Is Boise Really One Of America’s Most Disgusting Dirty Cities?

When people talk about Boise, the word "dirty" doesn't typically come up, but maybe it should. With the increase in population, we all knew that eventually, our clean city would be harder to keep clean. Evidence suggests that day is coming much sooner than we expected.

LawnStarter studied the largest 150 cities in America and compared them in four categories: pollution, living conditions, infrastructure, and consumer satisfaction. As you can imagine, our infrastructure score isn't very good. Boise is ranked 14th among those 150 cities. That means only 13 cities have worse infrastructure than Boise regarding landfills, state regulations, junk yards, and alternative fuel use and availability. It's not surprising. We weren't planning for the population boom we've experienced over the past ten years. We rank much better in the other categories like Pollution and living conditions.

So, how dirty is Boise? Compared to a place like Houston, not bad at all, but compared to a place like Virginia Beach, not so good at all.

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When you look at the list of cities that are the dirtiest in America, you won't be surprised to find Houston, Texas, ranked first. The rest of the top five are Newark, San Bernadino, Detroit, and Jersey City.

Boise may not have topped the list, but Boise made the list. That's a first for the Gem State's capital city. What would it take to get off of it? A lot of money. Building better infrastructure would be the easiest way. A light rail from Boise to Caldwell would help.