A government policy that removes homeowners from flood-prone areas disproportionately disrupts the lives of residents from less white and affluent neighborhoods, according to new research from sociologists at Rice University and Temple University.
The researchers tracked more than 1,500 Houstonians who voluntarily sold their homes to the local flood authority for demolition and resettlement from 2000 to 2017, just before Hurricane Harvey ravaged the area. James Elliott, professor and chair of sociology at Rice University; Kevin Loughran, an assistant professor of sociology at Temple University; and Phylicia Lee Brown, a graduate fellow at Rice, are the authors of "Divergent Residential Pathways from Flood-prone Areas: How Neighborhood Inequalities Are Shaping Urban Climate Adaptation," which was recently accepted for publication in the journal