Archinect - News

ecoLogicStudio’s collection of biophilic design products includes algae-based air purifier and 3D printed compostable stool

2024-03-07T11:43:00-05:00

London-based ecoLogicStudio has unveiled a collection of biophilic design products as part of their wider PhotoSynethetica research project.

The collection includes a desktop biotechnological air purifier, a compostable stool, and a 3D printed jewel made of re-metabolized pollution.

Image credit: Pepe Fotografia

The project was overseen by ecoLogicStudio directors Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, who spoke with Archinect last year on a range of topics related to PhotoSynethetica and ‘ecological intelligence.’ Launched as a research project in 2018 with an academic consortium, the project seeks to “tackle the negative effects of climate change and air pollution on urban wellbeing.”

Image credit: Pepe Fotografia

Each piece in the latest collection has been designed to connect biophilic and design spheres, such as biomass grown from the air purification process becoming a raw material for 3D printing the collection’s compostable stool and jewel. “This collection is born from the drea...

Port Authority of NY & NJ reaches milestone with new low-carbon concrete standards

2023-06-29T14:09:00-04:00

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced earlier this month that it has reached a major milestone in one of the most ambitious low-carbon concrete programs of its kind among U.S. transportation agencies.

Originally introduced in September 2020, the Clean Construction Program aims to reduce embodied carbon, promote the circular economy, and reduce air pollution from construction across all of the Authority’s projects through a range of initiatives. They include the incorporation of LEED and Envision-equivalent standards, utilizing low-carbon concrete, collecting environmental data from contractors, facilitating pilot projects, waste matching for concrete, asphalt, and soil, and requiring low-emissions vehicles on site.

The agency took a major step forward by significantly strengthening its requirements to use sustainable concrete mixes in all future construction projects as part of its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Related on Archinect: UN Secr...

Los Angeles approves car-free 'superblock' pilot program

2023-06-26T17:57:00-04:00

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday on a motion to identify a location to implement its first Park Block -- modeled after the city of Barcelona’s Superblocks, a block grid system that restricts traffic to major roads and opens up city blocks and streets to pedestrians.

The “Park Block” motion was initially introduced by Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León last year. The program aims to save lives lost due to poor air quality and traffic violence. As detailed in a report by LA City Council’s Transportation Committee, the Blocks will serve to form open public space with adequate shade, outdoor recreation, greening, and stormwater capture in communities that lack parks.

Previously on Archinect: LA Councilmember introduces plan to establish Barcelona's car-free 'superblocks' in Los Angeles

The program will first be implemented in León’s District 14, which includes parts of downtown Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, and Eagle Rock. LA's Department of Transportation will choose which area will host the initial pilot, with priority given to communities that have the least access to public space, the highest health disparities, and high population densities. In addition, the Department will report back on what funding and resources are necessary to...

LA Councilmember introduces plan to establish Barcelona's car-free 'superblocks' in Los Angeles

2022-08-15T18:23:00-04:00

Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León recently introduced a motion proposing a program titled "Park Blocks," modeled after Barcelona’s Superblock initiative, which would establish usable public space for pedestrians and cyclists by closing certain streets to motorized vehicles.

Barcelona’s approach reconfigured vehicle circulation in its Eixample district, allowing for up to 70% of the street surface area to be used as public space. As noted in the motion, this move resulted in major drops in noise and air pollution and increased civic life for residents inside the blocks.

Previously on Archinect: Barcelona's bold new plan to get cars off the road

De León envisions "Park Blocks" as a means to save lives due to poor air quality and traffic violence as well as creating green and recreational spaces in communities lacking parks. They would reportedly also provide other benefits, such as establishing stormwater capture infrastructure.

"A successful program needs to be thoug...

New York to ban construction of schools near highways

2022-07-12T09:00:00-04:00

The New York State Assembly and Senate have passed a bill barring the construction of schools within 500 feet of a highway. The Schools Impact by Gross Highways Act (or SIGH Act) was written to protect school-age children from air pollution.

Under the bill, which will also apply to New York City, the New York Commissioner of Education will only be allowed to approve plans for a new school within 500 feet of a highway if they determine that space is so limited that no other site would be available.

Archinect Feature: Smog City: The Fight Against Urban Air Pollution

According to a recent analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), approximately one-third of New York’s students attend a school within 500 feet of a road whose daily volume exceeds 30,000 cars. Approximately 80% of these students are students of color, and 66% are low-income.

“Decades of racial segregation, redlining, and the systemic placement of pollution-emitting infrastructure in Black and Brown communiti...

Amazon's latest warehouse battle has San Francisco lawmakers pushing for a moratorium on similar developments

2022-02-16T13:47:00-05:00

The second most valuable company in the world, Amazon has been gobbling up space throughout the southeast corner of the city, taking advantage of zoning meant to preserve blue-collar jobs in a market in which housing and office space have typically generated higher revenues.

Amazon bought a 510,000-square-foot former sanitation motor pool parcel in the Showplace Square section of the city for $200 million in December of 2020. It has since proposed an expansion of the site’s footprint into an over 725,000-square-foot distribution hub for 400 workers that neighboring tenants, including the diffuse California College of the Arts, say will create a “pedestrian nightmare” of around 2,900 vehicle trips a day.

Now, as a result of the company’s proposal, San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton is seeking legislation that would place an 18-month moratorium on any new parcel delivery services operating in the city. It has already picked up backing from the local Teamsters and UFCW unions. The legislative effort, which the paper sees as another flashpoint in the “war between organized labor and Amazon,” is also backed by more environmentally-minded Prothero Hill and Dogpatch inhabitants, who say the company “has the neighborhoods surrounded” with similar developme...

Amazon warehouses are wreaking havoc in California’s Inland Empire

2021-11-22T19:18:00-05:00

In California’s Inland Empire, dozens of mega-warehouses for Amazon, UPS and other companies are choking the cities with traffic and air pollution. Some argue that the jobs warehouses provide aren’t worth the cost, while others say it’s online shopping that’s the real problem.

Despite the boiler-plate promise of adding jobs to the community, warehouse-laden tracts have been dumping an increasing amount of pollutants into the atmosphere in the form of increased truck and air cargo traffic and propelled in part by a sharp rise in online shopping. Amazon opened its first fulfillment center in San Bernadino in 2012. Today, the company operates more than 30 in the area alone.

Southern California's Inland Empire is one of the most polluted regions in America. One study from the University of California, Riverside revealed an 11% increase in Covid-19 deaths related to the number of particulates in the air. Around 85% of the population that lives within half a mile from a warehouse identify as people of color.

“We’re dealing with smoggy summers that are getting worse and worse,” one Riverside resident told The Guardian in April. “We’re sick of getting alerts that say avoid being outside because of dirty air. This is not normal.”

...

Interactive map illustrates the impact of coronavirus on global pollution

2020-03-25T17:49:00-04:00

In an effort to track the impacts, Earther assembled an interactive map to explore the changes in air pollution not just in the U.S. but globally. The map runs on Google Earth Engine and uses data collected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite, which circles the Earth capturing various types of data. It includes four snapshots from December 2019 through March 20, 2020. The Sentinel satellite data shows nitrogen dioxide, which is a handy proxy for human activity.

Brian Kahn and Dhruv Mehrotra of Earther highlight a recently launched pollution visualizer their team has assembled that highlights the stark changes in human activity across the world in the wake of COVID-19-imposed economic and social disruptions.

The authors interview Barbara Dix, an atmospheric researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder who explains, “We are now witnessing a global experiment where one emission source is rapidly turned down (NOx), while other sources are still up or will decrease more slowly. A lot of atmospheric science will come out of this.”

The interactive map, which uses satellite data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite and runs on the Google Earth Engine, can be accessed here.

Canberra sees worst air quality ever as Australian forest fires continue to burn

2020-01-02T11:23:00-05:00

Canberra has experienced its worst air quality on record, as bushfire smoke became trapped by atmospheric conditions and residents were told to stay indoors and brace for more smog in the coming days. The ACT’s acting chief health officer, Dr Paul Dugdale, said the smoke was the worst since the 2003 bushfires and was “certainly the worst” since air quality monitoring started in the city 15 years ago.

According to The Guardian’s reporting, Air Quality Index (AQI) readings in Canberra city reached 3,463 on Wednesday afternoon, with readings above 200 considered to be hazardous.

According to reports, the fires have burned at least 14.6 million acres around the country so far with record high temperatures and atmospheric effects combining to make putting out the blazes nearly impossible. Estimates indicate that over half a billion animals have died in the brush fires around the country so far, while at least 17 people have perished, with thousands of structures burned to the ground as well.

As California's wildfires become increasingly urban, concerns over airborne health risks grow 'worrisome'

2019-11-07T15:31:00-05:00

The samples he collects will help scientists better understand how the massive increase in seasonal wildfires burning through residential areas might be affecting our health. Where smoke once contained the remnants of only biomass (trees and other organic matter), fires are now burning up homes—structures that contain thousands of synthetic chemicals, paints, plastics, and metals that smolder and combust into tiny particles.

After years of improvement, air pollution in the U.S. is getting worse again

2019-10-24T14:09:00-04:00

Air pollution worsened in the United States in 2017 and 2018, new data shows, a reversal after years of sustained improvement with significant implications for public health. In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the U.S. relative to the 2016 benchmark, the year in which small-particle pollution reached a two-decade low, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Washington Post reports that "concentrations of the pollutant have risen about 5.5 percent since 2016," and points out several contributing factors that the Carnegie Mellon study identified: increased natural gas use and vehicle traffic, risen severity and frequency of wildfires, and the rollback of regulatory enforcement of the Clean Air Act in recent years.

"The health implications of this increase in [annual average fine particulate matter] PM2.5 between 2016 and 2018 are significant," explains the research paper. "The increase was associated with 9,700 additional premature deaths in 2018. At conventional valuations, these deaths represent damages of $89 billion."

Smoke from burning Amazon rainforest drops São Paulo into sudden darkness

2019-08-20T19:29:00-04:00

In the height of daytime, the sky suddenly blackened, and day became night in Sao Paulo. Sure, smog is bad in the Western Hemisphere’s largest city, where traffic jams can stretch for dozens of miles. But not this bad. What was going on? Was the end near?

A combination of meteorological events paired with smoke that had traveled hundreds of miles from intense forest fires in remote parts of the Amazon caused a period of sudden midday darkness in the most populous city in the Western Hemisphere on Monday, reports The Washington Post.

Meanwhile on Twitter, #PrayforAmazonia emerged as a trending hashtag, channeling the global outrage over the lack of media coverage and political action towards the vast forest fires which have been raging in the drought-stricken Amazon rainforest region of Brazil for more than two weeks now.

Fires are burning across central South America. Yesterday #NOAA20's OMPS instrument detected the aerosol index - an index that detects the presence of particles like soot and dust in the atmosphere - in the vicinity of the fires. This can help inform air quality forecasts. https://t.co/lCMwTqWxtA
— Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) (@JPSSProgram) August 19, 2019

Much of the blame for the lack of disaster response i...

Paris to reformat its Boulevard Périphérique

2019-05-28T21:06:00-04:00

Cars and trucks on one of Europe’s most notoriously congested and polluted urban highways would not only be obliged to drive more slowly, they’d have less room to do it: The number of beltway lanes open to all traffic would also be slashed from eight to six. One lane will be reserved for public, emergency, and zero-emissions vehicles. The other one is to be devoted to trees.

Paris officials are making plans to redesign the traffic lanes for the city's 22-mile-long ring road, Boulevard Périphérique.

A recent report calls for retrofitting the eight-lane highway as part of a wider effort to crack down on car usage across the city. Since taking office in 2014, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has successfully pushed the city to lessen its autocentric configuration by pedestrianizing the streets surrounding the Seine, among other efforts.

A relic of post-World War II urban planning logic, Boulevard Périphérique was built between 1958 and 1973 on the former site of the Thiers Wall, the final remaining set of fortifications surrounding Paris. Today, the concrete highway is a source of toxic air pollution and noise, qualities the coming retrofits are aimed at addressing.

Mexico City deploys giant murals to clean its polluted air

2019-05-08T14:18:00-04:00

A colourful mural of a 35m-tall tree in Mexico City is one of three environmentally friendly new public works made using Airlite paint, which purifies polluted air in a process similar to photosynthesis. [...] the mural aims to increase oxygen levels in one of the western hemisphere’s most polluted cities, where ozone concentration levels remain high despite government regulations on fuel and cars.

Image courtesy of Boa Mistura.

"Airlite paint chemically reacts with pollutants in the air, turning them into inert compounds," reports The Art Newspaper. "The roughly 1,000 sq. m mural should neutralise the same amount of pollution created by around 60,000 vehicles a year."

The artists responsible for painting the mural on Reforma Avenue (pictured above) are members of the Spanish art collective Boa Mistura.

For the 19th time, Los Angeles takes the crown as the smoggiest city in the U.S.

2019-05-01T19:42:00-04:00

For 20 years, the American Lung Association has gathered and analyzed data from official air quality monitors creating its annual "State of the Air" report. It's been reported by the association that more than four in ten people currently live in areas where pollution levels are too dangerous to breathe. Now several factors contribute to such poor air quality; however, during the 20 years these reports have been conducted, Los Angeles has been ranked as the city with the most polluted air quality by ozone measurements.

Sadly, the city's air quality has gotten worse since last year's State of the Air report. The data gathered analyze ozone layers in the city. The San Bernardino and Riverside counties are also included with Los Angeles' data report which affects the city's ranking tremendously. Many may view smog as an obstruction from Los Angeles' cityscape, however, the long-lasting effects of poor air quality can cause severe damage like lung cancer with a higher risk for early de...

Investigating the hidden air pollution in our everyday indoor spaces

2019-04-08T16:07:00-04:00

House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry—was the world’s first large-scale collaborative investigation into the chemistry of indoor air. [...] The experiment’s early results are just now emerging, and they seem to show that the combined emissions of humans and their daily activities—cooking, cleaning, metabolizing—are more interesting, and potentially more lethal, than anyone had imagined.

In this New Yorker piece, writer Nicola Twilley observes one of the experiments of HOMEChem, who investigates the atmospheric chemistry of our indoor environments and how everyday activities can greatly affect its air quality.

“Dozens of the chemicals measured by the HOMEchem team are known to be harmful, and, as every scientist I spoke with mentioned, we spend almost all our time indoors, breathing them. Nonetheless, it is outdoor air-pollution levels that have been firmly linked to public health,” Twilley writes in the article.

This app tells you how much you're “smoking” in the city air you're breathing

2018-04-27T14:17:00-04:00

Shit, I Smoke! was created by Brazilian-born designer Marcelo Coelho and Paris-born app developer Amaury Martiny in just a week, after they read a study that analyzed air pollution and its equivalent to cigarette smoking. [...] Using the formula in [the study], [the app] uses live pollution data from hundreds of air quality stations in cities around the globe and converts the station’s PM2.5 number into the number of cigarettes being inhaled by a person in real time.

“For both Coelho and Martiny, the app isn’t only a useful tool to inform users about their city’s air quality; it also makes this information more accessible and easier to comprehend.”

China builds "world's biggest air purifier" to battle air pollution

2018-01-17T13:36:00-05:00

An experimental tower over 100 metres (328 feet) high in northern China – dubbed the world’s biggest air purifier by its operators – has brought a noticeable improvement in air quality, according to the scientist leading the project, as authorities seek ways to tackle the nation’s chronic smog problem. [...] The head of the research, Cao Junji, said improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles) in the city over the past few months [...].

Now that the experimental smog-eating tower is up and running in the city of Xian, authorities are hoping to build much bigger, scaled-up versions in other Chinese cities soon: "A full-sized tower would reach 500 metres (1,640 feet) high with a diameter of 200 metres (656 feet)," the South China Morning Post writes.

Beijing bans winter construction to reduce air pollution

2017-09-19T14:00:00-04:00

Beijing will suspend construction of major public projects in the city this winter in an effort to improve the capital’s notorious air quality, official media said on Sunday, citing the municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development. All construction of road and water projects, as well as demolition of housing, will be banned from Nov. 15 to March 15 within the city’s six major districts and surrounding suburbs, said the Xinhua report.

"China is in the fourth year of a 'war on pollution,'" Reuters reports, "designed to reverse the damage done by decades of untrammelled economic growth and allay concerns that hazardous smog and widespread water and soil contamination are causing hundreds of thousands of early deaths every year."

A smog-cleaning bike, a kite-charging dike: Studio Roosegaarde's creative design solutions to infrastructural challenges

2017-08-22T15:03:00-04:00

In the unofficial category of "Creative Pollution Solutions," the Dutch firm Studio Roosegaarde is angling to be the winner: the firm has several projects that introduce innovative solutions to existing infrastructural challenges. First up, in partnership with bike-sharing firm OFO, the studio has announced to develop a bicycle that "inhales" smog and then releases purified air by virute of pedaling.

The project, which was initially announced at a TED forum, has now advanced to the first stage of design. The bikes, which release clean air around each cyclist as they are pedaled, are not only environmentally friendly but culturally attuned: Daan Roosegaarde wanted to reference the iconicity of the bicycle in China while simultaneously improving air quality.

In addition to the bicycles, Studio Roosegaarde has also undertaken the redevelopment of the Icoon Afsluitdijk. As the architects explain: "It is the government-scale landscape innovation project on the legendary Dutch dike, whic...

Using architecture to combat air pollution

2017-03-07T13:11:00-05:00

Birds fly in and out of the eight-storey "Green Office Building" in Shenzhen, China, because a third of its walls are completely open to the air. It's a clever natural design that enables the building to stay cool without air conditioners. Across town, in a vast campus known as the "Low Carbon Park", mist is sprayed into the air to cool the streets down and remove dust.

Experiments like these are appearing across China's cities, as part of a devolution of power designed to clean up smoggy air and meet energy targets to tackle climate change.

Smog continues to choke Beijing

2017-01-04T13:18:00-05:00

The Chinese capital issued its highest red fog alert for a second day on Wednesday, keeping highways closed in and around the city which is already under a smog alert after weeks of choking winter pollution. China's weather bureau warned of visibility of less than 50 meters in some areas, leading many airports to cancel flights.

Air pollution is one of the most significant public health issues facing major cities around the world. Find out more here:

Another "airpocalypse" strikes China

2016-12-22T12:23:00-05:00

Tens of thousands of “smog refugees” have reportedly fled China’s pollution-stricken north after the country was hit by its latest “airpocalyse” forcing almost half a billion people to live under a blanket of toxic fumes. Huge swaths of north and central China have been living under a pollution “red alert” since last Friday when a dangerous cocktail of pollutants transformed the skies into a yellow and charcoal-tinted haze.

According to Greenpeace, the total number of afflicted people equals the populations of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined.

Air pollution is a major problem that affects nearly every city in the world. Find out more here:

Pollution-plagued Paris to ban cars from the side of the Seine

2016-09-27T13:49:00-04:00

In an effort to curb air pollution, the city council of Paris has approved a controversial plan to pedestrianize the 3.3 km road that runs along the Right Bank of the Seine River. Stretching from the Tuileries Gardens to the Henri-IV tunnel near the Bastille, the road is currently used by some 43,000 cars a day. The plan would replace the roadway with wooden walkways and landscaping, and cost an estimated €8 million.

The plan is supported by the Socialist government and faces opposition from the country’s conservative faction, who argue that it will increase traffic in a city already jam-packed with cars. Nearly 55 percent of Parisians support the plan, according to the Independent.

Air pollution in Paris can rival cities like Beijing, and is responsible for over 2,000 deaths per year.

For more urban initiatives intended to combat air pollution, follow these links:

Investigations into the threat of air pollution have failed to account for people's movement

2016-08-24T13:24:00-04:00

The true impact of air pollution has been obscured by the failure to consider people’s exposure as they move around during the day... The research cites air pollution as “the world’s single largest environment and human health threat” but laments that the problem has not previously been “considered spatially and temporally”, with most studies basing a person’s pollution exposure on where they live.

Interested in urban initiatives to combat air pollution? Follow these links:

Working indoors not enough to protect you from air pollution, according to new study

2016-06-14T20:06:00-04:00

In a new paper, economists and public health researchers have found that not even working indoors in an office can protect people from the deleterious impacts of polluted air and particularly fine particulate pollution — defined as tiny particles that can travel deep into our lungs and even get into the bloodstream and eventually reach the central nervous system.

Cities around the world are choking from polluted skies. Find out more:

Is biking good for you even if the air is heavily polluted?

2016-05-23T20:01:00-04:00

...Given all the harm we know air pollution can cause, does cycling actually help, or could it hurt? After all, I’m not breathing in the foul fumes of a truck when I’m sitting inside an air-conditioned train. I’m certainly not breathing them in deeply, as I would while huffing and puffing on my cycle. Air pollution kills more than 5 million people every year, yet there has been no analysis of the costs versus benefits of city cycling. Until now.

Long story short: keep biking. Researchers found that, in almost every city around the world, the health benefits of biking "far exceed" the damage than can be caused by breathing in dirty air. Even in the worst polluted cities in the world, you have to ride at least 60 minutes a day to be more harmed than helped.

For more on the dirty air polluting cities around the world, check out these links:

Barcelona's bold new plan to get cars off the road

2016-05-18T13:09:00-04:00

In the latest attempt from a big city to move away from car hegemony, Barcelona has ambitious plans. Currently faced with excessive pollution and noise levels, the city has come up with a new mobility plan to reduce traffic by 21%. And it comes with something extra: freeing up nearly 60% of streets currently used by cars to turn them into so-called “citizen spaces”.

"The plan is based around the idea of superilles (superblocks) – mini neighbourhoods around which traffic will flow, and in which spaces will be repurposed to “fill our city with life”, as its tagline says."

A precedent for Barcelona's superblocks was actually instituted in the city back in the late 19th century when Ildefons Cerdà planned Eixample, a district intended to free up the crowded medieval neighborhoods of the old city. With their famous beveled corners, Cerdà's large residential blocks were intended to serve as lungs for the city, with interior courtyards to provide greenery on a regular and frequent basis.

But urban development laid waste to Cerdà's carefully-laid plans. Today, the city loses about 3,500 citizens each year to air pollution.

The bold new plan comprises a series of interventions to create "superblocks" from nine of Cerdà's smaller blocks. The initiative starts with restricting vehicular traffic to primarily the perimeter streets.

City officials hope that by i...

Billions exposed to dangerous air as pollution grows at alarming rates around the world

2016-05-12T12:42:00-04:00

Outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO). While all regions are affected, fast-growing cities in the Middle East, south-east Asia and the western Pacific are the most impacted with many showing pollution levels at five to 10 times above WHO recommended levels.

According to the WHO data, the most polluted city in the world is Onitsha, a booming port city on the coast of Nigeria. With almost 600 micrograms per cubic meter, the city has around 30 times the recommended level of PM10 particles (the larger, but still dangerous, air pollutant particles).

In related news:

These are the most-polluted cities in the US

2016-04-20T18:19:00-04:00

Residents of just four American metropolitan areas have had regular access to healthy air in recent years. Those four places — Burlington-South Burlington, Vt.; Honolulu; Elmira-Corning, N.Y.; and Salinas, Calif. — had the pleasure of breathing air consistently free of unhealthy ozone, short-term particle and year-round particle pollution from 2012 to 2014,according to a new national air quality report card from the American Lung Association. The air everywhere else was less consistently clean.

Actually, air quality has significantly improved in American cities since the passing of the 1970 Clean Air Act and subsequent legislation. This year marked the lowest particle pollution levels in 16 years for all but four of the top 20 most-polluted cities.

Still, things remain pretty grim: more than half of Americans are breathing unhealthful levels of polluted air today.

Here are the most-polluted cities (by year-round particle pollution):

Bakersfield, Calif.
Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, Calif.
Fresno-Madera, Calif.
Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif.
El Centro, Calif.
(tied) Modesto-Merced, Calif.
(tied) San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif.
Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, Pa.-Ohio-W. Va.
Harrisburg-York-Lebanon, Pa.
Louisville-Jefferson
County-Elizabethtown-Madison, KY-IN

Here are some older articles about air quality issues in cities around the world: