The climate change double whammy: Flood damage and the determinants of flood insurance coverage, the case of post-Katrina New Orleans

This paper advances scholarly debate on the contradictions of environmental risk management measures by analyzing the determinants of flood insurance coverage among a sample of 403 residents in New Orleans, a city undergoing rapid transformation due to post-Katrina rebuilding efforts and anthropogenic modifications of climate, hydrology, and ecology. The paper focuses on several predictors including subjective flood risk perception, trust in government officials, sociodemographic characteristics, and experience with flood damage. Using binary logistic regression, the results show that the likelihood of having flood insurance coverage is associated with past flood damage and socioeconomic status. Older people (over age 65) are more likely to have flood insurance than younger residents. Race, gender, trust, and perceived flood risk are not statistically significant predictors of flood insurance. We connect our findings to the paradoxes and conflictual dynamics of flood insurance, a major risk mitigation measure. As we point out, in flood-prone cities like New Orleans, flood insurance operates as a double whammy: uninsured or underinsured homes face pervasive risk of both flooding and rising insurance premiums under the conditions of global climate change

From Fan Parks to Live Sites: Mega events and the territorialisation of urban space

This article draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to consider the phenomenon of Live Sites and Fan Parks which are now enshrined within the viewing experience of mega sports events. Empirically, the article draws upon primary research on Live Sites generated during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Live Sites are represented as new spaces within which to critically locate and conceptually explore the shifting dynamics of urban space, subjectivity and its performative politic. The authors argue that the first, or primary, spaces of mega sporting events (the official venues) and their secondary counterparts (Live Sites) simply extend brandscaping tendencies but that corporate striation is always incomplete, opening up possibilities for disruption and dislocation

Reversals of fortune: path dependency, problem solving, and temporal cases

Historical reversals highlight a basic methodological problem: is it possible to treat two successive periods both as independent cases to compare for causal analysis and as parts of a single historical sequence? I argue that one strategy for doing so, using models of path dependency, imposes serious limits on explanation. An alternative model which treats successive periods as contrasting solutions for recurrent problems offers two advantages. First, it more effectively combines analytical comparisons of different periods with narratives of causal sequences spanning two or more periods. Second, it better integrates scholarly accounts of historical reversals with actors’ own narratives of the past

The climate change double whammy: Flood damage and the determinants of flood insurance coverage, the case of post-Katrina New Orleans

This paper advances scholarly debate on the contradictions of environmental risk management measures by analyzing the determinants of flood insurance coverage among a sample of 403 residents in New Orleans, a city undergoing rapid transformation due to post-Katrina rebuilding efforts and anthropogenic modifications of climate, hydrology, and ecology. The paper focuses on several predictors including subjective flood risk perception, trust in government officials, sociodemographic characteristics, and experience with flood damage. Using binary logistic regression, the results show that the likelihood of having flood insurance coverage is associated with past flood damage and socioeconomic status. Older people (over age 65) are more likely to have flood insurance than younger residents. Race, gender, trust, and perceived flood risk are not statistically significant predictors of flood insurance. We connect our findings to the paradoxes and conflictual dynamics of flood insurance, a major risk mitigation measure. As we point out, in flood-prone cities like New Orleans, flood insurance operates as a double whammy: uninsured or underinsured homes face pervasive risk of both flooding and rising insurance premiums under the conditions of global climate change

Gentrification and European Entrepreneurship in Marrakesh

The end of the French Protectorate witnessed a new deep structural and functional upheaval in the urban setting that later on les to the development of a particular kind of the tourist structures, called riads.More and more frequently traditional houses hav been restored and renovated into hotel facilities and nowadays the medina of Marrakech is an interesting case of processes of gentrification. The chapter propose a model that can offer a new perspective and possible future scenarios of the urban and social dynamic of the medina

A place in the sun : the politics of place, identity and branding

There is no doubt that place branding is a powerful and ubiquitous practice deployed around the globe. Parallel to its acceptance and development as a distinct discipline is an understanding that place branding as responsible practice offers the means to achieve widespread economic, social and cultural benefits. Drawing on work around place and identity in cultural geography and cultural studies, this paper engages critically with this vision. Specifically, it challenges the widely-held assumption that the relationship between place branding and place identity is fundamentally reflective, arguing instead that this relationship is inherently generative. This shift in perspective, explored in relation to current responsible place branding practice, is central to the realisation of place branding as a force for good