The San Joaquin Valley’s air-quality struggles are usually framed as a health problem, and rightly so. But dirty air is also an economic drag — on productivity, on health-care costs, and on the region’s ability to attract talent and investment.
Employers weighing where to grow notice when a region routinely lands on worst-air lists. Workers and families notice too. Clean air, in other words, is part of the Valley’s competitiveness.
Progress will take cooperation across industries and levels of government. But the payoff — healthier residents and a stronger economy — is worth the effort.
