As a kid in the '80s, it was just the way some things smelled. Neither of my parents smoked by the time I was born, but lots of neighbors and others did. I later became a smoker and couldn’t smell it anymore. When they finally banned smoking in Ohio, I quit and we learned what bars really smelled like (as I mentioned in a related thread: body odor, mold, and piss).
Edit 2: I worked at a fast food place in '95 or '96 and we had a smoking section, but also all the employees smoked in the tiny break area as well so it came from both sides. I would start smoking not long after this.
I had to go back into Tokyo the other day from where I live in the countryside. The air definitely has some kind of smell. We do burn a lot of trash for electricity in Japan, but I’m not sure what it actually is. The diesel exhaust here bothers me a lot for some reason even though I think I liked the smell of it as a kid in the US. Not sure what that’s about.
in cities its likely to be smells from places of businesses, homes, and people, as well as things like gas and diesel.
Unsure how relevant burning garbage would be, depends on how clean they burn and how well they pull out particulates i guess. Worth doing some reading on later perhaps.
In places like NYC its not uncommon to get sewer gas venting in the streets, you also have rats, garbage, and some amount of homeless people in the more populated areas obviously.
I would also probably be inclined to argue that a significant part of the “city smell” is also likely to be the lack of country smell, there’s all kinds of shit out there, sometimes literally, most of the time it’s just shit like foliage. Wet rotting organic material really carries through the air.
quick edit: as for diesel, engines burn the fuel a lot more completely today, a lot of modern diesels also burn DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) to capture some of the more aggressive particulates that cause pollution and other issues. If an older 60’s 70’s car drives right be you, you get a face full of gas exhaust and you can smell it. Modern car exhausts mostly smell like death because they burn basically everything they can. There’s also a lot less particulates so it doesnt spread as much.
and obviously, the formulation of gas has changed over time, same for diesel probably.
As a kid in the '80s, it was just the way some things smelled. Neither of my parents smoked by the time I was born, but lots of neighbors and others did. I later became a smoker and couldn’t smell it anymore. When they finally banned smoking in Ohio, I quit and we learned what bars really smelled like (as I mentioned in a related thread: body odor, mold, and piss).
Edit 2: I worked at a fast food place in '95 or '96 and we had a smoking section, but also all the employees smoked in the tiny break area as well so it came from both sides. I would start smoking not long after this.
it’s weird to think that there’s bad and dangerous smells today that we don’t even think about
I had to go back into Tokyo the other day from where I live in the countryside. The air definitely has some kind of smell. We do burn a lot of trash for electricity in Japan, but I’m not sure what it actually is. The diesel exhaust here bothers me a lot for some reason even though I think I liked the smell of it as a kid in the US. Not sure what that’s about.
in cities its likely to be smells from places of businesses, homes, and people, as well as things like gas and diesel.
Unsure how relevant burning garbage would be, depends on how clean they burn and how well they pull out particulates i guess. Worth doing some reading on later perhaps.
In places like NYC its not uncommon to get sewer gas venting in the streets, you also have rats, garbage, and some amount of homeless people in the more populated areas obviously.
I would also probably be inclined to argue that a significant part of the “city smell” is also likely to be the lack of country smell, there’s all kinds of shit out there, sometimes literally, most of the time it’s just shit like foliage. Wet rotting organic material really carries through the air.
quick edit: as for diesel, engines burn the fuel a lot more completely today, a lot of modern diesels also burn DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) to capture some of the more aggressive particulates that cause pollution and other issues. If an older 60’s 70’s car drives right be you, you get a face full of gas exhaust and you can smell it. Modern car exhausts mostly smell like death because they burn basically everything they can. There’s also a lot less particulates so it doesnt spread as much.
and obviously, the formulation of gas has changed over time, same for diesel probably.