Durable Narratives in the Face of Disaster: Middle-Class Residential (Im)mobility after Hurricane Harvey

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 8. Neighborhood Change

Abstract

In order to investigate how middle-class households make residential mobility decisions in the aftermath of a disaster and subsequent residential displacement, we conducted rapid-response, longitudinal interviews with 59 middle-class households in a suburban town that flooded during Hurricane Harvey. Prior research indicates that middle-class households exposed to disasters are less likely to migrate than low-income households, despite the financial capacity to do so. Our findings show that residential mobility decisions--whether to stay or go--were the result of durable narratives about the future held by our middle-class respondents, narratives that were often strongly tied to their home and their community. Households that stayed had planned to do so before the storm hit while households that left had plans to move before their homes flooded. The narratives households developed around their residential trajectory remained largely unaltered by the exogenous shock of the hurricane itself, and were a powerful factor shaping the response of middle-class households to Hurricane Harvey.

Authors

• Anna Catherine Rhodes, Rice University

• Max Besbris, Rice University