The Impact of Natural Disasters on Neighborhood Poverty Rate: A Neighborhood Change Perspective

Abstract

Neighborhoods change over time through an underlying systematic mechanism. Natural disasters change the socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods by causing physical damage, after which outside resources are brought in to support recovery efforts, thereby impacting the natural processes by which neighborhoods change. This study examines the impact of a natural disaster on neighborhood poverty rate and its differential impacts according to neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics. The results show that natural disasters cause a shift in the pattern of the neighborhood poverty rate trajectory and that disasters’ impacts on neighborhood poverty rates are differential across neighborhoods. In particular, natural disasters impact the poverty rates of low-income neighborhoods most adversely.