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New Urbanist developments in flood-prone areas: safe development, or safe development paradox?

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  • Mark Stevens
  • Yan Song
  • Philip Berke

Abstract

Government policies intended to reduce flood losses can increase the potential for catastrophe by stimulating development inside the floodplain, a phenomenon referred to as the “safe development paradox.” New Urbanist design has the potential to both exacerbate and alleviate flood risks. Because they are built at relatively high densities, New Urbanist developments can exacerbate risk by placing more people and property in harm’s way. Conversely, New Urbanist design features theoretically better enable designers of New Urbanist developments to avoid floodplain portions of project sites than designers of conventional subdivisions. Using a sample of New Urbanist developments in the US that contain floodplain portions within their boundaries, this paper focuses on whether and why these developments locate built structures inside the floodplain. The authors find that roughly 30% of the developments locate structures inside the floodplain, and that the odds of locating structures inside the floodplain increase with the proportion of the project site located inside the floodplain and decrease with the presence of government policies that prohibit residential development in the floodplain. The authors also identify confusion among government planners regarding the distinction between pre and postconstruction floodplain boundaries. A subset of New Urbanist developments is found to have built structures located outside the postconstruction floodplain boundary, but inside the preconstruction floodplain boundary. This finding is cited as an example of the “safe development paradox” in action. The authors recommend changes in New Urbanist design codes and local government floodplain management to increasingly direct new development away from the floodplain. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Stevens & Yan Song & Philip Berke, 2010. "New Urbanist developments in flood-prone areas: safe development, or safe development paradox?," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 53(3), pages 605-629, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:53:y:2010:i:3:p:605-629
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-009-9450-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. J. Scott Long & Jeremy Freese, 2006. "Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables using Stata, 2nd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 2, number long2, March.
    2. Song, Yan & Knaap, Gerrit-Jan, 2003. "New urbanism and housing values: a disaggregate assessment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 218-238, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. HaiBo Hu, 2016. "Rainstorm flash flood risk assessment using genetic programming: a case study of risk zoning in Beijing," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 83(1), pages 485-500, August.
    2. Yu Han & Kevin Ash & Liang Mao & Zhong-Ren Peng, 2020. "An agent-based model for community flood adaptation under uncertain sea-level rise," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 2257-2276, October.
    3. Cheol Hee Son & Yong Un Ban, 2022. "Flood vulnerability characteristics considering environmental justice and urban disaster prevention plan in Seoul, Korea," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 114(3), pages 3185-3204, December.
    4. Lee, Yoonjeong & Brody, Samuel D., 2018. "Examining the impact of land use on flood losses in Seoul, Korea," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 500-509.
    5. Kwan Ok Lee & Hyojung Lee, 2022. "Public responses to COVID‐19 case disclosure and their spatial implications," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 732-756, June.
    6. Debarati Guha-Sapir & Jose Rodriguez-Llanes & Thomas Jakubicka, 2011. "Using disaster footprints, population databases and GIS to overcome persistent problems for human impact assessment in flood events," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 58(3), pages 845-852, September.
    7. Nuanchan Singkran & Jaya Kandasamy, 2016. "Developing a strategic flood risk management framework for Bangkok, Thailand," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 84(2), pages 933-957, November.
    8. F. Luino & A. Belloni & L. Turconi & F. Faccini & A. Mantovani & P. Fassi & F. Marincioni & G. Caldiroli, 2018. "A historical geomorphological approach to flood hazard management along the shore of an alpine lake (northern Italy)," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 94(1), pages 471-488, October.

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