Climate Moves: Social Inequality and Residential Adaptation in the Age of Disaster

For the people and places facing climate-related risks, such as flooding, questions of whether to relocate, how, and to where, are becoming increasingly pertinent. To assist, the federal government has been funding the retreat of people and housing from areas of greatest risk by paying homeowners to voluntarily give up their housing for demolition and move elsewhere. Local officials have now used the policy to purchase and demolish more than 40,000 homes, leading to related relocations from more than two thousand census tracts nationwide. Sociologists Kevin Loughran and James Elliott will examine the residential trajectories of the people and places undergoing managed retreat, as well as how their experiences and perceptions vary by the social positions and contexts in which they occur. They ask: How pervasive is participation in such relocation programs relative to residents simply moving through conventional market means? Where do movers go? Is it to climate-safer homes? Are these homes located in wealthier communities consistent with ideas of residential attainment, or are they located in less-affluent communities consistent with ideas of climate gentrification? What are the factors that movers and stayers say are important in their decision-making and evaluations of program success? How do they narrate important matters of race and class as they consider if and where to move? And how do answers to these questions vary by the social and geographic locations in which people are located?