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One other major concern I have other than the road conditions is how good or bad the sinus problems are for people that suffer? My main problem seems to be from chemicals including chemical plants or crap sprayed on crops. Thus some cities like Indianapolis or some rural areas of the country are not livable for me since I have major sinus issues. Currently in the Cincinnati area I am pretty lucky in that the sinus problems are minor for a city and I am able to live here. Oddly enough when I've spent time in Denver or the Front Range, I have not had problems dealing with the air there even though it has that ominous brown cloud overhead. Thus, it seems only certain chemicals pose a problem for me.
How good or bad is Detroit in this respect? Until I visit I can't determine how good or bad the air is, but I would like to hear from others that have allergies or sinus issues that live there just to get an idea of what people have to deal with if they have this problem.
One other major concern I have other than the road conditions is how good or bad the sinus problems are for people that suffer? My main problem seems to be from chemicals including chemical plants or crap sprayed on crops. Thus some cities like Indianapolis or some rural areas of the country are not livable for me since I have major sinus issues. Currently in the Cincinnati area I am pretty lucky in that the sinus problems are minor for a city and I am able to live here. Oddly enough when I've spent time in Denver or the Front Range, I have not had problems dealing with the air there even though it has that ominous brown cloud overhead. Thus, it seems only certain chemicals pose a problem for me.
How good or bad is Detroit in this respect? Until I visit I can't determine how good or bad the air is, but I would like to hear from others that have allergies or sinus issues that live there just to get an idea of what people have to deal with if they have this problem.
If you search on "air quality in Detroit" on Google it states that it is 31, out of 500 (zero being the best) and that the main pollutant is ozone. I searched Indianapolis and Denver, out of curiosity. Denver has a rating of 44, with PM 2.5 being the primary pollutant, and Indianapolis has a 2 with carbon monoxide being the primary pollutant. And they all ranked "good". Cincinnati is not that good either, at 41, PM 2.5 being the primary pollutant.
Not sure what any of this means except that Detroit is better than Indianapolis and worse than Denver?
Apparently the air where I am is really clean, at 2, here in Norfolk, VA. Nitrogen Dioxide is what you have to worry about here. Maybe you should move here, or someplace like New York City, that ranks 11 out of 500.
Only thing I can take away from this is that heavily post-industrial areas like Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Chicago rank a lot higher on the pollution index, even though they're technically "good", and other places not so much. Cleveland is a 1 though, which is about as good as it gets. I would check that out; the cities are very similar.
I think emissions has a lot to do with it. Like Los Angeles still ranks at 55.
One other major concern I have other than the road conditions is how good or bad the sinus problems are for people that suffer? My main problem seems to be from chemicals including chemical plants or crap sprayed on crops. Thus some cities like Indianapolis or some rural areas of the country are not livable for me since I have major sinus issues. Currently in the Cincinnati area I am pretty lucky in that the sinus problems are minor for a city and I am able to live here. Oddly enough when I've spent time in Denver or the Front Range, I have not had problems dealing with the air there even though it has that ominous brown cloud overhead. Thus, it seems only certain chemicals pose a problem for me.
How good or bad is Detroit in this respect? Until I visit I can't determine how good or bad the air is, but I would like to hear from others that have allergies or sinus issues that live there just to get an idea of what people have to deal with if they have this problem.
I lived in Metro Detroit for 10 years and had no problems with sinus issues/allergies.
I had sinus HELL and developed allergies at the age of 38 when I moved to Kentucky The worst place for sinus issues for me was the Louisville, KY area. With that being said, everyone is totally different and we all have different triggers. I actually never even had sinus issues until I moved to KY so it was an experience for me. Not necessarily one that I want to repeat.
Air quality is pretty decent in the Metro Detroit area according to reports. There is industry there but factory operation has changed a lot since the days where factories could belch polluted smoke into the air and dump chemicals into lakes/streams at will. I work in manufacturing and there are a lot of regulations for environmental protection which is a good thing Smoke you see from smokestacks is generally water vapor or something that has been made inert.
You are more likely to run into nasty chemicals in agriculture. I'm not as familiar with them but some of them have pretty high toxicity profiles--nothing that you would want to roll around it or breathe in for an extended time period.
The EPA even has a little tool that you can use to look up air quality comparisons between areas. Keep in mind these are for "sensitive groups".
Hopefully some more people weigh in with their experiences. It's all pretty subjective I think since all of us have different triggers. I found out living in the South that one of my major allergens is the Magnolia tree of all things
Thanks for the info. Yes, when I visit Louisville I do have sinus issues. Same with Lexington. This is also the case with some rural areas of Indiana and even a small town 40 miles outside of Kansas City, MO where I lived. Oddly enough a town 10 miles to the north of that small town in MO I had minor sinus issues. Traced the problem to a chemical plant on the south side of town and with the prevailing winds, it carried it to the town where I moved afterward which was 10 miles south. :-)
It usually only takes a couple of hours to half a day to determine if I will have serious sinus problems in a given location. Won't take long at all to know.
Don’t move anywhere near southwest Detroit or any of the downriver communities. There’s still a lot of air pollution in those areas from the Marathon refinery, Great Lakes steel, Zug Island, Ford Rouge plant, etc.
Don’t move anywhere near southwest Detroit or any of the downriver communities. There’s still a lot of air pollution in those areas from the Marathon refinery, Great Lakes steel, Zug Island, Ford Rouge plant, etc.
Thanks for the tip. Will look to the north then if I decide to move there.
Don’t move anywhere near southwest Detroit or any of the downriver communities. There’s still a lot of air pollution in those areas from the Marathon refinery, Great Lakes steel, Zug Island, Ford Rouge plant, etc.
This is actually incorrect (as to most of downriver - SW Detroit does get some). Other than River Rouge, where you do not want to live unless you are really broke and desperate, Downriver does not get a lot of pollution from the City. Most of the major polluters are on or near the River (mostly Zug island). Prevailing winds blow from West to East. In the past 13 years we have had an east to west wind once that i can remember. In short that means that Detroit/Zug island pretty much pollutes Canada's air. On the extremely rare still days (no wind) it does amass around Zug island area and spread into River Rouge, Melvindale and sometimes into Ecorse. Some parts of SW Detroit, especially Del Rey and the upper end of Rive Rouge get quite a bit. You are not going to live there. The nice Downriver Cities (Grosse Ile, Trenton, Wyandotte, Woodhaven, Flat Rock, . . . ) do not get any noticeable pollution form Detroit/Zug island.
The marathon plant puts out a lot of bad smelling pollution and int he immediate area to the east of the Marathon plant is pretty bad. That coupled with the stench from the giant sewage treatment plat creates a basically horrid place to live. much of Del Rey is awful. Parts of River Rouge are also pretty awful. However that is a pretty small area and there are few residences there. The bridge will bring more pollution when it is complete, but it will also remove most or all of the remaining residents from Dey Rey.
Downriver there are some factories remaining (four that I can think of), but most of them emit no noticeable pollution. The power plant which was the big polluter is slowly being shut down, plus it is on the water and has very tall stacks which cause the pollution to blow over to Canada.
Sinus issues vary depending ont he cause. For me I get sinus problems from extreme waeahter changes. Needless to say, here i have lots of problems. My wife and kids all have asthma and sometimes severe allergies. They have far fewer problems here that they did in California, especially during the Santa Ana winds.
One of my sons had very severe asthma (30% of normal lung capacity). He became a rower (racing skinny little rowboats, you may have seen this someplace). Rowing in the Detroit river in Detroit and downriver, he was able to push the asthma back by constant hard charging exercise. Pollution did not hold him back at all despite rowing right on the river. He now rarely needs his inhaler after a race, and has five national championship medals and a state championship from high school. His lung capacity is now between 70% and 105% of normal (as a college athlete it should be 150% but he is still doing very well despite rowing primarily in the Detroit River many of his summers.
When I was a kid, I remember Detroit having smog alerts and a greyish green cloud covering the City and its surrounding suburbs. It did not get out to Lyon Township 40 - 50 miles from the City, but we could see it when we drove in and they had warnings on the news. However that was in the 1970s and 1980s, before scrubbers and before the near collapse in manufacturing in Detroit.
We used to live in Orange County CA. There was no weather to report on most of the time, so we got surf reports and smog reports. Someways, the report said to stay inside and/or not to do any aerobic activity outside. Those are much less common now. I cannot remember ever having a smog alert since we moved to downriver 13 years ago.
In the spring you get a lot of pollen. Some members of our family have to take allergy meds during the spring. It is not as bad as the Santa Ana winds were, but there is a lot of pollen around. It is wet here, so you do not get dust storms like out west, but you do get molds. A mold allergy could be a problem here.
If this is a serious problem for you, I would come here during spring, summer and fall and see how you do. Very few people have allergy problems during winter (in fact I have never known anyone who had allergy problems in winter).
As someone who grew up in the ozone stew of Los Angeles and spent most of my adult life inhaling the hazardous particulate blend of Salt Lake City, I can not even begin to tell you how pristine, beautiful, and breathable our air is here. Literally zero times in my three years here have I seen an air quality alert telling me not to drive or to exercise outside. In California and Utah that was usually a monthly event during the summers (LA) and winters (SLC) - in the worst cases, for weeks at a time.
Now if you move to River Rouge or live a mile from the Marathon plant you're probably going to have some serious localized air quality issues, but as they (jokingly) say in my field, "the solution to pollution is dilution" - as much as I dislike that phrase, it's true. And with constant breeze and no mountains, the air dilutes so quickly that pollution is not a problem for probably 95% of the metro.
Thanks. I take it you get a breeze off the lakes frequently. If that is the case, that will definitely help. I know that when I lived in western NY in a small town and also Buffalo I didn't have major sinus issues with Lake Ontario and Lake Erie nearby.
I will be sure to drive around several areas of the Detroit Metro area to get a good idea of what to expect. I know when I have lived in the Kansas City area, there were some places to the north and west that were not that far out of the city that were not that bad. To the Northeast and Southeast I had to be about 25 or more miles out before I could breathe better. Prevailing winds from the west would carry the bad air east.
This is actually incorrect (as to most of downriver - SW Detroit does get some). Other than River Rouge, where you do not want to live unless you are really broke and desperate, Downriver does not get a lot of pollution from the City. Most of the major polluters are on or near the River (mostly Zug island). Prevailing winds blow from West to East. In the past 13 years we have had an east to west wind once that i can remember. In short that means that Detroit/Zug island pretty much pollutes Canada's air. On the extremely rare still days (no wind) it does amass around Zug island area and spread into River Rouge, Melvindale and sometimes into Ecorse. Some parts of SW Detroit, especially Del Rey and the upper end of Rive Rouge get quite a bit. You are not going to live there. The nice Downriver Cities (Grosse Ile, Trenton, Wyandotte, Woodhaven, Flat Rock, . . . ) do not get any noticeable pollution form Detroit/Zug island.
What do you base this assessment on? Research? Speculation? A wild guess? Because the EPA disagrees with you.
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The worst place for sinus issues for me was the Louisville, KY area. With that being said, everyone is totally different and we all have different triggers. I actually never even had sinus issues until I moved to KY so it was an experience for me. Not necessarily one that I want to repeat. 
Smoke you see from smokestacks is generally water vapor or something that has been made inert. 
