The Distribution of Environmental Quality: An Empirical Analysis.

ENVIRONMENTAL quality; DEMOGRAPHIC characteristics; POLLUTION; MULTIVARIATE analysis; POLLUTANTS; ETHNICITY; RACE; POPULATION density

Objective. The relations among the distribution of environmental quality and the racial, political, and socioeconomic characteristics of affected communities are increasingly a topic of scholarly and political interest. This study seeks to clarify the independent relations among environmental quality and a variety of demographic characteristics (including race, income, political mobilization, and other factors) at the county level throughout the United States. Methods. Using a model of pollution distribution that includes a variety of demographic characteristics as well as twenty-nine measures of environmental quality, the first part of the study consists of a multivariate analysis of the relations among these variables. The second part of the study consists of a multivariate analysis of the demographic characteristics of counties that are exposed to multiple pollutants at relatively high levels. Results. In both the first and the second part of the study, the model as a whole is strongly significant and several of the independent variables show a strong correlation with the presence or absence of pollution. Race and ethnicity are strongly associated with a lack of environmental quality, with both nonwhite and Hispanic populations experiencing disproportionately high pollution levels, and there is a strong positive relationship between population density, manufacturing activity, and pollution. Somewhat surprisingly, higher levels of income are often associated with lower levels of environmental quality, although the relationship is often unclear. A strong negative relationship is also found between political mobilization and pollution levels. Conclusions. The results suggest that a variety of political and socioeconomic factors explains the distribution of environmental quality. While the results tend to support the claim that race is significantly correlated with pollution distribution throughout the nation across a wide range of measures of environmental quality, they also show the importance of a variety of other demographic variables—including political mobilization, population density, manufacturing activity, and income—explaining that distribution throughout the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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