Photos taken by the EPA reveal America before pollution was regulated

We look back at the suburbanization of America with such regret, but looking at these pictures, it’s hard to imagine sticking it out in these cities during that time.<p>I question how anyone who was alive back then would want to return to this. Compare today to the 70s—an era with high inflation and unemployment—you’d think that generation would marvel at how low the cost of environmental protection has been. Yet, it seems it’s the younger generations who are most concerned with the environment.

Ah yes, the good old days. When manufacturing jobs were plentiful and American production was second to none.<p>It’s important to remember the cost of what made America “great” back then.

Absolutely stunning pictures.The difference today is that we don&#x27;t see all this anymore,as it&#x27;s often happily exported to countries that are willing to take all the dump. Howeve, probably the best thing was the removal of large, polluting factories from cities,which had a huge impact on the quality of air.

Why were regulatory bodies needed? Why wasn&#x27;t the market able to decide they don&#x27;t want smog and pollution?

some of these photo with the smoke stacks could have been taken today... probably a lot of the others too

for the longest time the only thing that ever came to mind for me about the EPA was that Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd called one of their employees “dickless.”

Air pollution was already being increasingly dealt with by municipal smog laws before the EPA was created.

Cities still produce a lot of waste each day. The theory of infinite growth on a finite planet is failed from birth, but there are still supporters of a 10-20 billion population. The result: lots of waste and pollution.

Make America great again

&gt; None of the 35 photos are pretty (other than the film-photo haze), but it&#x27;s worth remembering what US cities used to be like before we cared what we put into the air, soil, and water.<p>IMO, this is disingenuous. I think that there&#x27;s a very good argument made against federal agencies that are run by bureaucrats with zero skin in the game. These kinds of sytems are also ripe for corruption. The counter-claim that there&#x27;s no way local governments could come together and offer a comparable solution is dubious. Fun fact: the EPA spends ~16 million tax dollars a <i>day</i>.<p>As a side note, it&#x27;s also interesting how HN has sort of politically migrated from moderate-center-libertarianism (when I first started reading it) to left-leaning-federalism.