that earned an F for ozone levels. In fact, three out of every eight U.S. residents live in counties with F grades.
The data on air quality were obtained from the EPA’s Air Quality System database. For more information from the report click here.
Andre Claudio is an assistant editor at Route Fifty.
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