Place and the experience of air quality

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Health & Place 13 (2007) 249–260

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Place and the experience of air quality

Rosemary Day�

Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, 29 Bute Gardens, Glasgow, Scotland G12 8RS, UK

Received 23 June 2005; received in revised form 5 January 2006; accepted 6 January 2006

Abstract

This article examines how concepts of place effects are relevant in understanding the public’s experience of air pollution.

Using qualitative and quantitative data from a case study of four neighbourhoods in north London, the analysis shows

how this experience is mediated by multiple aspects of place, which may be seen as overlain. These multiple aspects also

provide routes to inequalities in the experience of air pollution. Working with these understandings of the relevance of

place could provide ways to mitigate the experience of pollution, and to address environmental health inequalities.

r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Air pollution; Public perceptions; Environmental equity; Environmental risk; Therapeutic landscapes; Geography

Introduction

Air pollution is not evenly distributed. Measure-ment and modelling of air pollution concentrationsdemonstrate its uneven distribution, and can bemapped to describe how this relates spatially topopulation characteristics (e.g. Brainard et al., 2002;Morello-Frosch et al., 2001; King and Stedman,2000). Modelling and mapping techniques also formthe basis for planning local air quality managementmeasures in the UK (Department for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs, 2000). Such techniqueshowever tell us little about how air pollution isexperienced, or how and why this experience may beunequal, beyond an assumed relationship withdistribution. An approach grounded in humangeography can help to illuminate the more complex

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ways in which place is important in the constructionand experience of air pollution.

Research on perceptions of air quality has oftenfound that perceived levels of pollution do relatewell to physically measured levels (Bladan andKaran, 1976; Wall, 1973; Thouez and Singh, 1984;Zeidner and Schechter, 1988). However, this maynot provide a full picture, and social scientists havefurther been interested in how other social andgeographical influences may be implicated in theformation of such perceptions and related concerns.Early survey work explored some possibilities, withmixed results. Some suggested habituation couldoccur with higher or longer term exposure (Kromm,1973; Thouez and Singh, 1984) though others didnot (Medalia, 1964); higher concern was related bysome, but not all, to higher class/socio-economicstatus (Medalia, 1964; Zeidner and Schechter,1988). Later work incorporating a greater varietyof methods turned towards examining the effectsof wider physical and social characteristics of

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ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Day / Health & Place 13 (2007) 249–260250

neighbourhoods and communities, often with aninterest in some aspect(s) of disadvantage. Work onenvironmental risk and hazard more generallyargued that particular hazards are understood inthe context of a community as a whole (e.g. Wynne,1992; Whittaker, 1998); Irwin et al. (1999), forexample, argued that such concerns may reflect asense of an overall ‘faulty environment’, where‘faulty’ includes a range of social and economicproblems. Studies specifically focussing on airpollution have to some extent developed this theme,with complex and again somewhat mixed results.Bickerstaff and Walker (2001) in a study based inBirmingham, UK, reported an inverse relationshipbetween socio-economic status and concern for airquality; they propose that in part this may be due todifferences in wider environmental quality, and to areluctance to recognise negative conditions inlocales where satisfaction is high. Elliot et al.(1999) in an Ontario case study found that thepresence of other social problems in a neighbour-hood could lead to a lower relative importancebeing ascribed to air pollution as a problem, andthat pollution concerns were traded off againstbenefits such as lower house prices; note howeverthat this does not necessarily imply that absoluteconcern would be lowered by the presence of otherproblems. Likewise, work in Teeside (Howel et al.,2002) found concerns over crime and unemploy-ment to be prioritised over pollution, althoughpollution concerns were still high. Howel et al.’sstudy found only a weak quantitative relationshipbetween material deprivation at area level and viewson industrial pollution after controlling for otherfactors, with proximity to polluting industry ac-counting for more of the variation in perceptionsand concerns. Nevertheless, this relationship withproximity to source was not seen as signifying thatperceptions were driven only by the physicalpresence of pollution: Bush et al. (2001) developan argument that the historical presence of suchindustry in parts of Teeside has led to its stigmatisa-tion as a place and that the perception of poor airquality can have a symbolic function in characteris-ing a place as dirty, unhealthy, and ‘other’.

Thus work on perceptions of air pollution and airquality has raised a number of possibilities regard-ing how such perceptions may be related to place,but overall understanding is somewhat fragmented.Some influences have also been related more to theattributes of individuals although the recognitionthat these act in place, or together with place effects,

is important. Inequality has been an interest andunequal outcome implied, but again, the picture issomewhat unclear.

This paper aims to add to this understanding bydrawing on concepts from geographical work onhealth inequalities to analyse the role of place in acase study of public experiences of air quality innorth London, UK. Conceptualisation of the issueas experiences of pollution allows perceptions to befollowed through to implications regarding impact,and possible inequalities in this. In this way, theconnection with health inequalities also becomesmore salient, particularly when health is conceivedmore broadly, as total well-being.

Concepts of place effects

Much important debate about the conceptualisa-tion of ‘place effects’ has taken place among healthgeographers, and particularly in work that hassought to explain geographical inequalities in health(see e.g. Curtis, 2004; Graham, 2000 for reviews).Curtis and Jones (1998) and Curtis (2004) set out aframework encapsulating the multiple perspectivesoffered, in which they enumerate five theoreticalways of understanding place concepts, that theyterm ‘landscapes’. These are: (i) ecological land-scapes, (ii) materialist landscapes, (iii) landscapes ofconsumption, (iv) landscapes of social control and(v) therapeutic landscapes. Crucially, they arguethat these ‘landscapes’ should not be seen ascompeting explanations, but that they can be seenas overlain, each contributing to the overall effect ofplace (see also Macintyre et al., 2002).

Although this is not the only such frameworkpossible, it is proposed here as useful in providingsome conceptual clarity to understanding the waysin which place may be important in experiencingenvironmental hazard, and furthermore, to under-standing the routes by which inequality in this maycome about. In the following analysis, three of these‘landscapes’ are concentrated on—ecological, mate-rialist and therapeutic—and so shall be explained alittle further. Nevertheless, the potential relevanceof landscapes of social control and of consumptionshould not be discounted.

The ‘ecological landscape’ is a conceptualisationof place context as the spatial distribution ofphysical environmental factors, and/or the distribu-tion of biological risk factors in populations.Environmental epidemiologists have for instancestudied the associations between the distribution of

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air pollution and a range of medical conditions,including asthma and heart complaints (e.g. Braueret al., 2002; Lin et al., 2002; Annesi-Maesano et al.,2003). Environmental justice analyses have also inthe main been concerned with the ecological land-scape in describing the spatial distribution ofenvironmental hazards in relation to social variablessuch as race and class. These studies have shownthat poorer air quality tends to be associated withminority race and lower social class (e.g. Morello-Frosch et al., 2001; Brainard et al., 2002; Gunieret al., 2003), although not unequivocally (McLeodet al., 2000; King and Stedman, 2000).

Work that focuses on what may be termed‘materialist landscapes’ has explicated the relation-ships between various aspects of material povertyand health. Here, place is conceived as containingand expressing a collection of socio-economicrelationships, constraints and opportunities. Studieshave related health outcomes to composite mea-sures of area deprivation (e.g. Congdon et al., 1997;Carstairs and Morris, 1991) as well as to specificaspects of the material and socio-economic environ-ment, such as housing conditions (e.g. BritishMedical Association, 2003) and the labour market(e.g. Haynes et al., 1997).

The concept of the ‘therapeutic landscape’ (seeGesler, 1992, 1993; Kearns and Gesler, 1998;Williams, 1999) conceives place as socially andculturally constructed; and utilises a holistic modelof health to include aspects of mental state,recognising that physical and psychological healthmay not be entirely separable. It emphasisespeople’s interpretation and experience of the physi-cal and material dimensions of their surroundings;the importance of the symbolic properties of placesis thus highlighted. The concept of the therapeuticlandscape has largely been applied to analysis ofspecific places with a reputation for healing—including Epidauros (Gesler, 1993) and Lourdes(Gesler, 1996) and has also been used in investiga-tions of the health promoting potential of the designof treatment settings (e.g. Gesler et al., 2004).Williams (1998), however, argues that therapeuticlandscapes are not just those associated withhealing, but also those associated with the main-tenance of health and wellness; Wilson (2003)argues that there is a need for more emphasis oneveryday geographies as an integral part of people’sidentities and health.

Borrowing this framework therefore allows placeand place effects to be seen as multi-dimensional.

Generally, these conceptualisations are associatedwith particular methodological and epistemologicalapproaches to research. The study presented in thefollowing sections uses a mixed methodology, withthe aim of understanding how place effects workthrough several dimensions simultaneously.

Case study and methodology

The study was carried out in four differentneighbourhood areas in the London Borough ofBarnet. Barnet is one of the outer London boroughsto the north of the city, and it has a wide variationin air pollution levels. Over 80% of the air pollutionpresent is from traffic sources (London Borough ofBarnet, 1999), and several major traffic routesincluding the M1 motorway and the London NorthCircular run through the borough. The boroughalso contains large areas of open common landhowever.

The four study areas were chosen so that twowere in areas of higher air pollution, taken as beingclose to major roads, and two were in areas of lowerpollution, taken as being far enough away frommajor roads for background levels to apply. Thetwo areas of higher pollution were selected to bewithin areas identified by the borough’s stage 3report as ‘exceedence areas’, i.e. areas predicted toexceed the National Air Quality Strategy standardsfor NO2 and PM10 (London Borough of Barnet,1999). Additionally, estimated figures for averageNO2 levels were taken from the South East Instituteof Public Health OMNI website (South EastInstitute of Public Health (SIEPH), undated). Thiswebsite gives figures for background NO2 and someroadside estimates within the M25. These figures areproduced by models using spatial analysis anddispersion modelling techniques; however errorestimates are not available, and variations willoccur due to variations in traffic flows and weatherconditions. Thus these figures give a guide as to therelative air quality of different places but should notbe interpreted as definitive measurements for anyone time. Such uncertainty in even the best availabletechnical data is one of the reasons why under-standing perceptions and experiences of air qualityis important and helpful. Figures given below arethose taken from the website at the time of study.

Within each of these two categories of higher andlower pollution, the aim was then to select one areaof relative affluence, and one relatively under-privileged area. At the time of the area selection,


available quantitative data from the UK census was10 years old, and had the added disbenefit thatappropriate deprivation statistics were availableonly at ward level, which although often used, wereconsidered in this case not to give an adequatepicture at a small enough scale to be useful inselecting areas consisting of a few streets. The areaswere, therefore, selected more qualitatively on thiscriterion, through a combination of field observa-tion, consultation with the local authority, andconsideration of house prices. As it was not the aimof the research to model perceptions as a quantita-tive function of a deprivation variable, this wasdeemed sufficient, as it would allow interpretationbased on characteristics of the area, as shall bediscussed. Each of the areas was also selected interms of boundaries to consist of a coherent area ofhousing that could appropriately be deemed aneighbourhood or locality—where the residentswould be likely to use the same access routes andshops, for example. This made good on-the-groundsense, but does not correspond well with adminis-trative boundaries such as census output areas: anexample of how mixing paradigms can lead totensions between different protocols of practice.

The four areas selected were:Totteridge: a relatively affluent area of suburban

housing with relatively low levels of pollution.Houses are mainly semi-detached with gardensfront and back. Many families own more than twocars. Roads are tree-lined with extremely lighttraffic flows; the area also borders TotteridgeCommon, a large area of open common land.Modelled average NO2 levels (taken as back-ground): 18 ppb (SIEPH).

Hampstead Garden Suburb: a relatively affluentarea with relatively high levels of pollution.Hampstead Garden Suburb is a conservation areaand is close to parks, an area of ancient woodland,and Hampstead Heath, which is a very large area ofopen and wooded common land. Most of the roadsare tree-lined and houses have extensive gardens.However, the A1, which is a national route, cutsthrough the suburb and traffic is heavy, includingbuses and HGVs. The study area was drawn upalongside the A1. Modelled NO2 levels (roadside):39.6–42 ppb (SIEPH).

Grahame Park: a relatively underprivileged areawith relatively low pollution. Grahame Park is avery large council estate (social housing) with manysocial problems including high crime rates, drugabuse, unemployment and poverty. Most residences

are in low-rise blocks. Due to the size and design ofthe estate, there is relatively little through traffic,and to the west side there is a large area of greenopen space. Modelled NO2 (background): 23 ppb(SIEPH).

Brent Cross: a relatively poor area with high levelsof pollution. This study area is a small council estateof both low- and high-rise flats. The estate facesright onto the 6-lane A406 North Circular with theM1 motorway junction very close on the west side,and the A406/A41 junction to the east side. There isno screening from the road other than a high meshfence. To the west of the estate is a trading estatewhich until recently housed a waste disposal facility,and a railway line. To the south is an open area ofrecreation ground. The study area was taken fromthe housing closest to the A406. Modelled NO2

levels: 37.5–40.8 ppb along the adjacent section ofthe A406 (SIEPH).

The data collection took place in two stages,between late 2001 and early 2003. For the first stage,in-depth semi-structured interviews were conductedin each of the study areas. Interviews varied in scopebut all included coverage of aspects of the localenvironment; air quality in different places and itseffects; sources of knowledge and information; andissues around air quality management. 8–12 peoplewere interviewed at each site, covering a mix ofgender and ages. Recruitment was through a letterto all households, to which prospective participantsthen responded. Interviews were taped and tran-scribed, and analysed thematically with the aid ofAtlas Ti software. The coding framework wasgenerated partly a priori, from the research ques-tions, and partly through iterative reading of thedata. Coded text was then arranged into themes,which were analysed for the views and rationalesbeing put forward, as well as for commonalities anddifferences. Pseudonyms have been ascribed tointerviewees in the following information presented.

Following analysis of the interviews, a question-naire was designed for self-completion, built on thethemes to have emerged from the interviews. As faras possible, this used categories and wording fromthe interviewees themselves. The aim was to buildon the ‘lay knowledge’ framework, but to expandthis to gain some insight into relationships betweenviews and other characteristics in a larger sample.The complete questionnaire covered (i) attitudes tothe local neighbourhood in general, includingratings of the extent of possible perceived problems,(ii) ratings of air quality and assessment of its


sources, locally and in central London, (iii) beliefsabout the effects of air quality, (iv) air qualitymanagement issues, (v) knowledge and informationand (vi) information about the individual. Thisarticle makes use of a relevant selection of thesequestions from sections (i), (ii) and (vi). Many of thequestions employed numerical rating scales forresponse, where the respondent was asked to circlea number on a five or seven point scale, indicatingfor example the extent to which they found certainissues to be a problem locally, or the degree towhich they agreed with a particular attitudinalstatement. Where such numerical scales were used, acorresponding verbal explanation of each possibleresponse was also given as a header. Other questionsyielded categorical responses, for example yes/no/don’t know. A third type of question was open, forthe respondent to fill in an answer. Space was alsoprovided for respondents to add categories andcomments.

The questionnaire was sent to all adults on theelectoral register in each of the study areas. A totalsample of 200 was returned, following one remin-der, which corresponded to an overall response rateof 13%—low, but not entirely surprising for anunsolicited, untargeted postal survey that was beingsent in part to hard-to-reach communities. The firstreminder produced so few extra responses that asecond was not sent; instead, community represen-tatives were contacted and asked to encouragepeople to send back the questionnaires. Door-to-door pick-up was not considered feasible due to thenumbers involved and also for safety reasons. Thesample cannot therefore be seen as fully representa-tive, although a breakdown showed a sensibledistribution on important demographic categories;nevertheless, analysis of relationships between vari-ables, and within a case study framework, is stillfruitful. The small sample also indicates that as withall case studies, some caution should be exercised insimply generalising the conclusions to the widerpopulation. The usefulness of the case study lies inthe development of a conceptual position, aided byevidence from previous work; further empiricaltesting of the framework would ascertain therobustness of conclusions for wider application.

The survey was analysed using bivariate andmultivariate techniques in SPSS, including analysisof variance, correlation, hierarchical cluster analy-sis, and linear and logistic multiple regression.Multiple regression was employed where possiblein order to allow control for potentially confound-

ing effects of demographic and other variables.Standard tests of significance were used withpp0:05 taken as indicating significance. The smallsample size does mean that the possibility of type IIerrors is raised at this level of confidence: again,further testing could establish the robustness of thequantitative findings. As the analysis strategy over-all involved multiple and varied tests, details ofspecific analyses are given in the relevant resultssections below.

As far as possible in the following analysis thetwo datasets are used in conjunction, the aim beingwhere possible to strengthen the interpretation bydoing so. It is also acknowledged, however, that thenature of qualitative and quantitative data is not thesame, and so strict triangulation may not be areasonable aim (Sale et al., 2002). Although contra-dictions were not in general found, the differentdatasets do tend to lend themselves to some extentto different insights—a point that is returned to inthe conclusions.

Results

Air quality as ecological landscape

The most direct measure of perceived air qualitywas made in the questionnaire survey, by thequestion, ‘‘how good or bad do YOU feel the airis in the neighbourhood where you live?’’ Respon-dents answered by circling a discrete number on aseven point scale, where 1 corresponded to ex-tremely bad and seven to extremely good. The meanrating overall was 3.80, (SE 0.098) which corre-sponded to just significantly worse than the neutralpoint of ‘neither good nor bad’. The means for eacharea are shown in Table 1.

One-way analysis of variance of the 4 area ratingsshowed some significant differences ðp ¼ 0:000Þ.Using Tamhame’s post hoc test for differencesbetween individual areas gave the results shown inTable 2. Totteridge was perceived as better in airquality than all other areas; Grahame Park wasperceived as significantly worse than Totteridge butbetter than Hampstead Garden Suburb or BrentCross. Perceptions in Hampstead and Brent Crosswere not significantly different from each other.

Comparison of these ratings with the modelledlevels for the four areas shows a correspondence,indicating that in relative terms at least, people’sjudgements of air quality fit quite well withthe technical data—although errors around the

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Table 2

Differences in mean perceived local air quality between the four

study areas

Area 1 Area 2 Mean difference Std. error

Totteridge Hampstead GS 1.58a 0.222

Brent Cross 1.74a 0.291

Grahame Pk 0.94a 0.190

Hampstead GS Totteridge �1.58a 0.222

Brent Cross 0.16 0.313

Grahame Pk �0.64a 0.222

Brent Cross Totteridge �1.74a 0.291

Hampstead GS �0.16 0.313

Grahame Pk �0.80 0.291

aThe mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

Table 1

Mean rating of air quality in the four study areas

Area Mean air quality rating (1–7 scale) Standard error Verbal equivalent on scale

Totteridge 4.8 0.13 Quite good

Hampstead Garden Suburb 3.22 0.18 Quite bad

Grahame Park 3.86 0.13 Neutral

Brent Cross 3.06 0.26 Quite bad

Table 3

Perceived causes of local air pollution, 1–5 scale

Pollution source Mean rating Std. Error

Cars 3.87 0.07

HGVs 3.48 0.09

Buses 2.98 0.08

Pollen 2.70 0.09

Building/roadworks 2.61 0.08

Domestic heating 2.27 0.08

Weather 2.19 0.08

Industry 2.16 0.10

Planes 2.08 0.08

Bonfires 2.01 0.07

Italics indicate significantly higher and lower groups.

R. Day / Health & Place 13 (2007) 249–260254

modelled estimates are likely to be large. This is inline with the findings of other studies (Thouez andSingh, 1984; Zeidner and Schechter, 1988; Bladanand Karan, 1976; Wall, 1973) and would suggestthat people are responding to physical levels ofpollution in the air. Such an interpretation isreinforced by explanations of the causes of pollutionthat emerged. In the qualitative interviews, partici-pants talked about pollution being caused by trafficand thus located around major roads; and to someextent being ‘caused’ or made worse by certainkinds of weather. From a list given in the survey—which was based on explanations given in theinterviews—the most significant causes of air pollu-tion were felt to be cars, buses, HGVs and pollen(Table 3). These explanations again would followscientific reasoning and would indicate a sensitivityto the ecological landscape.

However, other aspects of the ecological land-scape besides the location of pollution sources alsoemerged as important in people’s experience of airquality. One was the overall physical terrain: thehigh location of Hampstead for example wasoffered in interviews as an explanation of why airquality might be better than other parts of London.

Another aspect that seemed from the interviews tobe particularly important was the presence of treesand greenery. This will be returned to later, but partof the reason for the importance of trees inparticular was that they were held to have a physicalfunction of actively cleaning the air and also ofproducing oxygen, which improved the air. Thus thepositive contribution of trees might balance out thenegative contribution from traffic. Place-basedassessments of air quality often balanced these twofactors:

Kate: Well I don’t know that much about it, but Iwould have thought, [the air is good] becausethere’s so much greenery, and there are no really,big roads, here

Jason: I mean obviously trees they admit oxygendon’t they, take in carbon dioxide and admitoxygen, now here [in London] there’s no,

Suzanne: It’s all motorway!

Jason: yeah it’s all motorway so it can’t reallybalance off theychemicals in the air, you’ve justgot too much pollution going in, and not enoughoxygen from the trees.


This played out in how people felt about theirlocal air, as a comparison between interviewees inthe two more polluted areas of Brent Cross andHampstead Garden Suburb shows. In Brent Cross,the major roads surrounding the estate tended todominate people’s perceptions of the air quality:

Nigel: obviously it’s not healthy traffic-wiseythat’s the only thing that makes it unhealthy, cosof all the traffic the air isy[bad].

In Hampstead however, despite the fact that theinterviewees all lived on, or very close to, a mainroad, the way that the local air was talked of wasrather more complex. Most, though not all, of theinterviewees expressed awareness of pollution, con-nected specifically with the road, but once one wasno longer right on the road, the air was perceived tobe good—explained by the amount of greenery, theopen spaces, and to some extent Hampstead’s highlocation. So in terms of gauging local air quality,these two views seemed to co-exist, at times even ina rather paradoxical way.

Mr Farnham: Well apart from the pollution, yes,certainly, there’s a lot of erm fresh air simplybecause of the green.

Elaine: I mean if you live in London I don’tknow, I think this must be one of the mostpleasant areas to live in for pollution, becauseyou can walk straight through there to the heath,which is wonderfuly(later) But I think overallit’s not good probably.

Thus various aspects of place that might beunderstood as the ‘ecological landscape’ wereimportant in how participants in this studyperceived and experienced air quality and to someextent these echoed the technical modelling andmapping approach. Reasoning as to the spatialdistribution of physical sources and mitigatingfactors was key in this regard.

Air quality and the materialist landscape

The materialist landscape as briefly explainedabove incorporates various geographical explana-tions relating to material poverty and associateddisadvantage. This section therefore describes somerelevant associations between the experience of airquality and factors that may be associated withpoverty and materially disadvantaged places.

A comparison of the interview data from the twoless polluted areas of Totteridge and GrahamePark illustrates how feelings about local airquality might, as Irwin et al. (1999) suggest,reflect and reinforce feelings about the place as awhole. In Totteridge, the local air was generallyperceived to be good or very good, in terms of levelsof pollution:

Claire: Oh the quality is a very important factor,and it’s very good, I mean if you put your noseout the window it’s wonderful!

Jean: So I would say that we’re fairly well offwhen it comes to air pollution or air, theenvironment, quite honestly it’s clean.

The way that people spoke about the air qualitywas positive; what is important here is that this wasin the context of it being one of many positiveattributes of the area, where all interviewees werevery happy to live. These other attributes includedgood neighbours, quiet, open spaces and relativesafety.

This contrasts with Grahame Park, which was theother area of relatively low measured pollution, butsocio-economically more disadvantaged. In Gra-hame Park, most residents, when asked specifically,said that local air quality was OK, but it was notdescribed as being positively good. People spokemore in terms of an absence of any kind of problem,for example:

Dan: I don’t thinkypollution is a big deal here,you know, be it noise or, erm, manufacturing orwhat, I don’t think pollution is a big deal orproblem.

Suzanne: I think it’s just sort of normal.

From the interview data, it appeared that thedifference in these feelings about the air were in partat least related to the different levels of satisfactionwith the areas in a wider sense. Although somedifference in perception might be accounted for bysome difference in physical air quality, it seemedthat because residents of Grahame Park did not onthe whole see the neighbourhood in positive terms,they were less willing or less likely to see any specificpositive qualities. In Totteridge on the other hand,residents enjoyed describing how good the areawas to live in and enumerating the aspects thatmade it so.


The possibility that rating of air quality might berelated to other likes or dislikes in the locality wasfurther pursued in the quantitative data. In thesurvey, one composite question had given a list ofproblems that people might encounter in theirneighbourhood and asked respondents to rate howmuch of a problem they felt each one was in theirown area. The list had been composed from issuesbrought up in the qualitative interviews, and as faras possible using the interviewees’ terminology.From these ratings, two new variables were devised.A hierarchical cluster analysis run on responses tothe above question identified a clear cluster relatingto some social/economic problems, namely drugs,unemployment, housing conditions, poverty andmugging; and another relating to some moreenvironmental factors, namely graffiti, vandalismand litter. A first variable relating to ‘socio-economic dissatisfaction’ was therefore composedby adding together ratings of the problems in thefirst cluster, and a second variable reflecting‘environmental dissatisfaction’ was composed inthe same way with the second cluster. Both thesevariables correlated negatively with rating of airquality in bivariate analyses (Pearson’scoefficient ¼ �0.263 for socio-economic dissatisfac-tion; �0.201 for environmental dissatisfaction; bothpp0:01).

To check further for these effects, these variableswere entered in a multiple regression, with rating oflocal air quality as the dependent variable. Initialregression modelling had established that area ofresidence (entered as dummy variables with Totter-idge as the reference category) and having certainmedical conditions, notably asthma, were signifi-cantly related to rating of local air quality. Income,

Table 4

Results of a multiple regression modelling perceived local air quality

Variable Unstandardised coefficients

B S

Constant 5.467 0

Age 0.170 0

Gender �0.213 0

Hampstead GS �1.793 0

Brent Cross �1.173 0

Grahame Pk �0.064 0

Asthma �0.819 0

Environmental dissatisfaction �0.060 0

Socio-economic dissatisfaction �0.084 0

R ¼ 0:711, R2¼ 0.506, Adjusted R2

¼ 0.463, p ¼ 0.000.

education, occupational categories and length ofresidence in the area were discarded as notsignificantly related; gender and age were retainedas standard controls. The two variables relating toenvironmental and socio-economic dissatisfactionwere then added to the model. Results of this areshown in Table 4.

This model shows a significant effect of perceivedpoor socio-economic environment on rating of airquality, but not of perceived poor physical envir-onment–although inclusion of this variable does stilladd to the overall fit. These two variables werehowever quite highly correlated and so it may behard for the model to estimate the effects separately.Running separate models to include each separatelyfound them both significant, but the model withboth variables entered produced the best fit of thedata. The standardised beta coefficient is moreuseful for comparison than the raw value which issomewhat meaningless in the composite variables.In this model then, it seems that people perceiving acombination of drugs, unemployment, housingconditions, poverty and mugging to be a localproblem were more likely to rate air quality lower,even controlling for which area they are in (whichprovides a surrogate control for modelled physicalpollution level). Perceived physical environmenthowever, in terms of vandalism, litter and graffiti,has a less significant effect in this model. Of course itmay be to some extent a fallacy to try to separatethe two as in real situations they tend to be high insimilar areas, and as noted they are correlated inthis data set.

It is also notable that once these variables areentered, the effect of living in Grahame Parkcompared to Totteridge is no longer significant.

Standardised coefficients

td. error b p

.390 0.000

.060 0.205 0.005

.192 �0.079 0.271

.255 �0.593 0.000

.334 �0.303 0.001

.330 �0.021 0.848

.246 �0.236 0.001

.047 �0.151 0.207

.031 �0.368 0.009


This implies that differences in ratings of air qualitybetween Totteridge and Grahame Park in thissample may be explained by the association withdifferent levels of satisfaction with the neighbour-hood in terms of these social and economicproblems. Such an explanation would resonate withthe interpretation of the qualitative data, as well aswith the conclusions of some previous work (Irwinet al., 1999; Bickerstaff and Walker, 2001).

Air quality and the ‘therapeutic’ landscape

The qualitative data in particular in this studyyielded some interesting insights into how air wasinterpreted through, and as part of, a culturallyconstructed landscape. As the concept of therapeu-tic landscapes illuminates, certain elements act tomake a sense of a place as a whole, that can be insome instances experienced as promoting of well-being, and in other instances detrimental to well-being.

Central London was important here as an iconicentity. Although Barnet is an outer Londonborough, those interviewed clearly saw Londonitself as a separate place and indeed many of themseldom went there. When questioned about centralLondon in the interview, it was seen as not justhaving worse air, which would be justified byphysical and scientific explanations, but was in abroad sense understood as a dirty, bad, unhealthyenvironment. Bickerstaff and Walker (2001) found avery similar view in their study, regarding Birming-ham. The poor air was one facet of this badenvironment, but it was often not articulatedseparately from the general sense of badness andunhealthiness that incorporated litter, crowding andtraffic. These together combined to create a sense ofstress and a place that was understood as unhealthyin many respects, extending to the nature of peopleand their social relations:

Omar: you just have to go down to Camden orwhatever, where, but that’s congestion, where thedensity is higher, er, less trees, where there aremore people, more shops, more hustle bustle, er,it gets more dusty, more litter is strewn around,er, that can’t be all that conducive to one’shealth, well-being I would imagine.

Sally: yeah, traffic. It’s disgusting, it’s just I findanywhere you go in London, the minute youcome out of the tube, it just, and also the crowds,

it’s just so packed everywhere you go. I find itmoves too fast for me and that’s the truth, Ithink, oh it confuses me, cos everyone’s rushingand dashing about and they’re all walking intoyou and, and I think no I could never ever, getused to that way of life, that speed, it just, I don’tknow I don’t think they’re very healthy thosepeople, no, it’s, I find the traffic, the tube, therushing about, the crowds alone, are justy

Whilst Central London could be held up as thedefinitive non-therapeutic landscape, places asso-ciated with the experience of good air were stronglyconnected with the countryside and naturalenvironments. In terms of specifics, these varied toreflect different experiences but included Scotland,Ireland, Switzerland and Sweden. These wereexplained as ideal, healthy environments with goodair, peace and quiet, no dirt, and no stress, andengendering a more healthy set of values and socialrelations:

Julie: I often visit Cornwall, andyyou’re moreaware of the fresh airyinstead of the dirt, noise,the pollution, of living in Londony

Sally: I mean I come from Swindon, so it’s like atown, but, you’ve country sort of five minutesyit’s a lot slower pace of life, people have moretime for you, sort of they speak to you andwhatever, whereas here I find it’s not, you knowthey all go about their business, and that’s it.

The cultural significance and tenacity of theseimages of the city and the countryside has beenexplicated at length, notably by Williams (1985).Here these culturally shared symbols are being usedto understand the characteristics of places and theirsignificance for well-being, in a sense that ties invery much with the concept of the therapeuticlandscape: nature is often held to be a crucialelement of a therapeutic landscape (Gesler, 1993;Palka, 1999).

These ideas can be related back to understandingan element of how people related to their local airquality as well as that elsewhere. In Totteridge forexample, where the air was perceived as good (andindeed is scientifically estimated to be relatively so),people experienced their air as part of an environ-ment with therapeutic properties that allowedrecuperation from the stresses of other places:

Maria: My poor dad when he used to comeupyI mean he lived in the middle of Farringdon


Road, and as he used to get off at the station heused to say ‘oh that’s better, now I can breatheproperly’, he always used to say the air was nicehereyyou know he used to look around and seea bit of green and you know, ‘oh lovely’, bebetter.

Kate: I mean here you just, you know you canrest your eyes on a field or just seeing grasses andno houses, whereas, when you’re in Hendon, orwhen I’m standing in the playground, you’ve gotlorries and cars going by, you’ve got, play-ground, you’ve got a huge school behind you,you’ve got millions of houses with like, youknow, all business going on and all traffic lightsand, ugh, no, I mean the differenceyyeah, it’snice to come here, and just, you know you canjust get out in the garden, or just look at thegardeny

Clearly one very important element of thisexperience was the amount of greenery and vegeta-tion in the vicinity, which connects up with thesymbolic and therapeutic value of nature notedabove. Thus, to revisit the example of HampsteadGarden Suburb, it can be seen that the trees,woodland and parks in the vicinity had anadditional symbolic and therapeutic value thathelped protect people from the experience ofpollution and allowed them to feel that theirneighbourhood was still healthy:

Karen: I mean you’ve got the main road so I’dsay, in terms of pollution and so on thenthatybut you sort of mask that fact becauseyou’ve got a nice garden andyyou forget thatyou’ve got juggernauts going down the road,because you’ve got a nice garden and park andso ony

Omar: this is the old A1, as you know, I’m righton top of it, there’s nothing I can do, but thesaving grace is that I do have a garden which Ienjoy at the back, and around, also around theplace, so one can relax, and in that sense I thinkthat it is healthy.

Overlain landscapes and unequal experience

The above analysis demonstrates how, in this casestudy, air pollution was understood and experiencedboth through, and as part of, multi-dimensionalplace. The dimensions should be seen as intertwinedor layered: indeed, participants’ accounts of air

quality and its significance moved between differentexplanations relating to these different dimensions,and could use elements from each to reinforce oneanother.

Nevertheless, the conceptual delimitation of thesedifferent ‘landscapes’ and their significance inexperiencing air pollution is useful in that itprovides crucial insights into some routes by whichinequality of experience comes about. These ‘land-scapes’ may be overlain to produce an overall effectthat can be augmentative or ameliorative. Thus ifair quality as ecological landscape is taken as thebase, as in modelling and mapping studies, theexperience of poor quality in this dimension can befurther augmented by poor quality materialist and/or symbolic landscapes. Conversely, at the same

physical level of pollution, the overall impact may belessened by a good quality materialist and symboliclandscape. Hampstead Garden Suburb provides agood illustration of the latter case, where the impactof living right on a highly polluted major road wasbuffered by the quality of the social and physicalfabric of the neighbourhood and the symbolicallytherapeutic resources available to the residents.

Discussion and conclusions

This paper has sought to show how the experi-ence of air pollution may be mediated by the contextof place. Application of a framework from geogra-phical work on health inequalities provides a usefultool for delimiting some ways in which this occursand also for understanding how the sum of theseconcurrent processes results in overall inequalitiesof experience and well-being. The framework ispresented as a useful orienting device rather than aperfect fit; the categorisations are not absolute andsome aspects of place cut across categories—trees,for example, form part of the ecological, therapeuticand arguably the materialist landscape. Each land-scape is a partial explanation; further work mightexplore more fully the extent to which each accountsfor variation in perceptions or experiences, althoughthe indication here is that they appear to overlap,with people’s own explanations moving fluidlybetween them. Further quantitative work shouldalso consider using multi-level modelling as a way oftesting for effects at area level.

Methodology is an issue to reflect on, as itbecomes clear from the analysis that differentmethods provide insights into different landscapes.The mixture of methods and resulting data


presented here allow a simultaneous view of certainrelevant aspects of place, although there are perhapstensions in using such datasets together. It isimportant to acknowledge, however, that the kindof ‘landscape’ to be revealed will be to some extentmethod dependent.

In addition there are potentially relevant aspectsof place that have not been discussed here but whichmight relate to the original fivefold frameworkpresented by Curtis and Jones (1998). Wider powerdifferentials for example between those living inmore and less disadvantaged areas are enacted inplace, and may have a bearing on how people feelabout those places. The kinds of issues related undermaterialist landscapes above are not just a fact ofmaterial deprivation, but can be viewed as anexpression of the experience of inequality, beingeither imposed on those living in poorer areas (e.g.poor housing) or created by those same people inresponse to lack of opportunity (drug abuse;vandalism). It was certainly the case that those inthe more disadvantaged areas in this study felt lessof an ability to change their environment than didthose in the better-off areas—although they werestill positive about this, just less positive. Thuslandscapes of social control may become relevant,though a good analysis of this aspect would benefitfrom ethnographic exploration through for exampleparticipant observation, as the operation of suchstructural forces is not something that tends to bereadily articulated in interviews.

These conclusions raise issues and possibilities forair quality management. Strategies to reduce theimpact of air pollution are generally conceived onthe basis of spatial modelling of pollution levels andtherefore address one aspect of the ecologicallandscape. However, the above analysis wouldimply that impacts may also be mitigated throughother means, for example by improving the overallenvironmental quality of places and providing asmuch quality greenery as possible. Addressingeconomic and social problems and inequalitieswould also help, though this is admittedly a morecomplex task and one that is pressing for a host ofother reasons.

A further implication is that in reducing inequal-ities, an area-based strategy should pay moreattention to places that are poor in respect of all‘landscapes’ or contexts. Although these are likelyto be the areas where the poorest people live, thismay not always be the case. However, it should benoted that whilst this paper has concentrated on the

contextual factors that contribute to inequality ofexperience, some individual (or compositional)factors, notably having respiratory health problems,were also found to be significant in this study; inaddition, place of residence may not be the onlyimportant place context in people’s experience(Day, 2004a, b).

The above points have been made from theperspective of conceiving impacts of air pollution asincluding subjective quality of life, or in healthterms, using a holistic model of health as well-being,including subjective and psychological aspects. It isnot the intention to suggest that working withmaterialist and symbolic landscapes will signifi-cantly reduce hospital admissions from chest andheart complaints; neither is it intended that peopleshould be ‘fooled’ into thinking that air quality isphysically better than it is. The point to be made isthat the wider impacts of air pollution are mediatedby place understood in more than one dimension;ameliorative strategies may therefore usefully en-gage with all of these dimensions of place.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the people ofBarnet who participated in the research. Theresearch was funded by the Economic and SocialResearch Council, award no. R42200034102. Addi-tional funding for research costs was provided byUniversity College London Graduate School.

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Place and the experience of air quality