In 1995 I went to downtown LA. The air looked like your picture of the Red Fort. In LA at the time I could not see more than 2/3 of a mile. The air burned the back of my throath when breathing.
Delhi and LA have similar problems in that they are both at the foothills of a mountain range (in Delhi it's the Aravali mountains). This makes it much more difficult for the pollution to dissipate once it's there, because the mountains obstruct wind and airflow. LA has been making efforts for decades to reduce emissions, but the payoff has been incredibly slow for this reason.
Of course, Delhi is a much larger and densely populated city - the Delhi metro area has almost the same population as the entire state of Texas - and it's also nowhere near as wealthy as LA. All three of those factors make it much harder to address pollution directly and much slower for the benefits to actually start manifesting.
http://www.ci.slc.ut.us/winter-inversions-what-are-they-and-...
Texas ~ 27 million
Delhi - 18.6 million
Your link says 21.8 millions for Delhi metro (as your quote specifies it). A figure that is dated from 2011. At that time, according to your other link, Texas was somewhere around 25.6 millions.
So, Delhi metro population was about 85% of Texas. Given the comparative growths, this percentage has probably raised a bit during the last 5 years. Overall "almost" looks to me as a correct approximation.
"According to the 2011 census of India, the population of Delhi is 16,753,235."
There is no source for the figure of "Delhi metro area" so not really very scientific is it? 2011 was the last year for which there was census data.
2) "It is the most expansive city in India—about 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). It has a population of about 25 million, making it the second most populous city after Mumbai and most populous urban agglomeration in India and 3rd largest urban area[7] in the world"
source: Third sentence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi
Here is the link to the official Indian census data:
http://www.census2011.co.in/census/city/49-delhi.html
which states:
"As per provisional reports of Census India, population of Delhi in 2011 is 11,034,555; of which male and female are 5,882,117 and 5,152,438 respectively. Although Delhi city has population of 11,034,555; its urban / metropolitan population is 16,349,831 of which 8,750,834 are males and 7,598,997 are females."
That is not 22 million or 25 million, it is 16.3 million!
The population of Texas is an order of magnitude more in population. So yeah the OP was wrong.
Please substantiate your claim of otherwise with actual data.
Source:
http://pibmumbai.gov.in/scripts/detail.asp?releaseId=E2011IS...
California has been working on this since the late 60s. They were the first state to require better emissions controls on cars, they have tightened regulations on businesses and industries that would normally negatively contribute, and the push the problems of dirty power generation into other states.
> It took decades. Los Angeles had its first real smog attack during World War II, a smog strong enough that some people suspected a Japanese chemical attack. But it wasn’t until 1975 that the U.S. required new cars to have catalytic converters, “the key piece of technology that allowed everything to change,” according to Mary Nichols, chairman of California’s Air Resources Board.
It feels like (after having lived there) these cities have crossed the threshold for number of people/cars/houses/offices per unit area and the way forward is to force expansion of cities - - reduce number of high rises that can be built - reduce number of cars that can be produced or sold - force/incentivize offices and industries to move out of these big cities - large, safe and economical state owned public transport
If they had left it up to the individual, as India has, we would experience similar air quality.
I should add that California has tighter emissions standards than the federal government, and some vehicles will be sold with special emissions control equipment in California. For example, I had a GMC C1500 truck, which shipped with an optional Air Injection Reactor if you bought it in California.
This has some relevant statistics from the South Coast Air Quality Management District which is larger larger than just LA County but includes it:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-summer-smog-2016...
It's an uphill battle. There are more hybrid vehicles on the road these days and California has pretty stringent emissions requirements, the Dept. of Motor Vehicles requires you to have a smog check every two years on your car. However the population of L.A has been booming for over a decade now and despite investment in mass transit it hasn't put much any appreciable dent in automobile traffic.
p.s. it's also overcrowded, and there's no public transit. did i mention the food is terrible?