See Why Experts Rank This Ohio City as the State's Filthiest - A-Z Animals

Carrying the title of filthiest Ohio city is not the most enviable of labels, nor is it something most cities strive for. City life is all hustle and bustle. Unfortunately, that hustle and bustle comes with a price. Metropolitan areas throughout the United States are extremely dense, population wise—a lot of people squeezed into finite real estate.

Humanity rarely learns from its past mistakes and casual littering, though it may seem harmless to the individual, adds up in a hurry. This is especially true when you have a lot of people packed into a relatively small area.

Cities try to combat this in conjunction with the EPA and various neighborhood drives. However, when spend the day picking up 10 lbs of litter, other people are dumping 20 lbs on the ground. It’s a one-step forward, two-steps back approach, and some cities simply become filthy in short order.

What Is The Filthiest Ohio City?

According to LawnStarter, a business-level lawn, maintenance, and semi-landscaping company, Dayton, Ohio is the filthiest Ohio city and the 42nd filthiest city in the United States. Cincinnati is close behind in 2nd place and 50th nationwide.

Dayton isn’t just the filthiest city in the Buckeye State. It’s also one of the worst places to raise a family, according to WalletHub, and poorly ranked in school system quality, median income, violent crime, unemployment, housing, housing affordability, and divorce rate.

With all of the problems the city faces, it’s no wonder litter is the least of concerns.

Living Conditions

Living conditions isn’t a singular thing—as in, there’s roaches and mice infestations in your house or all the houses in the neighborhood. It’s a conglomeration of less than ideal circumstances. All of these sub par circumstances come together to create a poor living condition for everyone in that area.

The current population of Dayton, Ohio (metro) is 811,078. Since Dayton is 1,715 mi² in size, that boils down to 473 people per square mile, rounded up. That’s not the densest population ever, but it is a lot of people, and more than enough to accumulate a lot of trash.

This is especially true with the rising homeless population in the city, and too many people with a predilection toward tossing their trash on the ground. The unemployment rate in Dayton is 8.1%, with the average age of 39. Median home prices are well north of $200k, with the median monthly rent approaching $900/mo.

“Zombie homes” are also prevalent throughout Dayton, and their existence further embellishes the “filthiest Ohio city” label. By October of 2019, there were an estimated 5,000 zombie homes in Dayton, with 1/5 of those considered to be nuisances. In other words, they more than qualify for a front end loader erasing them from the surface of the earth.

Pollution

Back in 2012, it wasn’t looking good for Dayton, Ohio on the pollution front. Not only was it the filthiest Ohio city, even then, but it was also a particulate nightmare for fresh pairs of lungs everywhere close to or within the city.

Currently, the air pollution levels in Dayton are “good”, at least, according to IQAir. The air pollution level is still above the WHO guideline values, though it’s clearly showing progress for the better. The City of Dayton Water OneSource, a Division of Environmental Management, keeps tabs on pollution levels throughout the city.

This includes dealing with water supply pollutants, storm water management, emergency response programs, establishing and maintaining a sustainable practices policy, and planning or initiating neighborhood and riverside cleanup efforts.

Dayton Water OneSource also offers educational programs to inform Dayton residents on hazardous materials and provide residents with an environmental contact list. Water quality is another major concern, for obvious reasons, and Dayton Water OneSource conducts 200 water tests on a daily basis.

They ensure the tap water in the city meets or exceeds EPA and state tap water guidelines.

Infrastructure

The vast majority of improvements, both present and future, to the infrastructure in Dayton are either on the docket or currently on the way. Starting in 2022, a sudden surge in the city’s desire to see infrastructure improvements took place. This effort is ongoing and a direct response to carrying the filthiest Ohio city label.

• Fiscal Year 2020: 55 wastewater projects begin, thanks to $5.1 billion in loans
• May 2022: New plans for eleven different public infrastructure projects
• July 2022: Active Transportation Plan begins, in coordination with the public
• July 2023: Sixth Ave. and Berry Street undergoing curb extensions, a connector, and repaving
• Also in 2023: Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce announced support for funding a study on the expansion of Amtrak commuter stops

So, as you can see, the last 3 years feature a more excitable, environmental and infrastructure-focus from the city of Dayton. The latest economic and infrastructure update from City of Dayton OneSource reveals a creation of over one thousand jobs, $300 million in economic output, and between $70 and $100 million invested in minority women business enterprises.

Consumer Satisfaction

This is not exactly a measure of satisfaction from Dayton residents concerning the purchase of products and real estate. It’s more a measure of needs, values, and challenges. The last time the City of Dayton took a measure of consumer satisfaction was in 2021. Today, Dayton is still the filthiest Ohio city, so you can imagine what it was two years ago.

There are a lot of different indicators on the consumer satisfaction survey, however, only some of them directly apply to the physical state of Dayton, Ohio.

• 57% consider Dayton, Ohio to be a good place to live
• 54% express satisfaction of their neighborhoods
• 86% feel like they are safe in Dayton
• 65% don’t appreciate the condition of the streets
• 61% express satisfaction with waste collection, which is a 10% drop from previous surveys
• 28% witness drug activity in the streets, which is also down from previous surveys
• 52% don’t feel any stress or very little stress over their financial situations

Overall, 2021 seems to be an improvement over previous years and, considering the above list of infrastructure improvements, targets, and projections, 2023 (going into 2024) is probably somewhere along the upward curve.

Filthiest Ohio City And How It Affects The Local Wildlife

The Ohio EPA conducts various surveys and studies over the years, and their most recent study is an optimistic one. Despite being the filthiest city in Ohio, the rivers that flow near the city are higher in quality than in previous measurements.

In fact, the EPA reports that the water in the Dayton area is some of the highest quality water in the state. That’s excellent news, as the local wildlife is highly dependent on fresh, clean water. Animals are just like human beings, seeking shelter, food, and water, and it looks like water is on the up and up in the Dayton area.

Of course, Dayton isn’t directly responsible for clean flowing rivers, only insofar as where the river passes through the Dayton area. The city can’t control what goes in the water up river, after all. A wide variety of animals depend on the rivers flowing through Ohio, including bobcats, a variety of fish, beavers, deer, coyotes, robins, thrushes, amphibians, and freshwater mussels.

The area around Dayton, Ohio is full of wildlife, all of which depend on high air quality as well. As mentioned above, the air quality in Dayton is improving, but it’s not where it needs to be just yet. On most days, “good” is the typical status, but it occasionally drops to “moderate”.

Raccoons, owls, opossums, fox, squirrels, the red-bellied woodpecker, copperheads, the eastern fence lizard, and the red-shouldered hawk are a small sample of the wildlife living in and around the city. Dayton’s status as the filthiest Ohio city has a direct impact on their livelihood, just as it does with people.

Final Thoughts

Filthiest Ohio city or not, Dayton is working on it and, in general, is trending towards bettering the local environment, economy, and overall living conditions. With the level of projects currently underway, and recent surveys indicating improving quality of life among residents, Dayton may change its category sooner rather than later.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Beeline Aerial/Shutterstock.com