America's least air conditioned city is revealed - as three West Coast metropolises take the top spots

San Francisco has earned the undesirable distinction of being America's least air-conditioned city, according to a survey by the US Census' American Housing Survey.

Roughly 55 percent of Bay Area residents who were polled in the research conducted in 2021 revealed they did not have an AC unit in their house or apartment, totaling nearly 1 million homes left without cooling.

In the process, the crime-ridden California city beat out more temperate Seattle, which previously boasted the least air condition units per household as recently as 2019, for the top spot.

Nearly 46 percent of all homes - 738,200 households - in the Washington metropolis don't have air conditioners. In a distant third place was none other than Los Angeles, where 16 percent of homes - roughly 725,800 - go uncooled.

All three are in the midst of record heat waves - with LA recently experiencing scorching triple-digit temperatures earlier this month and dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest having tied or broken previous heat records with temperatures well over 100 degrees.

'If you don't have air conditioning in Los Angeles, you must be suffering,' wrote Tikoker Ivonne Cruz, as temperatures in the usually mild metropolis recently rose into the low 90s, more than 10 degrees warmer than usual highs in the City of Angels.

Up the coast, San Francisco also experienced an extended heat wave that rose inland temperatures into the 90s.

That ended over last weekend, when a high-pressure system over California finally moved east after two weeks of hellish temperatures.  

However, a new area of high pressure is expected to strengthen over California, resulting in another warming trend. 

As a result, residents can expect inland high temperatures to again return to the 90s this weekend, and the famously pleasant bay shoreline to climb to the 80s.

That's about 5 to 10 degrees above normal, leading officials in both cities to open up cooling centers for those in need of a place to beat the heat.

People in Seattle are seeing something similar, with Thursday marking the 15th straight day the city was savaged by temperatures over 80 degrees.

According to the forecast, the heat will soon break the record for the longest stretch of days with temperatures above 80, which was set in July 2015 when the metro area was cooked for 15 days straight.

To put that in perspective, temperatures this early in the summer usually hover around 70 degrees.

However, both San Francisco and Seattle have seen the percentage of air conditioned homes increase slowly over a six-year span.

In 2015, nearly 66 percent of Seattle residents and 63 percent of San Francisco locals were without air conditioning.

The rest of the cities on the list of least air conditioned metropolises only had less than seven percent of their homes without cooling. 

Detroit, which usually experiences temperatures around 90F around the middle of June, has 114,800 homes without AC, but 93.49 percent of houses have cooling.

Next up was New York City, which is currently in the midst of its own heatwave over 90 degrees, which has 7,167,100 homes with air conditioning and only 469,800 without.

In sixth was rival city Boston, where 1,826,200 homes have air-conditioning compared to only 105,600 without.

And  in seventh place was to Riverside, California, where 4.11 percent of homes - nearly 59,000 households - were without air conditioning. 

Unlike coastal San Francisco and Los Angeles, the landlocked California city experiences an average daily high temperature above 89 degree from late June to late September.

Up next was Chicago, the only metro to represent the Midwest aside from Detroit.

Just last month, the city was hit by earlier-than-usual record-breaking temperatures with highs in the 90s for more than a week.

The survey found 3,583,400 homes there are equipped with air-conditioning, nearly 97 percent of everyone polled.

Up next was another Northeast hotspot, the City of Brotherly Love in Pennsylvania.

The Census' study found Philadelphians also have a love of AC, with 97.87 percent of all homes having cooling.

Rounding out the top ten was Washington, DC, which can reach an average high 91 degrees in July.

In the country's capital, 98.54 percent of all homes house at least one air conditioner. 

The hottest of the least air conditioned cities, Phoenix, took 11th place, with 98.54 percent of homes having air-conditioning.

Next was the almost-as sweltering hub that is Atlanta, which can reach a daily average high of 90 degrees in July.

About 98.73 percent of homes there are equipped with ACs as a result, and just 1.27 percent without. 

Next was Dallas, where 98.9 percent of homeowners had installed air-conditioners, then Miami, 98.91 percent, and Houston, 99.11 percent.

Several cities that also appeared on the least air conditioned list also landed on the sweatiest metropolises.

Atlanta was the second sweatiest city in America, DC third and Houston ninth.

Jordan Valerie, a media correspondent in Atlanta, broke down what it means to live in a sweaty - and non-air-conditioned - city to her followers.

'It is 100 degrees outside in Atlanta! Please don't invite me outside to nothing before the sun goes down, respectfully!' she said while sitting in her car.

'The heat affects my attitude.'