Air quality, after traffic, is the most common complaint amongst chilangos.  It doesn’t seem that bad when you first visit the city or even in your first few months of living here.  But the poor air quality drags on you, and after their first year living in Mexico City, many people start to see it as a major issue.

It’s bad, really bad.  But supposedly it is better than it was in the ’80s.  Many people begin to experience respiratory issues after several years of living here.  Sometimes in the dry season the pollution and dryness team up to cause nose bleeds and sinus discomfort.  On bad days, eyes get itchy.

Downtown at street level it is usually not that noticeable visually, but when you get up high enough to have a view, you can see that visibility is worse.  I would say that a bad day might have two city blocks of visibility.  From a high rise in Santa Fe you can look down into the valley and see a thick cloud of smog.  There are mountains on the other side of the valley, but when there is no wind they disappear.

Normally the smog is very bad only a few days per month, and the rest of the time it is more or less bearable.  In the spring of 2016, however, things got a bit out of hand.  Visibility was very low during the fall of 2015 and through the spring of 2016.  The city eventually implemented special driving regimen called “Hoy No Circula 2016” in which every car had at least one day of rest per week.