How dirty is Buffalo, New York?

A survey was recently carried out to determine where the dirtiest city in the country was located. How dirty do you think Buffalo, New York is?

The survey was carried out by Lawn Starter and they admit that cities can bring more entertainment and more job opportunities, but also bring more pollution, waste and pests.

So the question is: where is the dirtiest city in the United States?

How do you determine where the dirtiest city is?

They looked at 21 total metrics across 500 of the nation’s largest cities to determine the rankings. They included things like the number of smokers living in that city, excess annual fuel consumption, median air quality, population density, and more. You can see all the measurements and methodology of the study by clicking here. 197 of the cities were eliminated due to insufficient data.

Then, they grouped these measures into 4 different categories; Pollution, living conditions, infrastructure and resident dissatisfaction.

How did Buffalo fare in the study?

When it came to determining the dirtiest city in the country, Buffalo wasn’t in the lead, which is a good thing. But it wasn’t close to the bottom either. Of about 300 cities with enough data to rank, Buffalo ranked 146th. He sits almost in the middle of the pack with a score of 33.96. The highest score (and therefore dirtiest city) was San Bernadino, California, with a score of 54.90.

When it comes to pollution and living conditions, Buffalo ranks in the top 3 in the country. But they rank in the bottom third when it comes to infrastructure and resident dissatisfaction.

View the full city rankings here.

This doesn’t mean people are disgusting

Lawnstarter went on to mention that the main reason for the high rankings in many of these cities is simply pollution. It’s not necessarily city dwellers who create the problems. In many of the top-ranked cities, there is either a huge population or perhaps manufacturing or shipping issues that create a dirty environment.