While the impact of environmental burdens on health damage has been widely proven, its influence on poverty segregation has been less researched to date. Based on theoretical considerations of social inequality and segregation, noise pollution, air pollution, and hot days are identified as relevant environmental factors whose health risks are well documented in the research literature and whose influence on poverty segregation is to be examined. The specific aim was to examine whether and to what extent local environmental burdens as a contextual factor in Bochum influences the spatial distribution of the economic capital of residents at the neighbourhood level.
Based on several combined data sets, a spatial maximum likelihood regression model was derived that extends classic segregation variables to include ecological factors and incorporates neighbourhood effects. It was further supplemented by equilibrium effects to interpret long-term impacts. Univariate and bivariate analyses and correlations were performed in advance to classify the data and standardize it to a common spatial format.
The analysis shows that noise pollution and air pollution each have weak negative regression coefficients, while heat stress has a slightly stronger, negative coefficient. The control variables, on the other hand, point in the opposite, positive direction. The proportion of high school graduates has the greatest influence on average purchasing power per household. Between this and environmental pollution (in terms of amount) lies the influence of people aged 65 and older. The equilibrium effects slightly reinforce these effects.
The hypothesis that environmental burden as a contextual variable has a weak but relevant, direct negative effect on poverty segregation and thus influences the spatial distribution of economic capital was confirmed.
The study illustrates that environmental factors represent an independent risk for the exacerbation of poverty segregation, but at the same time must be analysed on a city-specific basis rather than across the board. Measures to reduce heat, noise, and air pollutants should be prioritised particularly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. For Bochum, this means that there is a need for particularly health-sensitive urban development along the central west-east axis.
Franziska Pennekamp:
Lokale Umweltbelastung und Armutssegregation:
eine räumliche Analyse in Bochum
Wuppertal 2025, ISBN 978-3-946356-38-7
(Wuppertaler Studienarbeiten zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung no. 35)