Gentrification in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Richard Florida reports on a new paper that looks at the relationship between disaster recovery and gentrification in New Orleans. The researchers determine the probability of neighborhoods gentrifying based on a set of measures from 2000, identify neighborhoods that did gentrify by 2015, and assess the level of damage sustained by neighborhoods from Hurricane Katrina.

"Overall, [Eric Joseph] van Holm and [Christopher] Wyczalkowski conclude that hurricane damage is positively associated with the likelihood of a New Orleans neighborhood having gentrified in the 10 years after Katrina. And they write that gentrification was more likely in neighborhoods that had worse physical damage," writes Florida.

The study also finds that neighborhoods with higher concentrations of African Americans were less likely to gentrify, and Florida notes that these findings are in line with other related research. "The reality is that the recovery from Katrina was terribly unequal, and disasters pave the way for the replacement of the poor by the much more affluent," he says.