How Dirty Is Buffalo, New York?

There was a survey done recently to find where the filthiest city in the country was.  How dirty do you think Buffalo, New York is?

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

So the question is, where is the filthiest city in the United States?

How do you determine where the filthiest city is?

They looked at 21 total metrics across 500 of the biggest cities in the nation to determine the rankings.  They included things like how many smokers lived in that city, what the annual excess fuel consumption was, the median air quality, the population density, and more.  You can see all of the metrics and the entire methodology of the study by clicking here.  197 of the cities were eliminated due to insufficient data.

Then they grouped those metrics into 4 different categories; Pollution, Living Conditions, Infrastructure, and Resident Dissatisfaction.

How did Buffalo do in the study?

When it comes to determining the filthiest city in the country, Buffalo wasn't near the top, which is good.  But it also wasn't close to the bottom.  Out of around 300 cities that had enough data to be ranked, Buffalo was at #146.  It was almost right in the middle of the pack with a score of 33.96.  The highest score (therefore the filthiest city) was San Bernadino, California with a score of 54.90.

When it comes to Pollution and Living Conditions, Buffalo was in the top 3rd of the country.  But they fell into the bottom third in Infrastructure and Resident Dissatisfaction.

See the full city rankings here.

It doesn't mean that the people are disgusting

Lawnstarter did go on to mention that the main reason for the high ranking in many of these cities is simply pollution.  It's not necessarily the people in the cities that are creating the issues. In many of the highest-ranking cities, there is either a huge population, or maybe manufacturing, or shipping issues that are creating the dirty environment.