IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea09/49428.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wildland Fire Hazard and Urban Development Pattern: Why California Civil Code 1103 Fails to Protect Households from Wildfires

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Wenchao
  • Wu, JunJie

Abstract

Recent years have seen mass casualties and severe property damage caused by wildland fires. With increasing housing development in natural-amenity-rich fire-prone areas, human activities not only exert intense pressures on local ecosystems, but also increase difficulties for wildland fire suppression. To cope with wildland fire threats and protect life and property from wildfire, a new California Natural Hazard Disclosure Law (California Civil Code Sec. 1103) went into effect in 1998. Information disclosure required by Sec. 1103 and its related laws is expected to enhance the efficiency of market allocation of land and developments in hazardous areas, making land price and development pattern better reflect the benefit and risk of living in the natural hazard zones. However, Troy and Romm (2004) suggested that the California Natural Hazard Disclosure Law had no effect for the overall population of fire-zone houses and did not stop overdevelopment in wildfire hazardous areas. In this paper, we expand a classic urban economics model to explore the impact of wildland fire-zone designations on housing development patterns in both a general equilibrium framework and a quantifiable manner. We conduct simulation studies to characterize the changes in urban development patterns and spatial profiles in response to the dynamics of wildland fire regimes. Our model and simulation results reveal the behaviors of residents and local governments and help us understand why Sec. 1103 and its related laws fail to stop over-development in wildfire hazardous areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Wenchao & Wu, JunJie, 2009. "Wildland Fire Hazard and Urban Development Pattern: Why California Civil Code 1103 Fails to Protect Households from Wildfires," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49428, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea09:49428
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.49428
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/49428/files/AAEA_613651.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.49428?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    2. Loomis, John, 2004. "Do nearby forest fires cause a reduction in residential property values?," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 149-157, November.
    3. S. B. Kask & S. A. Maani, 1992. "Uncertainty, Information, and Hedonic Pricing," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 68(2), pages 170-184.
    4. de Bartolome, Charles A. M. & Ross, Stephen L., 2003. "Equilibria with local governments and commuting: income sorting vs income mixing," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-20, July.
    5. Wu, JunJie & Plantinga, Andrew J., 2003. "The influence of public open space on urban spatial structure," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 288-309, September.
    6. Geoffrey H. Donovan & Patricia A. Champ & David T. Butry, 2007. "Wildfire Risk and Housing Prices: A Case Study from Colorado Springs," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 83(2), pages 217-233.
    7. Epple, Dennis & Romer, Thomas, 1991. "Mobility and Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 828-858, August.
    8. Wu, JunJie, 2006. "Environmental amenities, urban sprawl, and community characteristics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 527-547, September.
    9. McGranahan, David A., 1999. "Natural Amenities Drive Rural Population Change," Agricultural Economic Reports 33955, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    10. Austin Troy & Jeff Romm, 2004. "Assessing the price effects of flood hazard disclosure under the California natural hazard disclosure law (AB 1195)," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 137-162.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Warziniack, Travis, 2010. "Efficiency of public goods provision in space," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1723-1730, June.
    2. repec:awi:wpaper:0483 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. JunJie Wu, 2010. "Economic Fundamentals And Urban–Suburban Disparities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 570-591, May.
    4. Stephen M. Calabrese & Dennis N. Epple & Richard E. Romano, 2012. "Inefficiencies from Metropolitan Political and Fiscal Decentralization: Failures of Tiebout Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1081-1111.
    5. James R. Meldrum, 2016. "Floodplain Price Impacts by Property Type in Boulder County, Colorado: Condominiums Versus Standalone Properties," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 64(4), pages 725-750, August.
    6. Quitz'e Valenzuela-Stookey, 2020. "Redistribution Through Tax Relief," Papers 2011.03878, arXiv.org.
    7. Wu, JunJie, 2006. "Environmental amenities, urban sprawl, and community characteristics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 527-547, September.
    8. McCoy, Shawn J. & Walsh, Randall P., 2018. "Wildfire risk, salience & housing demand," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 203-228.
    9. Shawn J. McCoy & Randall P. Walsh, 2014. "W.U.I. on Fire: Risk, Salience & Housing Demand," NBER Working Papers 20644, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. JunJie Wu & Munisamy Gopinath, 2008. "What Causes Spatial Variations in Economic Development in the United States?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(2), pages 392-408.
    11. Magliocca, Nicholas & McConnell, Virginia & Walls, Margaret, 2015. "Exploring sprawl: Results from an economic agent-based model of land and housing markets," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 114-125.
    12. Chunhua Wang, 2010. "Falling commuting costs, amenity advantages, and suburbanization," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(2), pages 351-364, October.
    13. de Bartolome, Charles A. M. & Ross, Stephen L., 2004. "Who's in charge of the central city? The conflict between efficiency and equity in the design of a metropolitan area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 458-483, November.
    14. Smith, Martin D. & Sanchirico, James N. & Wilen, James E., 2009. "The economics of spatial-dynamic processes: Applications to renewable resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 104-121, January.
    15. Mitchell R. Livy, 2020. "Extreme natural events are associated with significant economic losses and expected to increase in frequency and intensity with time. While previous research has primarily investigated singular event ," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 665-678.
    16. de Bartolome, Charles A.M. & Ross, Stephen L., 2007. "Community income distributions in a metropolitan area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 496-518, May.
    17. Wu, JunJie, 2014. "Public open-space conservation under a budget constraint," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 96-101.
    18. Wu, JunJie & Sexton, Steven & Zilberman, David, 2019. "Energy price shocks, household location patterns and housing crises: Theory and implications," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 691-706.
    19. Hausman, Catherine & Stolper, Samuel, 2021. "Inequality, information failures, and air pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    20. Jean Gabszewicz & Ornella Tarola & Skerdilajda Zanaj, 2016. "Migration, wages and income taxes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(3), pages 434-453, June.
    21. Nir Dagan & Oscar Volij, 2000. "Formation of Nations in a Welfare‐State Minded World," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 2(2), pages 157-181, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Community/Rural/Urban Development; Land Economics/Use; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Risk and Uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea09:49428. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.