Map Shows America's Dirtiest Cities

America's dirtiest cities have been identified in a study that ranked cities across the U.S. based on four categories: pollution, living conditions, infrastructure, and consumer satisfaction.

Houston, Texas was ranked as America's dirtiest city, narrowly beating Newark, New Jersey to claim top (or, perhaps, bottom) spot in the survey by LawnStarter of over 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S.

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The landscape services provider found that the nation's fourth most populous city had the worst cockroach problem and was the third most polluted.

Explore the interactive map below to see if your city made it into the list.

Texas' San Antonio was also in the top ten, joined by Jersey City, New Jersey.

Unfortunately for Californians, their state was well represented towards the top of the list too. Three cities from the Golden State featured in the top ten dirtiest: San Bernadino, Bakersfield and Fresno.

Detroit, Michigan, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Yonkers, New York made up the rest of the ten dirtiest cities in the U.S.

Yonkers' metropolitan neighbor New York, home to approximately three million rats in 2023, was only the twelfth dirtiest city in the United States.

LawnStarter's list showed that cleanliness was an issue for cities across the country. Cigarette butts – the world's most littered item – were identified as one of Ohio's more unhygienic characteristics.

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Five of six Ohio cities ranked in the study were found to have a particularly high "share of smokers." Of these, Cleveland was highest, with nearly 30 percent (29.1 percent).

The study also identified a pattern of water cleanliness issues in the U.S. southwest.

Every southwest city included in the study, other than Salt Lake City, Utah, had violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once in 2020 – the year from which the EPA's most current data is available.

American cities were also ranked based on pollution. San Bernardino, Peoria, Arizona, and Houston were the worst offenders on the list, at first, second and third respectively.

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Speaking with LawnStarter about how best to clean up America's dirtiest cities, Kevin Svitana, professor of biology and earth science at Otterbein University in Ohio, said: "In the U.S., there are many environmental regulations that are intended to protect the public.

"Compliance with the regulations would be sufficient. However, often the public is not aware of the regulatory requirements. So, it's often a lack of information sharing of the requirements."

Agricultural scientist Richard Cowles also told the authors of the study that residents should drive less, use public transport more, and plant trees if they have sufficient space to do so in order to contribute to cleaner urban environments.

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