I mean, yeah. Which I know sounds weird, how can you care too much about a good thing? So forgive the length of the following.

To start, air quality is important, Pittsburgh's is not the best, and it's always good to shoot for improvement. But the center of my argument is people do care too much because current numbers don't reflect the collective consensus that our air is so bad.

This is mostly driven by the fact that Pittsburgh had decades of toxic air, so it firmly lodged itself in people's minds (rightfully so at the time). It doesn't help that there are still industrial centers that cause high localized problems on a semi regular basis. But the overall trend is PGH air is miles better than it used to be and is getting better year over year. Even in the worst areas.

But instead of people being happy and positive about that improvement, you have undue negativity dragging and holding people down.

You still see so much genuine anxiety and stress over this issue on this sub. If people were more objective about it, being realistic with our current air quality rather than fixated on the past, it would have tangible benefits on the area's mental health.

I genuinely think this likely probably feeds a placebo effect for a lot of people, making their physical health worse because they hype it up in their head when they see the AQI pass 50.

When people freak out about AQIs in the 50s, 60s, or 70s, its laughable. It disenfranchises people who have to deal with real issues living next to the factories where the AQI is 150, 200, etc. Those same people then cite the AQIs of those marginalized communities as if they can claim they suffer to the same extent which is what pisses me off the most.

Pittsburgh is a great city and yet you have so many people making or not making financial, life altering decisions because of this hyperbolic mindset. I get that especially for some neighborhoods and some people with specific issues they need to consider these things more seriously. But then you have people on this sub telling others to not move here because the entire city has toxic air which is blatantly false. It's like these people want to keep the city as down and depressed as they are.

To wrap this up, I just want to be crystal clear. We should be doing everything we can to improve the air and hold these polluting companies responsible, potentially even to the point of shutting them down. But unless people live next to one of these factories, they should realize that AQIs in the moderate range are typical for almost every urban/suburban community in the country. Which reflects just how far PGH has come.