Environmental films are atmospheric materials that passively deposit and form coatings on most outdoor surfaces. Film heterogeneity in the chemical makeup and physical form often makes understanding their contributions to the environment difficult. It is well known that cities or rural areas produce unique films. To study how this trend changes with a known distance, we characterize two films, collected at the same time, separated by ∼1 km: representing city (CB) and suburban (CP) areas. The chemical analysis shows that the urban (CB) film, in comparison to its suburban (CP) counterpart, has higher surface coverage (+4.8%) and higher elemental diversity in metals. The physical form and roughness show that the urban (CB) sample collects more particulate than the suburban (CP) sample. This accumulation increases the surface area suggesting that the urban (CB) sample forms faster and maintains higher adsorption capacity than the suburban sample. The urban (CB) sample has metals often associated with fireworks meaning that surfaces could act as a sink and source for metallic species impacting local ecosystems through rainwater wash-off. The urban samples discharge more of the accumulated material (inorganic and organic water-soluble species) when extracted with water (+2 μg/cm2). This means that urban sites, like buildings, contribute more to waste water pollution than the suburban sites, like houses. There is also potential for this contribution to be more harmful in urban areas. These findings have important applications in understanding air and water quality in urban and suburban areas.