Related to this, smog used to be just normal near any city with any kind of polluting industry (all of them). My memory locally is that it faded over the decade, but in the early 80s the sky usually had a weird smoggy hue. Not thick smoke or anything, but truly clear days were uncommon. It was always hazy. I lived in the burbs, not right in the middle of the worst of it, and it had already improved significantly by that time. It was a smoggy smoggy world, and not just in Los Angeles, and then the evil government passed some laws and it got better.
