Canadian wildfire smoke continues to blow over much of the U.S., raising air pollution to harmful levels for construction workers. Now, the impact of the fires is likely to raise U.S. lumber prices, too. — Construction Dive

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. — NBC Los Angeles

There’s been a surge of demand from real estate owners for pleasant fragrances to make the air a little fresher and the workplace a little more comforting and energizing [...]

“Here in New York City, for example, real estate companies are interested in scenting the building itself, as opposed to just the individual tenant spaces [...] There are lots of vacant office spaces these days. So what can the real estate companies do to attract tenants?” — Commerical Observer

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. — The San Francisco Chronicle

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. — Los Angeles Times

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. — National Geographic

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

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 [...]. — South China Morning Post

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. — Reuters

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. — the Washington Post

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. — Washington Post

Health warnings have been issued this week as atmospheric pollution is set to rise to dangerously high levels on Thursday and Friday, with levels of breathable toxic particles reaching 100 micrograms per cubic meter.

In a bid to stop pollution reaching dangerous levels, the council is making the city's buses and metro free on Thursday and Friday to reduce the emissions caused by Turin's heavy traffic. — thelocal.it

[Botany professor Paloma Cariñanos] found it surprising that the design of these green spaces thought about landscaping, climate, and fashion criteria, but didn't think about pollen problems.
[She] says that in the future, urban green spaces 'will become 'comfort islands' inside 'urban heat islands.''...Cariñanos and her team stress that their research is a tool for planning and prevention. They hope that other cities will be able to use their methods to prevent high allergen levels. — phys.org