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Comment by magduf | Hacker News Reader

Do you live in NYC? That city really does stink.

However, I just spent 2 weeks in Japanese cities, including almost a week in Tokyo, and it was extremely clean. Even on trash day it didn't stink.

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It's by no means a constant, permeating stink. Sure, there are some neighborhoods with open air food markets that can be smelly, or some that are downwind of waste processing centers (most of East Williamsburg), or smelly because of wastewater (parts of East New York and Canarsie), but for 95% of the city, you're not going to smell anything unpleasant unless you're leaning in to sniff trash bags.

I've walked all around Manhattan many times. No, it's not a constant, permeating stink, but that city does stink a lot, though it's worse of course when they put the trash out since NYC doesn't have alleys like other American cities.

However, I haven't had the same experience in non-US cities like Tokyo and Munich. Those cities are just much, much cleaner in many ways than NYC, and it's not just the smell.

'Throwing' your trash out on the street every week is a solution to the trash problem which probably accounts for a lot of smell. I bet if they stopped doing that then it would improve a lot.

In NYC, they can't stop doing that. I read an article about this very thing not too long ago. The problem is that NYC (Manhattan actually) doesn't have alleys, like other American cities such as Chicago. So there's no place to put dumpsters or trash for trash crews to pick up, except right out on the curb in front.

More frequent pickups could alleviate the problem though.

I live in Tokyo, and you'll get the occasional strong whiff of sewage that's worse than anything I've ever smelled in NYC. There are also quite a few public bathrooms that don't have hand soap and some of them you'd be better off not using. I think that the Japanese discipline to not litter coupled with the overstaffed garbage disposal workforce is what keeps the city clean, at least visually.

NYC is a variable bouquet of odors varying on the scale of “best thing you’d have ever smelled in life” to “omg did something die and crawl up my nose” all within the span of a single block. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It can stink sometimes down by the canals

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