Residential Preferences of Post Great Disaster in Palu City, Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesian Law No.1 of 2011 on Housing and Settlement Areas explains that housing and residential areas are organized based on safety, security, and order principles. This regulation indicates that the residential area should be safe from all hazards, including natural disasters. Residents in Palu City who experienced great disaster in 2018 are facing dilemmatic residential choices whether to 'avoid disaster' or 'survive'. Community's preference is a key to formulate resettlement or survival strategies. The disaster required the community to be more prepared and mindful in determining their residence location. This study aims to identify determine factors and indicators of the post-disaster residential preference in Palu City using multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis with 21 attributes. The results showed the MDS analysis and its attributes were classified as good (the stress value: was 0.1). The community's residential preferences were grouped into preferences to move, hesitate to move, and do not move. Seven factors that influence preferences to move are community social activities, educational background, length of stay, prone to liquefaction, fracture disasters, ease of accessibility, and distance to the city center. Strangely, some are still reluctant to move, and some others even refuse to move. Six factors influencing the hesitation to move to other locations are the family structure, tsunami-prone, flood-prone, land prices, road conditions, and house building area. Factors affecting the preference not to move are income level, ownership of emergency funds, liquefaction-prone, community perceptions regarding environmental safety, and public facilities availability.