Please help us improve PreventionWeb by taking this brief survey. Your input will allow us to better serve the needs of the DRR community.
USA: How disasters can spur gentrification
By Richard Florida
[...]
Now, a new paper in the journal Urban Studies examines the extent to which Katrina paved the way for gentrification in hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans. To assess this, the authors, Eric Joseph van Holm of Arizona State University and Christopher Wyczalkowski of Georgia State University, look at the association between neighborhood damage inflicted by Katrina and gentrification. Their study uses data from the City of New Orleans to identify the level of physical damage to neighborhoods, then tracks gentrification in these neighborhoods before and after Katrina, using Census Bureau data for the period 2000 to 2015.
The authors also borrow a method pioneered by Lance Freeman of Columbia University, the author of several leading studies of gentrification and displacement. Freeman’s framework identifies a neighborhood as having the potential to gentrify if it: is located in the central city; has a median household income less than the 40th percentile for the metropolitan area; and has a housing stock that’s older than the region as a whole.
[...]
Overall, van Holm and Wyczalkowski conclude that hurricane damage is positively associated with the likelihood of a New Orleans neighborhood having gentrified in the 10 years after Katrina. And they write that gentrification was more likely in neighborhoods that had worse physical damage. With a “high degree of consistency across specifications,” they note, “our models suggest that those neighborhoods with a higher percentage of physical building damage were more likely to have gentrified one decade after the storm.” But the effect of storm damage on gentrification is not linear. As damage increases, the probability of gentrification increases too, but at a slower rate.
In line with previous research, the study also finds that gentrification was less likely in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of African Americans. This is a disturbing reflection on the persistence of racially-concentrated poverty, especially since the storm led to the mass displacement and relocation of so many of the city’s black, low-income residents.
[...]
Explore further
Please note: Content is displayed as last posted by a PreventionWeb community member or editor. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of UNDRR, PreventionWeb, or its sponsors. See our terms of use
Is this page useful?
Yes No Report an issue on this pageThank you. If you have 2 minutes, we would benefit from additional feedback (link opens in a new window).