NEWARK – A lawn care matchmaking company has ranked the City of Newark, N.J. atop its Jan. 23 list of “2022’s Dirtiest Cities in America.”
LawnStarter, of Austin, Texas, placed New Jersey’s largest city first among the 87 most populous in the U.S. it had surveyed late last year. The rankings, which covered cities in 26 other states and Washington, D.C. were given overall scores based on pollution, living conditions, infrastructure and consumer satisfaction.
Newark, whose 2020 Census population was 311,549, was given an overall score of 52.97. Houston, Texas (2,304,580) was ranked second at 50.12.
Jersey City (292,449) came in 27th at 39.45. New York City (8,804,190) landed 14th at 42.19. Norfolk, Va. (238,005) placed 87th and last at 15.78.
Newark received this dubious distinction after ranking third in LawnCare’s July 1, 2021 survey. Palmdale, Calif (152,921) took that top spot with Los Angeles (3,898,747) second. Los Angeles is third Jan. 23 at 49.87 and Palmdale dropped off the “worst 87” chart.
LawnStarter, founded in 2013, brings homeowners and lawn mowing/landscaping companies together online. Its website lists insured “Lawn Care Pros” in 60 cities or metropolitan areas among 17 states and D.C.
Only 35 cities or metro areas LawnStarter serves, however. are among Jan. 23’s list of 87 surveyed. LawnStarter does not appear to serve Newark, Jersey City, New York City, Los Angeles, Norfolk or Palmdale.
LawnStarter has also posted nine other surveys, from “2021’s Best Cities for Remote Workers ” to “2021’s Most Festive Cities.”
The Jan. 23 survey, according to LawnStarter.com’s blog, uses 23 metrics among its four categories. There are four metrics, including the median air quality index, in “Pollution.” “Living Conditions,” including residents per square mile, have nine.
Infrastructure, including tons recycling and refuse collection or sent to landfills per 100,000, has six metrics. Consumer Satisfaction, including “share of residents dissatisfied with garbage disposal,” has four.
Some of LawnStarter’s metrics, like garbage disposal satisfaction, are drawn from Numbeo.com’s data. Numbeo calls itself the world’s largest crowd-sourced cost of living database.
Newark, according to the latest survey results, ranks 43rd worst in Infrastructure. This score includes the city’s 52nd ranking for tons of waste in landfills per 100,000 residents in terms of Infrastructure and 68th for recycling and refuse collections per 100,000 in the same category.
Newark ranks second-worst in Customer Satisfaction. It is first in the percentage of residents dissatisfied with garbage disposal and residents who consider the city as dirty or untidy. It is ranked second in the percentage of residents dissatisfied with parks and greenery.
Jersey City, by comparison, was ranked seventh in Customer Satisfaction, 50th in Infrastructure, 10th in Living Conditions and 55th in Pollution.
“As lockdown restrictions eased, pollution returned to pre-pandemic levels in many urban areas; U.S. emissions shot up by 6.2 percent compared to 2020,” said LawnStarter in its release statement. “In many cities, people deal with much more than pollution – pests, litter and bad waste management. Dirty cities are unappealing to residents and tourists and can be a huge drain on municipal budgets.”
Newark, despite ranking first in opportunities, lands 63rd in cities for remote workers. It also ranks eighth, behind Jersey City, among the most festive cities.
Whether Palmdale responded to last year’s top-ranking with improvements or by supplying insufficient data for the Jan. 23 survey is not known by press time. A Feb. 1 email to the Palmdale City Clerk remains unanswered.
LawnStarter, in its Jan. 23 release, initially surveyed 200 cities or metropolitan areas. They narrowed their list to 87 after the other 113 lacked data in one or two metrics.
An email to Mayor Ras Baraka’s Office of Public Information was not immediately responded to.
