Abstract
A critical piece, and often the most neglected piece, of resilience to disaster is the identification and mapping of a community’s social vulnerabilities. When disaster strikes, its impact is not just a function of its magnitude and where it strikes. Development patterns characterized by sprawl, concentrated poverty, and segregation shape urban environments in ways that isolate vulnerable populations so that poor and rich, white and black, owners and renters, primary residents and vacationers, are separated from one another in clusters and pockets across the community. In many communities, if not most, the social geography interacts with the physical geography to expose vulnerable populations to greater risk. Vulnerable populations are less likely to have access to both information and resources that would allow them to anticipate and respond to a real or perceived threat, yet they are more often than not the groups who most need to attend to warnings to evacuate or seek shelter.
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Notes
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© 2014 Jaimie Hicks Masterson, Walter Gillis Peacock, Shannon S. Van Zandt, Himanshu Grover, Lori Feild Schwarz, and John T. Cooper Jr.
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Masterson, J.H., Peacock, W.G., Van Zandt, S.S., Grover, H., Schwarz, L.F., Cooper, J.T. (2014). Assessing Social Vulnerability. In: Planning for Community Resilience. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-586-1_6
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