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Anecdata I was living very close to a busy highway, and my young daughter was wheazing when she had a cold, we had to give her medicine via a nebulizer. When we
by ecshafer 1mo ago
Anecdata I was living very close to a busy highway, and my young daughter was wheazing when she had a cold, we had to give her medicine via a nebulizer. When we moved out to the country more, far away from any major roads, these issues all disappeared within a couple months.
- roughly 1mo agoA friend of mine does research on air pollution from cars - the TL;DR is you should not live within a third of a mile of a highway. The falloff is pretty sharp, but you don't want to be in that zone.
- lazide 1mo agoNotably, most major cities have been building tons of housing (especially ‘affordable housing’) right next to highways, as it is the only areas that aren’t already built out with tons of high value houses. Surprise surprise.
- energy123 1mo agoIt's a dumping ground for poor people.
- tony69 1mo agoIt’s not like they do it on purpose rubbing hands
- weird-eye-issue 1mo agoHousing development happens at random?
- masklinn 1mo agoPlus the US literally built highways in the middle of poor neighbourhoods.
- alex0015 1mo agoDevelopers build apartments where they can make money from them, in other words where they can rent them for enough that they'll make back their investment. It's very expensive to build housing, so the only way to make the investment back and have low rental prices is to try to make the building costs as low as possible. A big part of those costs is the price of land.
- weird-eye-issue 1mo agoWhat's even the point of this comment?
- alex0015 1mo agoThe parent and thread seemed to be arguing that low cost housing was intentionally built in places that disadvantaged the people who lived there.
- lazide 1mo agoOr, the only places to build houses with reasonable costs are in areas that weren’t already built out with very expensive houses. Which will tend to be less desirable areas, by definition. One approach, of course, would be to also make existing houses less expensive/desirable. Notably, wealthy people tend to have the resources to fight efforts to do that.
- ben_w 1mo agoThe other approach is to expand what land is available to build on. I understand that in the UK, farmers consider it a lottery win if they get planning permission for some of their farmland to become housing. Despite what many in the UK think about it "being full", this is mostly an illusion from how cramped are the parts in which the houses are allowed to go; the country as a whole is mostly undeveloped. (There are of course other considerations, with "why did you build on a flood plain?" being one of the failure modes in the UK).
- afiori 1mo agoWoke activists love the word "systemic" for a reason. If a bunch of good people acting in good faith produce a result an evil mastermind would want does it matter if they are good? On many levels obviously yes, on some practical levels the system and the incentives still need to change.
- sasaf5 1mo agoWhat about the vicinity of large or uphill streets inside a city? I am curious how the data compares with highways.
- JayShower 1mo agoWhat about biking near a highway? E.g. in Chicago the lakeshore bike trail is next to a busy 8 lane highway
- theplumber 1mo agoI remember I’ve read somewhere that jogging is actually net harmful for health in the city due the air pollution.
- bcraven 1mo agohttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10817787/How-chivalry-on-the-pavement-could-kill-you.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10817787/How-ch... Generations of men have been taught that when walking with a woman on a pavement, they should always take the side closer to the road allowing her to keep further away from the traffic. But Dr Iarla Kilbane-Dawe claimed that Londoners should avoid walking too near the kerb because on busy streets, air pollution can be up to a third higher than on the inside of the pavement.
- goobatrooba 1mo agoSo in effect, if you want to be the chivalrous man (which no one forces you to be) you still should choose the roadside side of the pavement.
- marliechiller 1mo agoShame you cant remember the source. Ive long since wondered if its actually more deleterious for my health to cycle to work in London due to air quality. I came to the conclusion that youre damned if you do and damned if you dont in the end, as in London at least, many of the tube lines have particulates higher than is considered safe
- ben_w 1mo agoProbably depends on the tube line; one of them, can't remember which now as I left the country in 2018, left me with black snot on each use. Cycling wasn't that bad, but neither were the other lines.
- smcin 1mo agoDoesn't it depend on the mix of diesel/petrol/electric? In particular many cities ban or restrict diesel.
- danielheath 1mo agoTyre pollution is significant regardless of fuel source.
- vee-kay 1mo ago[dead]
- nerdsniper 1mo agoEV's have 100% reduction of NOx/tailpipe VOCs, 100% reduction in soot/tailpipe particulates, 70% reduction in brake pad dust (due to regenerative braking), in exchange for 25% increase in tire wear. Vehicles are capped at emissions of 3mg/mile of particulates and 30mg/mile of VOC's. Something like 1-2mg of tire material actually becomes airborne PM10 particles every mile (and only about 10% of that for PM2.5 particles). So, EV's really do a great job reducing emissions from 35mg/mile to <2mg/mile (PM10) or even <0.1mg/mile for PM2.5. A 95%-99.8% reduction in air pollution near highways would seem absolutely fantastic for me and my children! https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11636205/#:~:text=When%20excluding%20road%20wear%20and%20resuspension%2C%20mean,emissions%20of%206.5%20mg%2Fkm%2Fvehicle%20(median%206.1%20mg%2Fkm%2Fvehicle). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11636205/#:~:text=W...
- dotancohen 1mo ago> EV's have 100% reduction of NOx/tailpipe VOCs, 100% reduction in soot/tailpipe particulates, 70% reduction in brake pad dust (due to regenerative braking), in exchange for 25% increase in tire wear. I replaced the tires on my Tesla model 3 at 74,000 km and they still had tread above the indicator bars. I'm now at 140,000 km and the tires look great, the back ones look like they're only about halfway done. I might be an outlier but my previous Subaru needed tires every 50,000 to 60,000 km. Needless to say, the brake pads have never been touched and when I saw the left front one at around 110,000 to 120,000 to patch that tire, it looked like it was just installed. The regen braking almost completely eliminated the brake pad or rotor as a wear item.
- nathancahill 1mo agoDoctors used to prescribe a "change of air" in the 18-19th centuries. Maybe they still should.
- enquirewithin 1mo agoSanitariums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanatorium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanatorium I guess the modern descendants are the health retreat, the rural airbnb, and the day spa that offers oxygen therapy.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftkurort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftkurort
- aitchnyu 1mo agoI wanted to long for the time when people hated "Malaria" and wanted to move to "Beunos Aires". But they believed the arrows chase us at daytime and the plague engulf us at night, like in the Psalm.
- Hugsbox 1mo agoBrother what are you even talking about
- dzhiurgis 1mo agoSince Eastern Europe is relatively poor and sensitive to energy prices a lot of households invested into insulation, new windows, etc. Last 20 years there was also a huge boom for heat recovery ventilation. Such a simple and inexpensive device that provides so much. Should be first item in every household to invest into. Funny part is that locals here are absolutely scared of any sign of draft or direct aircon. All while it's what actually saves their health lol.
- foobarian 1mo ago> Funny part is that locals here are absolutely scared of any sign of draft or direct aircon I have always been and am still baffled by this. My whole family loses their minds if there is even a slight draft or AC, whether in the house or car. When my brother visits he incessantly closes car vents and windows. Parents constantly nag to put on warm clothes and avoid drafts etc., and when we inevitably get sick a few times a year mostly from school transmitted cold viruses they gloat about it. Maybe it's a cultural thing from times without good heat/insulation where drafts meant an actual freezing house, which, yes that would actually have an impact on health.
- dyauspitr 1mo agoAs long as the country doesn’t involve large scale farms because the glyphosate sprayed on them causes serious issues.
- Aurornis 1mo agoLiving very close to busy highways is known to generate poor air quality. I recommend anyone in those locations buy an air purifier for their kids' rooms. I bought a couple reasonably priced HEPA purifiers and I change the filters on schedule. Replacement HEPA filters are very cheap. Also watch out for things that we do indoors that can generate bad air quality. I had a friend who bought a VOC meter and noticed very high readings in his kid's room. He traced the source to his chemical and paint cabinet nearby, which he never considered because he couldn't smell anything. Throwing out a lot of the old containers dropped the measurements to the unmeasurable range.
- energy123 1mo agoIt's a good start, but for VOCs and gases you'll need activated carbon. Those 2-in-1 filters do exist but cost more. And many are scams because they don't have enough volume of activated carbon.
- Sha1rholder 1mo agoWhy would they cut corners? Activated carbon isn’t expensive.
- karlgkk 1mo agoBut it does cost money and so… corners are cut
- Retric 1mo agoBecause it’s not obvious to most customers that a corner’s been cut. Same reason most new construction in the US sucks. You can safely put a washer and dryer on the upper floor of a house if you add a proper floor drain, but you’re unlikely to see anyone add a floor drain in new construction because buyers aren’t looking for it. Now multiply that by everything a buyer isn’t looking for and you’re talking real money.
- mschuster91 1mo ago
- pasc1878 1mo agoMy anecdote would be the revesre. Living in the country gave me bad hay fever/asthma in the city much less asthma.
- gib444 1mo agoSame. I visit my family in London and my sleep improves because of no hay fever. Though then I get black boogers, horrible chalky hair, a renewed sense of misanthropy etc
- enquirewithin 1mo agoYou need a NMAID Non-Misanthropic Anti-Inflammatory Drug.
- YeahThisIsMe 1mo agoYou discovered that you have an allergy. Not exactly the same thing.
- red-iron-pine 1mo agoplus all available evidence suggests that allergies are getting worse due to changes in biodiversity. the only plants that survive these days are the ones that spam a ton of pollen, so it gets selected for aggressively.
- Gigachad 1mo agoNO2 is a very hazardous air pollutant which doesn’t get a ton of attention. The main sources are combustion engines and gas stoves. Asthma looks to be mostly caused by gas stoves. I’ve got a sensor that can detect no2 and it noticeably spikes when using gas. Switched to induction after that.
- enquirewithin 1mo agoI’ve often wondered about this. Does the area immediately above where the gas stove was have an exhaust fan that vents to atmosphere? I would have assumed a properly specced exhaust fan would capture and remove combustion products from a gas stove?
- Gigachad 1mo agoI’ve never once been in a property that had an exhaust fan sufficient. I’ve had the exhaust on full blast and the spike on the air quality sensor on another floor of the house is rapid and massive. I suspect a sufficient ventilation would require something more like a lab fume hood that can pull a negative pressure on the area around the stove. And from what I have seen, a good number of exhaust fans are straight up fake and just ventilate back in to the room rather than ducted outside.
- flir 1mo ago> And from what I have seen, a good number of exhaust fans are straight up fake and just ventilate back in to the room rather than ducted outside. Culinary Cargo Cult.
- throwway120385 1mo agoThere's a filter in it you're supposed to change regularly when they're in that configuration.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- mk89 1mo agoI don't understand why we keep on building right next to highways which are some of the worst things for our health. You don't need to live in the countryside for that. Just stay roughly 1km away from them and the situation is significantly better. There is evidence of a lot of ugly diseases caused by this, without even mentioning the constant 40+ dB background noise.
- pasc1878 1mo agoIn London that is difficult – there is not a lot of space. Plus the idea of having everything within a 15 minute walk including access to public transport.
- vincnetas 1mo agohighway != public transport And pollution from bus or tram is much easier to control. Looking at you petrolheads who like to "Rolling coal"
- pasc1878 1mo agoYes but in London you are never far from a highway you cannot get away from them. In London now many if not most buses are electric.
- inigyou 1mo ago