Historic air quality in Phoenix, Arizona



Most of the people that I talk to nowadays have no recollection of poor air quality in Phoenix. In fact, it seems that most people seem to recall that Phoenix had better air quality "back in the day" than it does now. But Phoenix the 1970s and early 1980s had some of the worst air quality in the country.

Luckily, this situation only lasted for a few years. By the mid-1980s new laws concerning pollution control for homes, businesses, and especially cars, had started to make the difference. And attitudes about the polluting of the air, which had been so casual before the 1970s, was starting to change.

When I moved to Phoenix from Los Angeles, in 1989, I spent a lot of time just admiring the blue skies. I had lived in the San Fernando Valley, where the air was always brown, and it was an exceptional day when the mountains, only a couple of miles away, could even be seen. In Phoenix I could always see the mountains, and on some days it was so clear that I felt that I could reach out and touch them, especially after a rain.


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