Urban environments are characterised by sparsity of space, elevated levels of air pollution and limited exposure to natural environments. Yet, residential environmental quality varies substantially both between and within cities. This study combines information on the socio-economic and demographic composition of 243,607 urban neighbourhoods with administrative and remote sensing data on the spatial distribution of industrial plants and urban green space to investigate patterns of environmental inequality in urban Germany at unprecedented levels of spatial granularity. It disentangles neighbourhood disadvantages experienced by foreign minorities (non-nationals) from those experienced by low-income households in order to assess the plausibility of economic explanations of residential sorting. The high level of spatial granularity makes it possible to examine patterns of environmental inequality not only between the relatively large areas that have been used as units of analysis in previous work but also within them, while reducing the threat of ecological bias. Results indicate that non-nationals are more likely to be exposed to industrial air pollution and less likely to live close to green spaces. This association holds even after adjusting for neighbourhood income composition and in fixed-effects specifications that restrict the analysis to within-city variation. I find no evidence for environmental inequality by socio-economic status. Exploratory sub-sample analyses show that neighbourhood disadvantages for non-nationals are higher in cities characterised by high levels of anti-foreigner sentiment, pointing towards housing market discrimination as a potentially important driver of foreign residents’ neighbourhood disadvantage.

中文翻译：

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邻里结构与环境质量：德国城市空间不平等的细粒度分析

城市环境的特点是空间稀疏、空气污染严重、接触自然环境有限。然而，城市之间和城市内部的居住环境质量差异很大。本研究将 243,607 个城市社区的社会经济和人口构成信息与工业厂房和城市绿地空间分布的行政和遥感数据相结合，以前所未有的空间粒度水平调查德国城市环境不平等的模式。它将外国少数族裔（非国民）所经历的邻里劣势与低收入家庭所经历的邻里劣势区分开来，以评估住宅分类的经济解释的合理性。高水平的空间粒度使得不仅可以检查先前工作中用作分析单位的相对较大区域之间的环境不平等模式，还可以检查这些区域内部的环境不平等模式，同时减少生态偏见的威胁。结果表明，非国民更有可能受到工业空气污染，并且不太可能居住在靠近绿色空间的地方。即使在调整了社区收入构成和将分析限制在城市内变化的固定效应规范之后，这种关联仍然成立。我没有发现任何证据表明社会经济地位造成环境不平等。探索性子样本分析表明，在反外国人情绪高涨的城市中，非国民的邻里劣势更为严重，这表明住房市场歧视是外国居民邻里劣势的潜在重要驱动因素。