The Bronx and New York
The Bronx has the second smaller population among the five boroughs of New York City. With 1,332,650 inhabitants, its population is similar to Manhattan’s.
The Bronx has the second smaller population among the five boroughs of New York City. With 1,332,650 inhabitants, its population is similar to Manhattan’s.
However, the Bronx has the highest share of low-income population among NYC’s boroughs—almost three times the share of low-income population in Queens.
And 89% of the population in the Bronx are non-white, predominantly Hispanic and Black population.
The percentage of asthmatic adults hospitalized in the Bronx is 2.5 times higher than the average level in NYC.
We used cell phone big data in NYC to uncover individuals’ movement patterns and discover how they move in and out of the Bronx borough.
We coupled people’s mobility patterns with hyper-local air pollution data (particulate matter 2.5) to measure personal exposure, by socio-economic groups, for each street of the Bronx. We discovered that people from Hispanic- and Black-majority communities are much more exposed than any other groups, while high-income communities are less exposed.
We then measured and mapped disparities for each street of the Bronx. Highest exposure disparities cluster around regional road arteries. Additionally, streets with high exposure disparities do not coincide with those with high average personal exposures and only partially coincide with those with high air pollution levels. This suggests that existing methods to regulate air quality and lower personal exposure might not mitigate exposure disparities between income or race/ethnicity groups.
Income
Race
Finally, we observed that people from low-income and Hispanic-majority communities suffer the most within-group variation in particulate matter 2.5 exposure. The plots demonstrate the relative disparity measure on all Bronx streets calculated for each group, where exposure disparities are higher within race/ethnicity groups than within income groups.
Income
Race
Testi, I., Wang, A., Paul, S., Mora, S., Walker, E., Nyhan, M., Duarte, F., Santi, P., Ratti, C. (2024). Big mobility data reveals hyperlocal air pollution disparities. Nature Cities.
Carlo Ratti Director, Senseable City Lab
Iacopo Testi Lead
An Wang Lead
Sanjana Paul
Simone Mora
Fábio Duarte
Paolo Santi
Erica Walker Brown University
Marguerite Nyhan University College Cork
Marco Valli Lead
Fábio Duarte
Martina Mazzarello
Jingrong Zhang
The material on this website can be used freely in any publication provided that
1. it is duly credited as a project by the MIT Senseable City Lab
2. a PDF copy of the publication is sent to senseable-press@mit.edu
Center for Climate-Smart Transportation, Johns Hopkins University
NYC Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI)
NYC Department of Health
NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS)
Spectus Social Impact