Dig deeper and you find that the stats included Beaverton and Vancouver in the calculation, so I take Portland's ranking with a grain of salt. Also, it's a port city, would you rather we push those jobs out to be ranked better?

No one said "city." But thanks for that correction of what was perfectly accurate.

Dig deeper and you find that the stats included Beaverton and Vancouver in the calculation, so I take Portland's ranking with a grain of salt.

Metro areas make perfect sense, since air doesn't stop at the borders.

Also, it's a port city, would you rather we push those jobs out to be ranked better?

Being a port city is way down the list of significant reasons for Portland's toxic air.

You really should have that cough looked at.

Figures don't lie.......

Portland worse than LA for Air quality? Chicago is 2 but 37 overall?

Jaw dropping.

The last time I drove to LA was via 101. we dropped down to Santa Barbara and as we dropped, we were engulfed in a brown gray smudge. I could hardly breathe.

Ditto for Chicago. Several years ago I was in the Loop and felt like I was hiking at 10,000', my lungs were so taxed. Got off the plane the next day here and relief!

Naperville is much clearer than the Loop, for the most part. Have many relatives in that area.

Cough cough!

Hmmm. One of the very well positioned sites not considered for a baseball stadium in Beaverton was between SW Cedar Hills Blvd and SW Murray - the Tek site. Ask the City of Beaverton or Clean Water Services what the clean up could be and you might be surprised. Ouch - too hot to touch! Oops, did someone say we should check the the soil before we consider the site. Yikes!!

You might also want to ask why the property south of Nike headquarters was not cosidered - beautiful area. Oops can't annex for 30-35 years, Beaverton!

If anything, Beaverton should be a Hillsboro neighborhood and just go away. It would be better served by a NAC (neighborhood association).

The Forbes article that spawned this post most likely assumed that when you say Chicago, IL or Portland, OR, then you are really saying the Chicago Metro Area and the Portland Metro Area.

As for Portland, OR being a "port" city, it has a lot more port traffic along the Coos Bay, OR lines (*cough* where is it? *cough* I don't see daily freighter ships *cough*) than either Seattle or San Francisco whose ports are major shipping destinations along the West Coast.

Portland, OR in terms of size, culture, and an economy with a noticeable industrial base really is the red-headed step child when compared to any of the large cities on the West Coast.

I don't buy it. They have San Bernadino / Riverside, CA listed higher than Portland. That area is a wasteland of industry and cars. The area also has one of the highest particulate counts found within the US.

I notice that one of the criteria they use are the number of Superfund sites within the metro area. Well, that's great if they are declared Superfund sites. How many industrial areas in other places are just undiscovered ecological nightmares? Did they account for sites that have been cleaned up and removed from the active list? suggests that there is some serious funny business going down... (Red = active, green = cleaned and removed)

They have San Bernadino / Riverside, CA listed higher than Portland. That area is a wasteland of industry and cars. The area also has one of the highest particulate counts found within the US.

The study looks at water quality, air quality, and Superfund declared sites. Portland, for example, has some of the worst water quality in its waterways--another often denied fact. And air quality is about more than just particulate counts.

I notice that one of the criteria they use are the number of Superfund sites within the metro area. Well, that's great if they are declared Superfund sites. How many industrial areas in other places are just undiscovered ecological nightmares?

I think saying that "well, they don't know how many places they haven't found yet" isn't a credible challenge to the numbers.

Did they account for sites that have been cleaned up and removed from the active list? suggests that there is some serious funny business going down... (Red = active, green = cleaned and removed)

That's right, Fred, there's a sinister cabal looking to slightly skew Superfund site statistics out there.

No, they didn't get it wrong. there are severl ways to look up Superfund sites, and the National Priorities List is just one of them. And Superfund is a program, not a specific type of site. If a specific site has ecological problems that meet the Superfund criteria, then they can get "superfunds" to help with cleanup.

That doesn't mean that a site not on the "Superfund" list doesn't still ahve problems--it just means the site doesn't meet Superfund criteria for getting financial aid.