Why is air pollution in the city constantly growing?

There are more and more cars on the roads, but the streets were designed a long time ago - they weren't built for this kind of volume. Plus there are factories, construction sites, and the population in cities keeps growing, so it's actually getting harder and harder to breathe.

The infrastructure just can't keep up with how fast the city's growing :) When they planned this district 30-40 years ago, nobody expected this many people and cars. Now new neighborhoods are being added, but they're often built the same way - without proper ventilation systems, parks, or greenery. And trees, by the way, are actually a really important air filter, but they get cut down for development.

Plus the factories aren't going anywhere. Even if they moved the plants outside the city, the emissions still get blown around the area by the wind. Construction sites also kick up tons of dust, road work, and asphalt releases all kinds of stuff when it's hot. And the building density itself is a factor - in old cozy neighborhoods with smaller buildings the air at least circulates somehow, but in these modern canyons between high-rises it just stagnates.

Basically, it's a complex problem. You need both more greenery and better public transport and emissions standards. But as long as the population and economic activity keep growing, pollution's gonna lag behind whatever solutions they introduce :( Out at the dacha of course there's none of this - the air's completely different out there.

The problem is that the city develops unevenly and chaotically. We're building new residential areas without proper green buffer zones around them, without a well-thought-out air ventilation system. Plus energy consumption keeps growing - the heating plants are outdated, many districts still run on coal, though hardly anyone thinks about it. And yeah, cars add pollution, but that's often not even the main source in big cities.

If you live in an apartment and want to at least breathe decent air at home - try ventilating during off-peak hours. Sounds obvious but people often just open windows whenever. Find out when traffic is lowest in your area - usually early morning or late evening. Intake filters don't cost much if the budget allows. And it sounds weird, but even greening a small balcony or windowsill helps a bit - flowers and plants actually do absorb some of the pollutants.

At the city level, there's also the problem of highway interchanges that concentrate all the traffic in one place instead of distributing the load. And there's no real action on industry - they just move it to neighboring regions instead of modernizing production.