The cost of suburbanization: spending on environmental protection

The goal of this paper is to assess disparities between different municipalities and evaluate the relevance of these differences to suburbs in comparison to other areas. The analysis is based on a methodological framework of CEPA environmental expenditure corresponding with the Czech public-sector budget financial structure. This study has three essential areas for Czech municipal expenses: water protection, waste management and biodiversity and landscape protection corresponding with public municipal greenery. We used the Ministry of Finance State Treasury Monitor dataset, providing data on municipal expenses for all 6,255 municipalities in 2010-2015 and compared relevant expenses in the Czech Republic's OECD metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. The results show that municipalities with the most outstanding water protection expenses per capita are exposed to a suburbanisation burden and are situated in neighbourhoods of Czech metropolitan centres. Disparities between municipalities clearly show that water protection costs per capita in less populous municipalities are three times those in bigger towns. The most extraordinary spending on maintaining public greenery was found in the metropolitan cores, showing that there is greater demand for public greenery. Regarding waste management, there is no apparent relationship with localisation in suburban areas.