RAPID: Quasi-Experiment on the Effect of Disaster-induced Displacement

自然灾害往往迫使个人立即大规模背井离乡。这些事件造成的不仅仅是物质财产的损失，因为社区和邻里属性涵盖了个人社会关系和文化机构的许多不同方面。迁移到一个新的社区会改变这些属性，并将影响个人的政治态度和行为。因此，这项研究不仅能够解决这种流离失所的直接政策影响，而且还能够解决社会科学中的一个经典而重要的问题：当地环境如何影响政治观点和行为？正在进行的后哈维移徙提供了一个独特的机会，在受影响的个人无法预料到这些遭遇的情况下，审查社会接触和政治背景的影响。该项目将通过研究后哈维移民模式作为一种意外的或外部原因的冲击来研究飓风哈维的政治后果。外源性冲击将使人们了解(1)流离失所的人搬迁到不同地区的决定的差异，以及一旦他们搬迁，这将如何影响他们的相关经历，以及(2)人们的政治态度和行为如何随着社区人口结构的快速变化而变化。这项研究具有重要意义，因为地理居住地很少是随机分配的，这使得很难确定观察到的相关性是背景影响的结果还是个人自我选择进入特定的意识形态和社会社区的结果。同样，社会接触可能会产生积极的影响，因为那些愿意跨越社会障碍参与的人，也是那些更有可能在政治问题上改变主意的人。这项研究项目梳理了这些潜在的混杂变量，以真正了解它们的独立影响。为了研究这些关系，将使用推特和德克萨斯州选民登记文件中的公开数据。正在进行的后哈维移徙提供了一个独特的机会，可以在以其他方式无法预见这些遭遇的情况下，审查社会接触和政治背景的影响。这项工作将以卡特里娜飓风过后流离失所个人的政治态度为基础。作为新奥尔良的结果？独特的种族地理，卡特里娜飓风撤离者更有可能是有色人种和社会经济地位较低的人。然而，2017年大休斯顿地区的洪水同时影响了富人和贫穷社区，以及白人占多数的社区和少数族裔占多数的社区。通过检查这些撤离者对他们搬迁到的社区的影响，可以独立于种族人口变化的影响来估计撤离者邻近的影响。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Natural disasters often force immediate and large-scale displacement of individuals from their homes and communities. These events result in more than just the loss of physical property, as community and neighborhood attributes encompass many different aspects of an individual's social relationships and the cultural institutions. Moving to a new community changes these attributes and will affect an individual's political attitudes and behaviors. This research is therefore able to address not just the immediate policy implications of such displacements but also a classic and important question in social science: how does local context affects political opinions and behaviors? The ongoing post-Harvey migration provides a unique opportunity to examine the effect of social contact and political context in a case where these encounters could not have otherwise been anticipated by the individuals affected. This project will examine the political consequences of Hurricane Harvey by studying post-Harvey migration patterns as an unexpected or exogenous shock. The exogenous shock will allow an understanding of (1) variations in the decision of displaced individuals to move to different areas and how this affects their associated experiences once they move, and (2) how people's political attitudes and behaviors change in response to rapid demographic shifts in their communities. This research holds great significance because geographic residence is rarely if ever randomly assigned, which makes it difficult to establish whether observed correlations are the result of contextual effects or individuals' self-selection into particular ideological and social communities. Similarly, social contact may have a positive effect because those individuals willing to engage across social barriers are also the individuals who are more likely to change their minds on political issues. This research project teases apart these potentially confounding variables to truly understand their independent effects. To study these relationships, publicly available data from Twitter and the Texas voter registration file will be used. The ongoing post-Harvey migration provides a unique opportunity to examine the effect of social contact and political context in a case where these encounters could not have otherwise been anticipated. This work will build on results on the political attitudes of displaced individuals after Hurricane Katrina. As a result of New Orleans? unique racial geography, Katrina evacuees were more likely to be people of color and of lower socioeconomic status. The 2017 flooding in the greater Houston area, however, affected both rich and poor communities alike, as well as majority white and majority-minority communities. Examining the impact of these evacuees on the communities to which they relocate allows estimations of the effects of evacuee proximity separately from those of changes in racial demographics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.