There are sunsets, the sort that sleepily settle over the city that one might Instagram on a bike ride home, and there are the sunsets that Linfen, China knows. These sunsets come early, the sun falling behind not buildings or mountains or plains, but rather suffocating under smog thick enough that it dictates its own skyline upon the city of four million. That smog, the result of decades of coal mining hyperactivity, also dictates things like increased rates of bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer. Regarded as the most-polluted city in China, if not the world, it's estimated that over half of the well water in Linfen's surrounding province is unsafe for drinking.A few years back, the VICE series Toxic travelled to the city, with the above result. Note that, since hitting early-industrialization bottom, Linfen's situation is improving and will likely continue to improve, if post-industrial American joints like Cleveland can be taken as a look into the future. One would like to think that hitting bottom isn't a requirement of any industrializing region, but the evidence so far suggests otherwise.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.