Raymond J. Burby

Hurricane Katrina and the Paradoxes of Government Disaster Policy: Bringing About Wise Governmental Decisions for Hazardous Areas

The unprecedented losses from Hurricane Katrina can be explained by two paradoxes. The safe development paradox is that in trying to make hazardous areas safer, the federal government in fact substantially increased the potential for catastrophic property damages and economic loss. The local government paradox is that while their citizens bear the brunt of human suffering and financial loss in disasters, local officials pay insufficient attention to policies to limit vulnerability. The author demonstrates in this article that in spite of the two paradoxes, disaster losses can be blunted if local governments prepare comprehensive plans that pay attention to hazard mitigation. The federal government can take steps to increase local government commitment to planning and hazard mitigation by making relatively small adjustments to the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 and the Flood Insurance Act. To be more certain of reducing disaster losses, however, the author suggests that we need a major reorientation of the National Flood Insurance Program from insuring individuals to insuring communities.

Flood insurance and floodplain management: the US experience

Abstract With over six million buildings located within the boundaries of the 100-yr floodplain, flood losses across the United States are widespread (88% of US counties experienced at least one flood disaster during the second half of the twentieth century). To deal with this problem, the federal government provides flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program, which was initiated by Congress in 1968 and amended significantly in 1969, 1973, and 1994. This article describes the US approach to flood insurance and notes a number of problems that have limited its effectiveness. Flood hazard identification is incomplete, and methods used are flawed. Mitigation has failed to contain increasing exposure to property damage in floods and coastal storms, and it has failed to markedly reduce exposure to loss of older buildings located in flood hazard areas. Market penetration of flood insurance is low, in spite of mandatory purchase requirements for new construction and the availability of subsidized insurance rates for older buildings located in flood-hazard areas. These problems, although serious, can be remedied through a variety of actions taken by governments at the federal, state, and local level.

Public Participation in Natural Hazard Mitigation Policy Formation: Challenges for Comprehensive Planning

Democratic theory holds that active participation in governmental planning and decision making is critical to furthering the public interest. As a result, public participation in urban planning in the US is arguably the most extensive and intensive in the world. Required by federal, state and local laws, citizen involvement is a staple of local plan making. However, as this paper shows, citizen interest in participating in the formulation of hazard mitigation policies in comprehensive plans is low, despite mounting evidence of perils to life and property from floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. Using evidence from case studies in Florida and Washington, the causes of disinterest are dissected and ways to increase public input to hazard mitigation policies in local comprehensive plans are recommended.

Fear of Crime in Public Housing

Fear of crime has been shown to have a variety of negative impacts on quality of life. The purpose of this article is, first, to better understand the factors associated with fear of crime and, second, to see if this fear among public housing residents is influenced by the same factors that influence fear among the general population. Three models of fear of crime are tested using a sample of 267 residents in 11 nonelderly public housing developments. The results of a multiple regression analysis indicate that variables associated with each model contribute to an explanation of fear, although the social control model has the greatest predictive power. Key variables in explaining fear levels include social and physical incivilities, personal victimization, race, and the adequacy of security measures. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Urban Containment and Central-City Revitalization

Abstract Planners throughout the 20th century have advocated containment of urban sprawl through a variety of means. Urban containment is incorporated into the growth management programs of several states, and growth management policies exist in at least 95 metropolitan areas. One objective of containment is to concentrate development within areas that are already urbanized, particularly in central cities. In this article, we examine the effects of the first round of urban containment programs (adopted prior to 1985) on the amount of development activity taking place in central cities and on the ratio of central-city to metropolitan-area development activity. Our findings indicate that central cities in contained metropolitan areas are attracting more development activity than cenral cities in uncontained areas. However, suburban areas in both contained and uncontained metropolitan areas continue to grow. We surmise that containment shifts development from exurban and rural areas to suburban and urban ones because of containment boundaries. One potential limitation of our ordinary least squares (OLS) regression modeling is that the relationship between containment and development activity may be multidirectional. That is, since central cities in metropolitan areas with higher growth rates in previous years are more likely to adopt policies to constrain future growth, containment programs may affect and be affected by the rate of central-city residential construction activity.1 Although we control for this fact to some degree by restricting our definition of the presence of urban containment to those metropolitan areas that adopted policies prior to the study period, any correlation between lagged construction rates and current construction rates would reintroduce the problem.

Deconcentration of Public Housing Effects on Residents' Satisfaction with their Living Environments and their Fear of Crime

Dispersal of public housing from inner-city areas has been advocated widely since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Using data from a comparative study of eight public-housing developments (four located in inner-city areas and four located outside of the inner city), we provide evidence that deconcentration of public housing provides some benefits for low-income, single-parent households. Compared with inner-city residents, those living in deconcentrated developments were more satisfied with their living environments and less fearful of crime. Deconcentration did not result in social isolation, but it did isolate residents from employment opportunities.

The Tenure Trap The Vulnerability of Renters to Joint Natural and Technological Disasters

Natural disasters can result in releases of toxic materials that pose a grave threat to populations exposed to them. The authors provide evidence from California and Louisiana to show that in comparison with homeowners, renters are significantly less well prepared to survive a joint naturaland technologicaldisaster without injury. Rentalhousing can be targeted for public awareness and other measures that can improve the preparedness of tenants, but barriers that inhibit progress are substantial. Nevertheless, with a carefully crafted plan of action based on a variety of policy instruments, the tenure trap can be disabled.

Providing for the housing needs of the elderly

Abstract The elderly, who constitute an important segment of housing markets in cities in the United States and elsewhere, have distinctive needs that require careful attention from community planners. In this article, we review what is known about housing design and other factors that affect the well-being of older people, and we develop and test a conceptual model for explaining variation in three housing outcomes of importance to the elderly—social interaction, fear of crime, and satisfaction with housing livability. Drawing on previous research and on analyses of data collected for this article from ten housing developments in Durham, North Carolina, we offer recommendations regarding the location, design, and management of housing for the elderly.

Costs and benefits of urban erosion and sediment control: The North Carolina experience

The EPA’s new nonpoint source pollution control requirements will soon institutionalize urban erosion and sediment pollution control practices nationwide. The public and private sector costs and social benefits associated with North Carolina’s program (one of the strongest programs in the country in terms of implementation authority, staffing levels, and comprehensiveness of coverage) are examined to provide general policy guidance on questions relating to the likely burden the new best management practices will have on the development industry, the likely costs and benefits of such a program, and the feasibility of running a program on a cost recovery basis. We found that urban erosion and sediment control requirements were not particularly burdensome to the development industry (adding about 4% on average to development costs). Public-sector program costs ranged between

Encouraging Residential Rehabilitation with Building Codes: New Jersey's Experience

2.4 and