Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
World's 25 dirtiest cities
When I read this headline, I was 100% sure that if Calcutta wasn't number one on this list, it would definitely make the top 5. It doesn't feature on the list at all! The list has been compiled by Forbes basis Mercer Human Resource Consulting's 2007 Health and Sanitation rankings that ranked 215 cities worldwide based on levels of air pollution, waste management, water potability, hospital services, medical supplies and the presence of infectious diseases.
Here's the top 10 World's Dirtiest Cities:
On a positive note: according to Water Aid for every $1 spent on improved sanitation, the benefit equals $9 resulting from decreased cost of health care and increased productivity -- yes, the 90/10 rule. It looks like a little bit of work and expenditure can make A LOT of difference.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Lisa Mar 18th 2008 4:34PM
Hey, ass hoe obviously you know nothing about the third world or inner city blacks. You seem to be a pretty pathetic soul who is obsessed with race to the point that seems to be the only thing you can comment about. Get a life.
Ken Mar 18th 2008 2:50PM
Suppose for a moment that improved sanitation, cradle to grave medical care, and a healthy environment could be "Given" to these teeming billions of poor souls, so that they could reproduce in splendor and in even greater numbers! What would the resulting Trillions of healthy poor people eat? Your Child's Food? Not enough.. Instead of fifty starving babies, there would be fifty one starving babies. Look beyond the end of your nose..
But, I do not have a solution to the misery these poor people endure. God Bless Them.
Nika4 Mar 18th 2008 3:21PM
I have a long term solution for the starving, impoverished masses...birth control! If we can manage to show a man/woman how to feed their family, clothe and educate their family, then shouldn't we carry it further and teach them about birth control methods that actually work? As a mother, myself, I can't believe that women, no matter how illiterate, really want to bring endless children into this world, only to watch them starve and struggle to survive, and eventually die of malnutrition and/or disease.
Annette Mar 18th 2008 4:07PM
I couldn't agree with you more, but the men have alot to do with it. Some don't access to condoms, nor do they want to use them. The illiterate women you speak of are probably frightened about using any birth control methods due to ignorance.
PSJ Mar 19th 2008 9:09AM
Father most high, Please bless and keep those who most need you.
Newport Mar 18th 2008 4:07PM
There you go! No wonder why Mexicans have deteriorated not only the American culture but the cleanliness and good hygiene of the American people.
Those have brought also diseases that were long erradicated from this Country.
PROUD MEXICAN Mar 18th 2008 4:37PM
LOOK NEWPORT:: I DIDNT JUST HERE YOU TALK ABOUT MEXICANS THAT WAY... LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, ITS NOT LIKE THE AMERICAN CULTURE IS EXTREMELY CLEAN BECAUSE THAT IS NOT TRUE! THAT TO ME SOUNDS VERY RACIST SO STOP AND THINK FOR A MINUTE BECAUSE I KNOW ALOT OF "AMERICAN" PEOPLE THAT ARE FILTY LIKE THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOE, SO DONT BE PULLING THAT CRAP!!YOU MUST BE IGNORANT TO THINK OF GENERALIZING ALL OF THE MEXICANS THAT WAY...OH, DISEASES WERE ALREADY HERE BEFORE WE ARRIVED...IGNORANCE AND RACISM ARE A COUPLE...
Juan Mar 18th 2008 4:38PM
The lack of population control will turn out to be the number one reason humans suffer a tortuous exit from the world's stage. No person wants to make the hard calls, but we are not rapdily increasing our resources, medical knowledge, or the world's standard of living, just our population, and many drains on humanity (crime; air, water, land and noise pollution; warfare, etc..) More people need more, less people need less. Logical, but brutal in implementation. For example, if you save the starving children, the really badly malnourished ones who have been like that way for years, they will be a drain on society, because their formative brain years will be behind them, and those years were less than sub-standard. One African leader said they, the saved ones, were little more than zombies in his country, with such low mental capacity as to drain the nation, keeping the country continually poor, ecnomically, spiritually, and mentally. Letting them die was seen as one step toward salvation, while also pouring money into pre-natal care, and making sure that the people, while not as numerous, were better taken care of. To implement such an undertaking would be so cruel and so inhumane, that it would never fly. (The African leader did not go about letting his people die.) That does not mean, however, that the problem would take flight and not bother us any more. That is just one scenario. How do you keep people from having so many babies? Is educating them enough? This would need to be a worldwide undertaking. Mother Earth has too many people, and lessening water. How do you think that play out? Civility and all still there? What do we do?
Jeff Mar 18th 2008 11:27PM
Well put Juan
Nika4 Mar 18th 2008 4:55PM
Men shouldn't have the final say as to how many children their women bring into this world, only to suffer and die from malnutrition and disease. Women need to be educated and thereby, empowered, to know that they and they alone, are responsible for what happens to their children, in far too many cases. How we go about achieving that, with the men that exist in this world, is beyond me. Heck, we can't even address it in our own communities in this country, as men freely impregnate and then, take off. And women appear to feel no hesitation or shame about having five/six babies by five/six different men. I raised three sons, and if I taught them nothing else, I taught them to be fiscally, as well as emotionally, responsible for the lives they might help to create!! But, what do I know...I am old fashioned.
Robert M. Anderson Mar 18th 2008 4:59PM
Gee, Lisa, I like you too. I have been in the Military and travelled the world, and I live right outside DC, so I call them as I see them. To critisize others DOES not make me a racist; this is the same tiresome rhetoric that CAUSES racial divide. Central and South America, subsharan Africa, India, and Indonesia/Malaysian archipeligos, among other places, are just as I described them. It is simply history that Europe and the Middle East - the Celts, the Greeks, the Romans, and the semitic peoples of the Middle East - have given us 2,500 years of culture in every respect; especially northern and western europeans. The new world was populated by stone age savages (Native Americans, to be politically correct) who hadn't even entered the iron age or invented the wheel. Subsaharan black africa never produced any culture of any sort - no writing, nothing. They learned iron making from the Arabs, but that is it. And no, the Egyptians, who did invent writing, were not black and Greece did not 'steal' civilization from them. The blacks south of Egypt did some of the things the Egyptians did, but they didn't invent them. Blacks have enslaved blacks in Africa from time immemorial, and there is STILL SLAVERY TODAY IN AFRICA. They engaged in commerce with Europeans by selling them people they had enslaved. Free southern blacks, for example, owned slaves, and fought for the confederacy. Not to mention constant wars in Africa, with even children killing others and cannibalizing them today; remember Rwanda. (Look at the disaster of Mugabe in Rhodesia, oh, sorry Zimbabwe). He completely destroyed the "breadbasket of Africa" built by white settlers. Now, you will note that, unlike you, I did not call you names, I just layed out the facts. Not liking the facts does not change them, nor will calling me names help your case. Bob Anderson
Kenny Mar 19th 2008 9:13AM
The problems that many of these developing countries face today are no different than the problems European cities, and countries faced in the past (remember the plague?) Europeans were fortunate in that they have had a head start in developing sanitary, and health codes that have greatly enhanced the health and well being of their populations. If you were to read the description of sanitary, and health conditions of European, and American cities written by travelers in previous centuries, you will see that western societies are not too long removed from the conditions faced by developing societies today. It is indeed a sad commentary on our lack of love and compassion for other members of the human family, when we use a survey such as this to try and prove western and European "superiority" and speak so harshly, and ignorantly of other races, and societies , while conveniently forgetting our own past.
Nika4 Mar 18th 2008 4:59PM
Wow, I don't know what part of Damascus, Syria you visited, but the parts I visited were as hygenic as any city in this country. But then, since I happen to know a few Arabs personally, who are not third world filthy, as you seem to suggest, perhaps I took a more impartial view of what I was seeing. Now, if you visited the slums there...well, they tend to look the same the world over...filthy.
laradunston Mar 21st 2008 11:05AM
I agree with you - I've been to Syria many times over a ten year period (I'm a travel writer and co-wrote two editions of Lonely Planet's Syria and Lebanon guide) and I've never come across filth comparable to that which exists in the top 10 cities.
What disappoints me more than the pollution in poverty-stricken/developing cities is seeing filth in wealthy Western European countries. I've just spent 2 months in Cyprus and Crete and while they certainly have beautiful landscapes and some pristine beaches, the amount of litter and junk to be found scattered all over both countries is appalling, as is the fact that you're guaranteed to see informal 'garbage dumps' outside every town and village, i.e. a place where the locals have just decided to dump their trash and unwanted stuff (rusty fridges typically found here). Seeing this waste piling up in a beautiful field or sliding down a lovely mountain is disgusting. (I've recently posted about this on my blog: http://cooltravelguide.blogspot.com.) I don't know what others think...
SafeAndEffective Mar 18th 2008 8:02PM
This article didn't seem to actually have the complete list of all 25 cities. The complete article can be found at this link:
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/24/pollution-baku-oil-biz-logistics-cx_tl_0226dirtycities_slide_2.html?partner=iht
Fred Mar 18th 2008 5:14PM
To say the mexicans are bringing disease into America is not racist, its fact. They haven't went through the immunizations we have and they still deal with problems we cured long ago. I forget exactly what they are bringing with them but there are a couple big ones. Its yet another reason we can't have people wondering over the boarder as they please without regulation. Its stupid to think otherwise.
Scott Kochman Mar 18th 2008 5:08PM
Where's the list?
panzy Mar 18th 2008 5:34PM
I THINK MEXICANS ARE A PROMBLE AND DON'T KNOW WHY OUR GORV. CAN NOT KEEP THEM OUT OF THIS COUNTRY
Chris Mar 18th 2008 8:58PM
It's amuzing to myself that some ignorant individuals still seem to beleive that "mexicans" are the problem of the U.S. As for the Hillica individual. I beleive they mentioned sending immigrants back to the land of their ancestors. Sorry to inform you but unless your of Native American descent chances are YOU are an immigrant. And so it's likely that upon the arrival of YOUR ancestors that they brought disease and sucked out the natural resources (i.e. water, crops etc.) which this once vast beautiful country offered. It is the corruption, deceit, genocide, and enslavement of your forefathers whom you should accredit your ability to call this nation your own furthermore allowing degenerate scum like you to refer to human beings as "anchor babies." YOU are an anchor baby. And your great great great great granddaddy was the "SPIC" of his time trying to find a better life for his family and future generations to come by immigrating to another country. Only to have degenerate self-centered great great great grandchildren such as yourself. Word of advice, unless you travel to great lengths trying to make a better life for yourself risking it in the process, don't pass judgement on those who do and definately don't take pride in other peoples accomplishments. P.S. I'm sure great great great granddaddy would be proud!
Bill Evans Mar 18th 2008 6:02PM
I think Karachi has got to be the biggest slum in the world. I had to return to my hotel quickly after the stench nearly caused me to vomit. Mexico City is hardly pristeen but I dont think warrants inclusion in the list.
Bill