William J. Kruvant

A great deal has been written about air pollution in and around American cities. "The air in Los Angeles is bad," or "Phoenix air is good" are common statements. It is true that some cities have generally higher quality air than others and that pollution in a given city varies on different days, but these statements obscure a very important dimension of the air pollution problem. Within any large metropolitan area air quality may vary tremendously, and some groups of people may be exposed to consistently poorer air than others. Considering the great size of our cities and the uneven way population, industry, commerce, and transportation are distributed within them, it would be surprising if air quality were uniform over the entire area. Thus it is important to know just which areas of a city have most or least air pollution and if some groups are disproportionately the victims of pollution. We should also know if antipollution policies are effective and where pollution is doing the most harm.

This chapter deals with the question of who are the most likely victims of pollution by examining pollution estimates for the major part of five metropolitan areas, and by a detailed study of the relationship between air pollution and the socioeconomic characteristics of people in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Washington was chosen because it is about average for all six areas in size and climate and does not have any peculiarities such as the "punch bowl" geography that contributes so much to the smog problem of Los Angeles. The original research is related to findings by others about the health effects of pollutants and about the geographic distribution of these pollutants. Finally, it is based on the characteristics and determinants of air pollution.

The Washington data show that social and economic characteristics associated with disadvantage—poverty, occupations below management and professional level, low rent, and high concentrations of black residents—go hand in hand with poor quality air. The findings show also that these groups produce