Phoenix Despicable Air (Scottsdale, Tempe: living in, venue, snow)

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by new2colo

Phoenix does have terrible pollution. However, if anything, the air was filthier back in the day before emissions standards.

Below is a tourism video of the Valley of the Sun from the 1960s. If you advance the clip to 0:25 you will see just how filthy the air was back then too. The population of the Phoenix area was less than 20 percent of what it is today.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKI76RIPR6o&t=631s

Good luck with wherever you are headed.

I love these old videos. My how things have changed.

[DougStark]

Ponderosa's comment about the mountains being hidden by smog reminded me of a day I was in Los Angeles on one of their rare very good air qual days. The mountains were gorgeous.

[Valley Native]

Phoenix doesn't really have a "smog" problem. Smog is a combination of smoke and fog, and we never have fog except occasionally during the winter months. Our pollution is mostly from industry, dust, and vehicles, which can better be described as "smust". Summer tends to be bad for air quality, but it can also be bad during other times of the year when the air is stagnant. I've always said that a good soaking rain is the best natural way of cleaning the air.

[Voebe]

Do you envision the city succeeding in coaxing people to drive less and start taking public transportation to work?

[Tokinouta]

It's the polluted Asian air that makes us get such high readings here, not a lot we can do but put pressure on them to take care of it or move elsewhere like the OP.

[BlackS3]

Originally Posted by lubby

I was in Phoenix for 5 days recently and my allergies did not bother me one bit. I understand that 5 days is not enough time to judge my allergies but as soon as I returned to NY (long Island) I am suffering terribly. I plan to move to AZ in a few years not sure if Phoenix will be the place.

I was in AZ for a weekend and my allergies (which I dont have a bunch to begin with ) didnt bother me. When I got back to Pittsburgh I could tell the difference with the pollen and humidity. I was out there the weekend of the 8/24. I am really stuffed up this weekend. I hope to move to the scottsdale area this time next year.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by Voebe

Do you envision the city succeeding in coaxing people to drive less and start taking public transportation to work?

Phoenix has tried this repeatedly in the past. In the 1980s, it was the "Don't Drive One in 5" campaign which encouraged people to leave their cars at home one day a week, and I believe it was either the first or last digit of a person's license plate which determined a person's no drive day. That effort only lasted a few years, then it was abandoned due to the lack of success. You can't mandate anybody to drive less or not at all and use public transit because it wouldn't work for everybody ... however, the transit system should definitely be available as an option to driving. I for one would consider taking the light rail to & from work if it ran through my neighborhood.

[Colt AZ]

Phoenix Despicable Air

When I first saw this thread, I thought it'd be about a new airline...

[Hal Roach]

There is a neat AQI extension for Google Chrome browser..you can monitor your AQ.

[Vision67]

Originally Posted by desertbeat

I am a native Phoenician and I have been dealing with Phoenix air my whole life and am about to finally escape and move elsewhere. It is definitely not just you. In the past couple of years with the tremendous population wave coming here, the disgusting air (which has always been moderately disgusting) has become insanely filthy. In Phoenix we live in a dry bowl where everything pumped or picked up gets trapped. So for us allergy sufferers we not only have to contend with constant planting of everything possible, but we have to take in the poisonous car and factory emissions and dust. There are no allergy shots for pollution or dust. So not only do allergy sufferers like myself suffer year round, but the average person who doesn't have them will experience problems too. Pollution is poison and people weren't meant to breathe it. I am headed out as soon as I have enogh money. Tired of wearing a mask and jacking myself up with Sudafed. We found a place where the air is clean and rent is cheap-- that is the only answer.

I escaped from Tempe to Colorado Springs in 1977 for the same reason. While living in Tempe, I used to come home sneezing and put a chair next to my electrostatic air cleaner so I could just breathe.

While working there at Motorola I used to escape into the semiconductor clean room so I could breathe. In Arizona I was allergic to everything. The tremendous pollen from all the alien plants brought there from all over the world caused me unending grief. I lived my life in the mental fog caused by the unending need to continuously dose my body with anti-histamine drugs.

Here in Colorado Springs, my only allergy is to ragweed pollen and that is minor and it lasts from August until our first big freeze; usually late September. When I first moved here I thought I had died and gone to heaven. For the first time in my life I could breathe. I no longer needed to take those drugs.

Furthermore, we have clean water. The water here comes off the snow pack on the front range. It is clean, cold, refreshing and it has not yet passed through even one kidney. The last time I took a swig of water from the tap in Scottsdale, I almost threw up. I had forgotten how disgusting it tasted.