World's Most Polluted Cities 1

World's Most Polluted Cities
Some of these cities were the scene of ecological disasters, others just suffered from years of neglect — but all are in a state of crisis
By Brian Bremner

This is not a list most cities would care to be on — and maybe that's the point. Since 2003, the New York-based Blacksmith Institute has accepted online nominations for the most polluted locales on the planet and published a list of the top 10 offenders. To get there, the environmental group's technical advisory board, which includes experts from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and IIT India, reviews a list of 35 finalists and ranks them on a scoring system that takes into account the severity of pollution and toxins involved, verifiable evidence of a public health impact, and the size of the population affected. Blacksmith is now accepting nominations for its 2007 roster at www.blacksmithinstitute.org, where you can also read about some clean-up success stories. Here's a sampling of some of the locales that made the final 35 on last year's list.