This Texas City Ranked The Dirtiest In The US & Its Trash Problem Is So Much Worse Than NYC

It beat out over 150 American cities for the filthy title.

Main Street in Houston, TX. Right: Trash on a street in New York City.

Main Street in Houston, TX. Right: Trash on a street in New York City.

Texas Staff Writer

Despite Texas' oh-so-famous anti-littering slogan of "Don't Mess With Texas," it seems like residents of one city aren't staying true to those words.

A recent study by the website LawnStarter found Houston, TX to be the "dirtiest city in America," and things here are looking so much worse than other infamously dirty places like New York, NY (No. 12 ) and Detroit, MI (No. 4).

The group analyzed data from 150 cities in the states based on several categories, which include quality of living, pollution levels, and infrastructure, to tell us which are the, well, nastiest.

With a 2.2 million person population, the Bayou City topped this trash-filled chart mainly for its ultra-high levels of pollution, both in the air and ground litter, and unlivable conditions for many of its citizens, which even include gnarly cockroach infestations once exposed by the Census Bureau.

However, according to the report at least, Houstonians are still pretty prideful of the nation's fourth largest city, despite these icky findings,

Texans from both Forth Worth (No. 32) and Amarillo (No. 33) were found to be less satisfied with the cleanliness of their respective cities than those from the 713.

The Lone Star State was found to have another ranked dirty city further west in San Antonio, TX, which placed seventh because of its position in the living conditions category.

In other negative rankings, Space City recently topped another ranking for most sinful cities in the United States, and of course, H-Town had some pretty high scores for lust and jealousy. What's up with Houston, y'all? When are we going to get a high ranking for something good?

  • Staff Writer

    Brittany Cristiano (she/her) was Narcity USA's first full-time Texas Staff Writer. She's a lifelong Houstonian but enjoys every corner of the Lone Star State. Brittany is passionate about highlighting the beauty and rarities in the places we live in or visit–whether it’s showing North American readers something they never knew existed in the South, or helping Texans appreciate the beauty that’s been there the whole time. Oh, and she also loves to spill the tea on the latest trending figures in Texas and beyond. She previously served as an Editorial Intern for Houstonia magazine and as Editor-in-Chief of the University of St. Thomas’ student newspaper.

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