Many urban areas in Africa do not have sufficient monitoring programs to understand their air quality. This study uses visibility as a proxy for PM pollution to provide insight into PM air pollution in three East African cities: Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Kampala, from 1974 to 2018. Overall, a significant loss in East African visibility was observed since the 1970s, where Nairobi shows the greatest loss (60%), as compared to Kampala (56%) and Addis Ababa (34%). These changes are likely due to increased anthropogenic PM emissions. Correspondingly, PM pollution levels, in Kampala, Nairobi and Addis Ababa, are estimated to have increased by 162, 182 and 62%, respectively, since the 1970s to the current period. Distinct variations in seasonal visibility are observed, which are largely explained by changing PM sources and sinks in rainy and dry seasons. Average PM hygroscopicity is investigated by comparing average visibilities under different RH conditions. It is observed that PM hygroscopicity has decreased over time in all three cities, which is consistent with increasing emissions of PM with hygroscopicity lower than the ambient background. A large urban increment in PM is observed, with poor visibility typically occurring when the wind brings air from densely populated urban areas. To investigate the intersection between increasing pollution, population and economic growth, changes in pollution are compared to available population growth and GDP statistics. Significant positive correlations between increasing PM and national GDP (and city population) were found for all three study cities. These cities have undergone rapid increases in population and national GDP growth (driven predominantly by study city’s economies) during. This has resulted in increased rates of citywide fuel use and motorization, which provides a direct link to increased PM emissions and thus visibility loss. The study suggests that socio-economic forecasts may enable future air quality projections.