Social resources and community resilience in the wake of superstorm sandy

Abstract

Recovery efforts after natural disasters typically focus on physical infrastructure. In general less attention is paid to the social infrastructure that might impact the capacity of the community to rebuild. We examine perceptions of preparedness and recovery (markers of resilience at the community level) in the wake of Superstorm Sandy with a novel data set that includes a multi-mode survey of twelve neighborhoods severely affected by the storm. With these data, we suggest that social resources are associated with beliefs about neighborhood resilience. People who live in communities with higher social cohesion (coefficient = .73, p