Air Pollution in Residential Areas of Monocentric City Agglomerations: Objective and Subjective Dimensions

This article presents objective air quality conditions in a residential area of Lodz in Poland (East–Central Europe) in comparison to the subjective opinions of local residents regarding air pollution. The article focuses on the housing estate in Widzew East, in the vicinity of which is located a municipal thermal power plant (CHP power plant—local designation EC4). The aim of this study was to obtain information on the subjective assessment of air quality in the selected area and further compare it with the actual state. It was assumed that what is factual does not coincide with what the residents perceive. Discrepancies in the subjective assessment of air quality and the actual state can have significant consequences. These include the omission of personal protection and prevention, implemented at the household level and thus exposing oneself to unnecessary exposure, inadequate targeting of public action, e.g., protests against alleged rather than actual hazards, and inappropriate targeting of policies at the local government level. This view grows out of the traditions of social geography and the geography of perception. The social surveys were conducted in 2022—a self-administered questionnaire and unstructured interview in 2023. They revealed relatively low interest among the residents in air quality. The analyses also showed that the residents associated air pollution more with smog, and hence with car traffic and individual heating systems in single-family homes, than with the thermal power plant operating in close proximity. On the other hand, objective measures of air pollution showed that emissions from the thermal CHP power plant had a direct negative effect on air quality in the housing estate. The theoretical and methodological framework of socio-spatial analysis is set by behavioral geography and geography of perception.