There are worse places just in Texas - there's a chemical refinery locus to the east side of Houston near the port and bigger one near the border with Louisiana with so many flares at night it reminds one of Mad Max a bit, though there are various plants scattered along the gulf coast as well, were a half dozen that I knew of in the mostly rural county I grew up in to the south of Houston.

Bit of a tangent but I've often wondered why refineries don't generate electricity from their unwanted gas instead of flaring it off.

Flare gas recovery systems do burn the excess gas to power the refineries. I’d guess the generated heat is used directly without conversion to electricity.

That’s absolutely appalling, whether or not it shaves a full ten years off people. Reminds me of the one time I visited Ghengzao in China. The pollution was so bad it was cloying.