The Best-Smelling Cities in America, Ranked

While it’s not always the first thing we notice, scent can make or break an experience.

Picture yourself strolling down a beautiful city street. Instead of admiring the architecture, shops, and ambiance, you’re suddenly hit with a foul-smelling odor wafting from the sewers and nearby garbage bins.

Now imagine a similar walk, but this time you pass candle shops with the scent of fall in the air, bakeries removing fresh sourdough from the oven, and flower shops greeting you with lilac and lavender from the sidewalk.

Both streets might be charming to the eye, but the smells that greet you along the way greatly influence your experience. 

Across the United States, a handful of cities are known for smelling, well, better than the rest. Using several data sets, McLuck sniffed through the aromas to reveal the top 10 best-smelling cities in America, and some might surprise you!

SMELLING THE DATA

How do you determine which cities smell the best without traveling to every street for a quick whiff? McLuck analyzed a range of factors, from cleanliness and air quality to “garbage disposal satisfaction” and abundance of green spaces. The result was a list of cities that are as pleasing to the nose as they are to the eyes.

These cities might be clean, but they’re also home to shops famous for their inviting scents: bakeries, perfumeries, flower shops, and candle stores.

Let’s breathe in the aromas of the top 10 cities for a fragrant olfactory experience.

THE UNITED STATES OF SMELLS

According to the data, Boston, Massachusetts claims the top spot as the nation’s best-smelling city. While some cities are known for their unpleasant odors, Boston rarely gets that reputation. With a cleanliness score of 9.2 and a “smell score” of 9.6 out of 10, the Cradle of Liberty is pretty hard to beat when it comes to smells! 

Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, takes second place with extremely high cleanliness and smell scores. San Francisco, California (boasting the most good-smelling shops), Seattle, Washington, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania round out the top five.

Portland, Oregon, and Denver, Colorado, also received praise for their appealing scents, and Detroit, Michigan, made the list despite a very low cleanliness score. While Motor City has its share of good-smelling stores, its cleanliness score lags at a 2.5 out of 10.

Did any of these sweet-smelling cities surprise you, or did they make you wrinkle your nose?

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