Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The increasing frequency and severity of disasters caused by climate change provide substantial obstacles for societies across the globe, resulting in initiatives aimed at facilitating recovery. The effectiveness of these recovery processes in relation to wildfire recovery, however, is still mainly unknown. This study examines the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. We find that, despite more than a billion dollars of federal aid allocated to recovering from the Camp Fire, this aid facilitated displacement and gentrification by enabling socially advantaged previous and new residents to return and rebuild in the Camp Fire area, while creating barriers for many socially vulnerable long-term residents to do the same. In addition to identifying the barriers to rebuilding, we sought to identify how the housing landscape has changed when rebuilding after a wildfire disaster: who is rebuilding, who is unable to return, what types of homes are getting rebuilt and by whom? We find that, similar to green and climate gentrification processes, disaster recovery aid may lead to what we refer to as “disaster recovery gentrification.” Although recovery processes are essential for rebuilding, they also worsen the unequal distribution of resources and affect who, when, and how people recover. The study highlights the need for a more nuanced approach to disaster recovery that considers the longer-term socioeconomic impacts of recovery programs and processes.
Lambrou et al. (Thu,) studied this question.