Spatial Decomposition of Air Pollution Concentrations Highlights Historical Causes for Current Exposure Disparities in the United States

Racial–ethnic disparities in exposure to air pollution in the United States (US) are well documented. Studies on the causes of these disparities highlight unequal systems of power and longstanding systemic racism─for example, redlining, white flight, and racial covenants─which reinforced racial segregation and wealth gaps and which concentrated polluting land uses in communities of color. Our analysis is based on empirical estimates of ambient concentrations for two important pollutants (NO₂ and PM_2.5). We show that spatially decomposed concentrations can be used to infer and quantify types of root causes for local- to national-scale disparities. Urban-scale segregation is important yet reflects less than half of the overall national disparities. Other historical causes of national exposure disparities include those that led current populations of Black, Asian, and Hispanic Americans to live in larger cities; those outcomes are consistent with, for example, greater economic opportunity in large cities, land-takings from non-White farmers, and racism in homesteading and between-state migration. Our results suggest that contemporary national exposure disparities in the US reflect a broad set of historical local- to national-scale mechanisms─including racist laws and actions that include, but also extend beyond, urban-scale aspects─and offer a first attempt to quantify their relative importance.