ABSTRACT
Cities are distinguished from rural areas in part by their high-density and diversity of people, built environment and land uses. ‘Heterogeneous’ is one term used to describe the unevenness of urban landscape, where even over short distances, the material components of a city (e.g. buildings, green space, roads), the activities that occur or the social characteristics of people who live there can change quite dramatically. These uneven landscapes result in clusters of potential hazards, such as toxic emissions from industry, or unwanted activities near residential communities such as meat packing plants or idling diesel truck stops. Since cities are socially and spatially segregated by neighborhoods (Sampson 2012; Boone 2013), this means that clusters of some groups of people may potentially bear a greater burden of urban hazards than other groups.
