Locating Neighborhood Displacement Risks to Climate Gentrification Pressures in Three Coastal Counties in Florida

Abstract

Residential displacement as a result of climate change impacts will manifest on varied temporal and spatial scales affecting both coastal and inland communities. As coastal residents contend with more frequent shocks and stress from sea-level rise, many will eventually need to abandon their homes and property. Inland communities consisting of socioeconomically vulnerable populations with less exposure to climate change impacts will presumably be at risk for residential displacement. This study uses three counties in Florida—Duval, Pinellas, and Miami-Dade—as cases, and employs publicly available data. The well-known principal components analysis generated representative components of housing, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics known to predispose neighborhoods to the risk of secondary residential displacement. An additive model fit to the individual principal components analysis retained six components for Duval and Miami-Dade counties and seven for Pinellas county. The subsequent displacement risk categorization captures interrelationships between neighborhood socioeconomic and biophysical risk and allows for the identification of areas with higher secondary displacement risks. High potential second-order displacement was found in 30 percent, 25 percent, and 20 percent of the block groups in Duval, Miami-Dade, and Pinellas counties, respectively. This article serves as a framework to operationalize factors that predispose a neighborhood to climate gentrification driven by sea-level rise.