Unequal Retreats: How Racial Segregation Shapes Climate Adaptation

ABSTRACT

Recent research on climate adaptation points to the need to take flood control seriously as a state-led process that organizes and responds to the racial and environmental spaces of cities. The present study advances that agenda by focusing on the federally funded retreat of homes and residents from flood-prone urban neighborhoods. While officially organized by rational engineering and technocratic calculations, its implementation cannot escape the racialized landscapes of U.S. cities. To illustrate, we review how a century of unequal environmental planning and housing policy has forged today’s racialized urban landscapes. Then, we turn to the federal government’s entrance into those landscapes via its policy of managed retreat that purchases flood-prone homes and returns them to nature. Here we draw on nationwide data to reveal the policy’s increasing urban orientation. We then present evidence from Houston to reveal how the racial composition and turnover of local neighborhoods influence program implementation and subsequent relocation. While not every city may experience the same racialized patterns as Houston, they will exhibit some patterns due to the powerful social and environmental force that race has long exerted in U.S. cities. Failing to account for that force will compromise efforts to adapt effectively to climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban environment
• Urban planning
• Spatial
• Neighborhood
• Mobility

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Many of these cases were identified by addresses that begin with 0 (e.g., 0 Little Fox, Lot 18) and verified using Google Earth’s historical imagery.

2. For more details on these and related analyses, see Loughran et al. (2019).

3. Supplemental analyses indicate that flood-prone neighborhoods in Houston with high levels of racially stable areas tend to have fewer buyouts, regardless of which racial group predominates.

4. We use straight-line, or Euclidean, distance because it is easy to calculate and highly reliable. Prior research in other metropolitan areas indicates that the mean ratio between driving distance and straight-line distance ranges from approximately 1.3 (Boehm, 2013) to 1.6 (Blind et al., 2018); and, nationally, each trip-mile takes an average of 1.9 minutes to complete (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2020).

5. Super neighborhoods are geographically designated areas delineated and recognized by the City of Houston. As officially described, they are areas in which residents, civic organizations, institutions, and businesses work together through an elected council to identify, plan, and address the needs and concerns of their community. The boundaries of each super neighborhood are delineated on the basis of key physical features (e.g., bayous, freeways, railroads, and major roads) as well as shared physical characteristics, identity, and infrastructure. To facilitate the standardization of super neighborhoods and small, neighborhood-like municipalities within Harris County (e.g., West University Place and Pasadena) with 2010 census tract boundaries, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research created the CTAs.

6. For more details, results and discussion, see Loughran and Elliott (2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Loughran

Kevin Loughran is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Temple University, where he is also a Faculty Fellow at the Public Policy Lab. His first book, Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City, will be published in November 2021 with Columbia University Press.

James R. Elliott

James R. Elliott is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Rice University.  His research focuses on urbanization, social inequality, and the environment.  He has served as advisor to the Sociology Program at the National Science Foundation and as co-editor of Sociological Perspectives.  His co-authored book with Dr. Scott Frickel, Sites Unseen: Uncovering Hidden Hazards in American Cities won the 2020 annual Robert E. Park award for best book in community and urban sociology from the American Sociological Association.