FIRES

With the evacuation of over 150,000 residents and the leveling of some of the most expensive real estate in the country, the LA wildfires are forecasted to be the most financially devastating in US history. As insurance covers rental costs for some of the displaced, a bidding war has begun in LA’s already competitive rental market.

Filling a gap between risk scholarship and critical urban and geographical theory, a 2014 book by KEVIN FOX GOTHAM and MIRIAM GREENBERG looks to post-9/11 Manhattan and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to develop a theory of what they term “crisis-driven urbanization.”

“New York City secured an enormous package of recovery and redevelopment funds and also the sweeping deregulation in how these funds were to be distributed. ‘Flexibility’ changes won for Lower Manhattan fundamentally transformed the federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Private Activity Bond (PAB) programs from which the funds were derived, the original intent of which was to prioritize rebuilding in sites of greatest public benefit and to target aid to those who were lowest-income and hence most in need. Following 9/11, all provisions regarding ‘public benefits,’ ‘means-testing,’ and ‘public oversight’ were waived. These sweeping waivers were then used as a precedent in the deregulation of aid for the entire Gulf Coast region following Katrina. The Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone was modeled on the Liberty Zone for spatially targeted PAB tax relief, and the Louisiana Recovery Agency (LRA) became a conduit for CDBGs just as the Wall Street-backed Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) did before it. Despite all of the differences—in the scale of the destruction, demographics of victims, and so on—few questioned whether a business-friendly tax, bond, and grant package designed for Lower Manhattan could be retrofitted for this vast, low-income region.”

+  See Susan Cutter and Christina Finch’s research on changes in vulnerability to natural hazards throughout the US. Link. And see Kathleen Tierney on the consequences of disaster framing and the myth of public panic. Link.

+  “‘The big question now is what’s going to happen to rents, and this is, to me, the 800-pound gorilla in the room.'” By Caleigh Wells. Link. “Over the last few years a handful of state lawmakers have proposed sharp limits on whether and how homes can be built in high risk areas. None have become law.” By Ben Christopher. Link. 

+  “If edge suburbs and backcountry subdivisions, in fact, could be fire-proofed, then why not add more? Since 1993, almost half of California’s new homes have been built in fire hazard areas.” Mike Davis’s frequently recalled 1998 essay, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” Link. 

NEW RESEARCHERS

Discrimination

TARYN EAMES is an economics PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Her job market paper, “Taryn versus Taryn (she/her) versus Taryn (they/them),” conducts a resume experiment on pronoun disclosure in hiring.

From the paper:

“From May to October 2023, 3,985 matched pairs of resumes were sent in response to job postings in 15 occupations across six cities in the United States. As described in the pre-analysis plan registered with the American Economic Association prior to data collection, occupations were selected to vary in the percentage of workers that are female and in how much customer interaction is required; each was categorized as either female-dominated, male-dominated, or non-dominated and as requiring either high, medium, or low customer facing interaction. Cities were selected in pairs within states to vary in their political partisanship; each was categorized as Republican or Democratic. Using a resume audit study design, a pair of resumes was constructed for each job posting by randomizing across characteristics including education, work experience, and listed skills. As in McGonagill (2023), the randomized characteristic of interest in this study is pronouns listed below the name. Further, unlike in McGonagill (2023), this study leverages two distinct treatments: nonbinary pronouns (“they/them,” signaling the applicant is nonbinary and disclosing pronouns) and binary pronouns congruent with sex implied by name (“he/him” or “she/her,” signaling the applicant is cisgender and disclosing pronouns). In each resume pair, one was randomly assigned treatment pronouns and the other had no pronouns listed.”

+ + + 

+  “Nineteenth century struggles over railway regulations pose a clear lesson—a successful redistributive industrial policy depends on the mobilisation of political coalitions with a stake in its proposals.” New on PW, Noam Maggor on the legacy of agrarian coalitions and freight rate regulation in the midwestern United States. Link.

+  “If the US is serious about mineral supply, it has better places to flex its diplomatic muscle. The Democratic Republic of Congo is, by far, the most important one. Also Chile, Peru, Brazil and Mongolia. Kazakhstan goes into the list too. Sadly, none of them is for sale. But neither is Greenland.” By Javier Blas. Link. And see JFI’s research on transition-critical minerals. Link.

+  From Al Jazeera, see the details of the agreed upon ceasefire in Gaza. Link. Israeli strikes have ramped up since the announcement of a ceasefire ahead of its scheduled implementation on Sunday, killing eighty six people and wounding 200. Link, link. See AP’s profiling of the key negotiators in the ceasefire deal. Link.

+  “Historically, about one in ten financial advisers in the United States has been involved in misconduct, including criminal or regulatory violations, terminations following allegations, or customer disputes resolved in the client’s favor.” By Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos, and Amit Seru. Link.

+  “The decline in the proportion of unpaid women workers is almost completely explained by the increase in self-employment, including both those serving as unpaid helpers in family enterprises and those working for remuneration on their own account.” Jayati Ghosh on underlying realities in India’s labor market statistics. Link.

+  See Julie Greene on the Isthmian Historical Society’s 1963 competition for testimonials from non-US employees involved in the construction of the Panama Canal. Link.

+  See Moira Birss and MacKenzie Marcelin on the case for a public model for home insurance. Link.

+  “Insurance litigation developed along interesting lines. Lawyers for the companies drafted stiff clauses to protect company interests; yet courts and juries often found ways to stretch the language of insurance policies to allow a widow to collect life insurance, or to help a man whose house or store burned down, despite some flaw or doubt. It has been suggested that company lawyers performed an “overservice” for their clients. Their clauses, strict beyond the general norms of fairness, “exaggerating warranties to the point where they were almost one hundred percent protection against claims,” were partially responsible for a “public atmosphere” against the companies; and for decisions and laws that disfavored enterprise, putting them in a position “worse…than…any other contracting party.” By Lawrence M. Friedman. Link.

Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org