Homebuying in New Orleans Before and After Katrina: Patterns by Space, Race and Income

Immergluck, Dan and Lee, Yun Sang (2008): Homebuying in New Orleans Before and After Katrina: Patterns by Space, Race and Income.

Abstract

Natural disasters can conceivably have significant impacts on the “neighborhood sorting” of different racial or economic groups across intrametropolitan space. Using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data we examine mortgage-financed homebuying activity within the New Orleans MSA before and after Hurricane Katrina. We find that, while the total amount of homebuying in the 7-parish New Orleans MSA was relatively unchanged between 2004 and 2006, homebuying in the city declined significantly, and declined most in places experiencing severe storm damage. We also find that after Hurricane Katrina, the proportion of homebuyers in the region and the city who were African-American or low-income declined. Finally, we find that segregation levels of African-American and lower-income homebuyers f declined in the year following Katrina. However, some of this effect is likely due to smaller overall numbers of lower-income and African-American buyers in the region.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: New Orleans, housing after disasters, segregation
• Subjects: R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R20 - General; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R21 - Housing Demand; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R23 - Regional Migration ; Regional Labor Markets ; Population ; Neighborhood Characteristics

References

Comerio, M. 1997. Housing Issues After Disasters. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 5: 166-178.

Duda, M., and Belsky, E. 2001. The Anatomy of the Low-Income Homeownership Boom in the 1990s. Low Income Homeownership Working Paper Series. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, July.

Fothergill, A., E. Maestas, and J. DeRouen Darlington. 1999. Race, Ethnicity, and Disasters in the United States: A Review of the Literature. Disasters 23:156-173.

Gabe, T., Falk, G., McCarty, M. and Mason, V. 2005. Hurricane Katrina: Social-demographic characteristics of impacted areas. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service and the Library of Congress. November.

Hartman, C. and Squires, G. 2006. There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Lindell, M. and C. Prater. 2003. Assessing Community Impacts of Natural Disasters. Natural Hazards Review 4: 176-185.

Liu, A. and Plyer, A. 2008. The New Orleans Index: Tracking Recovery of New Orleans and The Metro Area. April 16. Retrieved April 24, 2008 from http://www.gnocdc.org/NOLAIndex/NOLAIndex.pdf.

Logan, J. 2006. The Impact of Hurricane Katrina: Race and Class in Storm-Damaged Neighborhoods. Unpublished manuscript. February.

Murdock, J., H. Singh, and M. Thayer. 1993. The Impact of Natural Hazards on Housing Values: The Loma Prieta Earthquake. Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association 21: 167-184.

Peacock, W.G. and C. Girard. 1997. Ethnic and Racial Inequalities in Hurricane Damage and Insurance Settlements. In W.G. Peacock, B.H. Morrow and H. Gladwin (eds.) Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender, and the Sociology of Disasters. Routledge, New York.

Peacock, W.G., Y. Zhang, and N. Dash. 2005. Long Term Single Family Housing Recovery. The Case of Hurricane Andrew and Miami-Dade County. Paper presented at the Hazard and Disaster Researchers Meeting, Boulder, Colorado, July.

Quarantelli. E. L. 1995. Patterns of Sheltering and Housing in U.S. Disasters. Disaster Prevention and Management 4 (no. 3): 43-57.

Quarantelli. E. L. 1999. The Disaster Recovery Process: What We Know and Do Not Know From Research. Preliminary Paper #286. University of Delaware Disaster Research Center. http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/bitstream/19716/309/1/PP+286.pdf.

Scheessele. R. 1998. HMDA Coverage of the Mortgage Market. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Working paper HF-007. Retrieved April 22, 2008 from http://www.huduser.org/Publications/pdf/wkgpapr_7.pdf.

U.S. Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding at the Department of Homeland Security. 2006. Current Housing Unit Damage Estimates Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. April 7. Retrieved on January 2, 2008 from http://www.huduser.org/publications/destech/GulfCoast_HsngDmgEst.html.