Why is Los Angeles the most (air) polluted city?

Question

As far as Air Quality please. I'm trying to come up with many hypothesis and conclusion to why L.A. is ranked # 1 in air pollution.

Answer 1

Adam Smith's answer is dead on! LA is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains. The prevailing winds are from the sea. There's no place for the smog to go. Whenever you see those perfectly clear postcard type days in LA, it's usually because there's a Santa Ana condition when the winds favor the northeast to east. All of the pollutants are blown out to sea.

I do get a kick out of first time visitors to LA, when they see the stable marine layer with its associated haze. They're always amazed at the thickness of the "smog!"

Answer 2

L.A. is very spread out with a lot of conjested, overpopulated areas; lot of people and lots of cars. It also has oil refineries in these nearby areas and other plants. Inland from L.A. and these areas are hills & mountains that block alot of the polluted air from moving on, even when winds come in from the ocean.

All the above applies to Houston which can be just as bad and sometimes worst than L.A. It doesn't have the hills/
mountains, but it has a lot more refineries and chemical plants. High humidity often restricts pollution from moving on and there isn't as much wind coming in from the Gulf to blow it inland.

Alot is also caused by all this terrible immigration problem we have and are ???? politicians.

Answer 3

The other reason why cities like Houston and L.A. are more polluted compared to colder cities (NY, Chicago or Seattle) is the heat. Smog, or ground-level ozone is created by the chemical reaction in the air of volatile organic carbon (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The hotter the sun, the faster this reaction goes.

VOC's are typically emitted by paints/coatings or gasoline. NOx is emitted from combustion processes, like boilers, heaters, car engines or cement kilns. When these two pollutant meet in the air above LA, in the presence of sunlight, ground-level ozone is formed. While smog/ozone will form in colder cities, the chemical reaction isn't as big in those cities.

Answer 4

the previous answerer left out the most important detail which I believe is what you were searching for, the reason LA is so afflicted by air pollution has to do with the mountains and the restriction of air movement- this natural wind break causes the particulate matter to build up, where as in most other large cities the wind is more able to disperse it.

Answer 5

Fossil Burning, Smoking, Factories producing Carbon, Less Plants.

Answer 6

i thoght it was houston - oil refineries