Effects and Impacts of Disasters
Natural and man-made disasters cause enormous loss of life and property every year in India.Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes, and land slides have become recurrent phenomena and
also strikes, bandhs, and civil commotion. Disasters have several physical, economic, social, and
environmental effects and impacts and cause immense misery to people and animals living in the
hazard-prone areas. Some of the major effects and impacts of disasters are briefly discussed in
the following paragraphs:
- Physical and Biological Impacts
Droughts evoke scenes of men and women with worn faces, dying animals, wilting crops, parched fields and dried up rivers and lakes, and floods cause water-logging of crops in low lying areas,
collapse of buildings and bridges, disruption of road and rail traffic, breaches in dams and canals,
pollution of water bodies, and the consequent water-borne diseases. In the decade, 1990-2000, on
average, 4,344 people lost their lives and 30 million people were affected by disasters in India
every year (GOI 2004:1). Tables 1-4 present estimates of physical and economic losses due to
natural disasters for selected years (GOI, 2004:34-35).
At an disaggregated level, an idea of the types and extent of losses caused by cyclones and
floods could be had by looking at the Orissa Cyclone (1999) and Bihar floods (2004) figures
presented in Annexure Tables 1 and 2 respectively. The Cyclone affected almost all the coastal
districts of Orissa and a few inland areas also. It is estimated that some 166.69 lakh people were
affected by the cyclone (Table 4). Similarly, in the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake, more than 14,000 lives
were lost, 10 lakh houses were damaged and the assets worth Rs. 15,000 crore were damaged /
lost (GOI, 2004:33). The Bhopal gas leakage in 1984 - a chemicadisaster- took away 16,000 lives,
and affected almost two lakh people (Panigrahi, 2003:1).
- Economic Impacts
Natural and man-made disasters cause immense loss of life, property and livelihoods every year. For example, according to an estimate made by the Ahmedabad-based Disaster Management
Institute (DMI), India has suffered direct disaster losses of US $ 30 billion over the last 35 years,
that is, almost US $ 1 billion a year. On average, almost two per cent of India’s GDP is lost in
disasters every year (TOI, 2004). A disaster like the Gujarat Earthquake of 2001 or Orissa Super
Cyclone of 1999 can slow done the growth rate to up to two percent in the year immediately
following the disaster. In droughts, due to the lack of water for irrigation, crops in the field perish,
resulting in the fall of the crop production and consequent loss of income to farmers. For example,
in Gujarat, an estimated loss of agricultural production worth Rs. 40,000 million during the drought
of 2000 was reported (IRMA – UNICEF, 2000:5). There is a large scale destabilization of economy
because of the loss of agricultural production and incomes, resulting in the overall fall in other rural
economic activities allied to agriculture. The plight of daily wage labourers becomes distressing.
According to an estimate made by the DMI based on micro-studies, up to 10 per cent of rural
poor suffer the loss of work and employment or assets due to disasters every year in India. And yet,
the current employment generation programmes do not directly target the 100 days of employment
guarantee to those vulnerable to cyclones, floods or droughts. In the absence of work, they become
incapable of even hand to mouth existence. This is evidenced by reports of starvation deaths in
print and electronic media from parts of the country hit by droughts. They deserve the highest
priority as the target group for provision of employment and institutional credit.
- Impact on Health and Nutrition
We illustrate these impacts drawing upon a study conducted in Gujarat in the drought years of
1999-2000 by IRMA (IRMA-UNICEF, 2000: 56-60). In Gujarat, nearly half of the children aged less
than five years are malnourished. The problem is, however, not inadequate food, but inadequate
feeding, which is critically linked to drought. Droughts can affect feeding adversely in many ways,
e.g., reduced food availability, less time available for food preparation as well as for child feeding,
or adult care-providers being away for wage earning. Anemia and Vitamin A deficiency in the
children and women are the major micronutrient deficiencies that are precipitated in situations of
water scarcity. As these nutrients are found in green leafy vegetables and other protective foods, 9
water shortage limits their availability. While anemia results from the deficiency of iron, it causes
serious health problems. It is directly responsible for predisposing to mortality in women and
children. Similarly, Vitamin A deficiency leads to permanent loss of eyesight in children and
predisposes them to infections. Vitamin A deficiency, iron deficiency and Iodine Deficiency
Disorders are three common micronutrient-related problems in Gujarat, which have critical
associations with drought.
Besides irreversible blindness in children, Vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of death due to
common childhood illnesses, particularly measles. Prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency ranges from
1.1 % in Surat to 8.6 % in Panchmahals. Children between 6 months and 3 years of age are most
vulnerable to it. Foods rich in Vitamin A like green leafy vegetables and yellow fruits (papaya,
mango etc) become most scarce during droughts, which may precipitate severe deficiency of this
nutrient among children.
During periods of drought, there are greater chances of gastro-intestinal infections. These range
from diarrhea, which is often fatal due to consequent dehydration in children, to infections such as
typhoid and hepatitis that have serious impact on adult populations as well. Epidemics are a threat
during droughts unless meticulous care is taken to ensure that drinking water supply is safe.
To supplement family income during periods of droughts, women engage in wage earning activities
that require a lot of physical labour. This puts additional physical strain on women, particularly if
they are pregnant. Such women give birth to babies with low birth weight. It is estimated that about
one-third of the babies in Gujarat are less than optimum birth weight of 2.5 kg. They are at a
greater risk of death in infancy. Thus drought can potentially worsen the situation and thwart efforts
to bring down IMR.
- Social Impacts
In the events of droughts and floods, the rural masses, especially the poor, migrate from the hazard-affected areas to nearby urban areas where they are able to mange the food, and water
from one or other sources and get some employment. Such seasonal rural-urban migration puts
extra pressure on the limited civic amenities available in the urban areas concerned and causes
hardships to every body due to the overcrowding. Besides, chances of sexually transmitted
diseases and social crime rate also increase. Adverse impacts of droughts and water scarcity are
by no means uniform across all socio-economic strata of society. Well-off sections are able to
stave off the worst effects of disasters by drawing upon their savings, mortgaging their assets, and
borrowing from friends and banks. In contrast, economically poor people are the ones, who are
affected most; they have no savings, no assets, and nobody would lend them money.
Inequalities also exist in the access to public water systems in urban areas. Such inequities widen
in drought years. In Rajkot, for example, in the drought year of 1999, people of upper class
societies managed to get 84 litres pr capita per day (lpcd ) of water, 30% of which was from private
water tankers. On the other hand, the slum dwellers dependent on Municipal tankers had to
manage their domestic needs with just 19 lpcd (IRMA-UNICEF, 2000:64).
Water scarcity also results in competition for and conflicts over water - between states (eg.
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu), towns and villages, the rich and the poor, and industry and agriculture.
In many parts of Gujarat, conflicts between farmers and urban dwellers over the re-allocation of
water from irrigation reservoirs have in the recent times become more frequent, intense and
occasionally violent (Ballabh and Singh 1997 and Ballabh 2002).
- Ecological / Environmental Impacts
In Orissa, soon after the Super Cyclone, the entire sea coast was adversely affected by high sea tides, flooding the cropped area and depositing salts on good fertile soil. Floods cause increased
erosion of soils and siltation of river beds and reservoirs, reducing their capacity to store water, and
thereby increasing the incidence of flash floods. Among the major ecological effects of droughts 10
are decreased scrub growth, increased desertification, reduction in forest area and wet land and
loss of mangroves. Among the ecological changes, the desertification cycle is of utmost concern.
The impact of droughts and floods cannot be assessed on the basis of the economic loss alone.
Many of the social and the ecological/environmental damages caused by them are irreversible,
and their impacts remain for years together.
Disaster Impacts
As noted earlier, disaster impacts comprise physical and social impact. The physical impacts of disasters include casualties (deaths and injuries) and property damage, and both vary substantially across hazard agents. The physical impacts of a disaster are usually the most obvious, easily measured, and first reported by the news media. Social impacts, which include psychosocial, demographic, economic, and political impacts, can develop over a long period of time and can be difficult to assess when they occur. Despite the difficulty in measuring these social impacts, it is nonetheless important to monitor them, and even to predict them if possible, because they can cause significant problems for the long-term functioning of specific types of households and businesses in an affected community. A better understanding of disasters’ social impacts can provide a basis for preimpact prediction and the development of contingency plans to prevent adverse consequences from occurring.Physical Impacts
Casualties. According to Noji (1997b), hurricanes produced 16 of the 65 greatest disasters of the 20th Century (in terms of deaths) and the greatest number of deaths from 1947-1980 (499,000). Earthquakes produced 28 of the greatest disasters and 450,000 deaths, whereas floods produced four of the greatest disasters and 194,000 deaths. Other significant natural disasters include volcanic eruptions with nine of the greatest disasters and 9,000 deaths, landslides with four of the greatest disasters and 5,000 deaths, and tsunamis with three of the greatest disasters and 5,000 deaths. There is significant variation by country, with developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America accounting for the top 20 positions in terms of number of deaths from 1966-1990. Low-income countries suffer approximately 3,000 deaths per disaster, whereas the corresponding figure for high-income countries is approximately 500 deaths per disaster. Moreover, these disparities appear to be increasing because the average annual death toll in developed countries declined by at least 75% between 1960 and 1990, but the same time period saw increases of over 400% in developing countries (Berke, 1995).
There often are difficulties in determining how many of the deaths and injuries are “caused by” a disaster. In some cases it is impossible to determine how many persons are missing and, if so, whether this is due to death or unrecorded relocation. The size of the error in estimates of disaster death tolls can be seen in the fact that for many of the most catastrophic events the number of deaths is rounded to the nearest thousand and some even are rounded to the nearest ten thousand (Noji, 1997b). Estimates of injuries are similarly problematic (see Langness, 1994; Peek-Asa, et al., 1998; Shoaf, et al., 1998, regarding conflicting estimates of deaths and injuries attributable to the Northridge earthquake). Even when bodies can be counted, there are problems because disaster impact may be only a contributing factor to casualties with pre-existing health conditions. Moreover, some casualties are indirect consequences of the hazard agent as, for example, with casualties caused by structural fires following earthquakes (e.g., burns) and destruction of infrastructure (e.g., illnesses from contaminated water supplies).
Damage. Losses of structures, animals, and crops also are important measures of physical impacts, and these are rising exponentially in the United States (Mileti, 1999). However, the rate of increase is even greater in developing countries such as India and Kenya (Berke, 1995). Such losses usually result from physical damage or destruction of property, but they also can be caused by losses of land use to chemical or radiological contamination or loss of the land itself to subsidence or erosion. Damage to the built environment can be classified broadly as affecting residential, commercial, industrial, infrastructure, or community services sectors. Moreover, damage within each of these sectors can be divided into damage to structures and damage to contents. It usually is the case that damage to contents results from collapsing structures (e.g., hurricane winds failing the building envelope and allowing rain to destroy the furniture inside the building). Because collapsing buildings are a major cause of casualties as well, this suggests that strengthening the structure will protect the contents and occupants. However, some hazard agents can damage building contents without affecting the structure itself (e.g., earthquakes striking seismically-resistant buildings whose contents are not securely fastened). Thus, risk area residents may need to adopt additional hazard adjustments to protect contents and occupants even if they already have structural protection.
Perhaps the most significant structural impact of a disaster on a stricken community is the destruction of households’ dwellings. Such an event initiates what can be a very long process of disaster recovery for some population segments. According to Quarantelli (1982a), people typically pass through four stages of housing recovery following a disaster. The first stage is emergency shelter, which consists of unplanned and spontaneously sought locations that are intended only to provide protection from the elements, typically open yards and cars after earthquakes (Bolin & Stanford, 1991, 1998). The next step is temporary shelter, which includes food preparation and sleeping facilities that usually are sought from friends and relatives or are found in commercial lodging, although “mass care” facilities in school gymnasiums or church auditoriums are acceptable as a last resort. The third step is temporary housing, which allows victims to re-establish household routines in nonpreferred locations or structures. The last step is permanent housing, which re-establishes household routines in preferred locations and structures.
Households vary in the progression and duration of each type of housing and the transition from one stage to another can be delayed unpredictably, as when it took nine days for shelter occupancy to peak after the Whittier Narrows earthquake (Bolin, 1993). Particularly significant are the problems faced by lower income households, which tend to be headed disproportionately by females and racial/ethnic minorities. Such households are more likely to experience destruction of their homes because of preimpact locational vulnerability. This is especially true in developing countries such as Guatemala (Peacock, Killian & Bates, 1987), but also has been reported in the US (Peacock & Girard, 1997). The homes of these households also are more likely to be destroyed because the structures were built according to older, less stringent building codes, used lower quality construction materials and methods, and were less well maintained (Bolin & Bolton, 1986). Because lower income households have fewer resources on which to draw for recovery, they also take longer to transition through the stages of housing, sometimes remaining for extended periods of time in severely damaged homes (Girard & Peacock, 1997). In other cases, they are forced to accept as permanent what originally was intended as temporary housing (Peacock, et al., 1987). Consequently, there may still be low-income households in temporary sheltering and temporary housing even after high-income households all have relocated to permanent housing (Berke, et al., 1993; Rubin, Sapperstein & Barbee, 1985).
As is the case with estimates of casualties, estimates of losses to the built environment are prone to error. Damage estimates are most accurate when trained damage assessors enter each building to assess the percent of damage to each of the major structural systems (e.g., roof, walls, floors) and the percentage reduction in market valuation due to the damage. Early approximate estimates are obtained by conducting “windshield surveys” in which trained damage assessors drive through the impact area and estimate the extent of damage that is visible from the street, or by conducting computer analyses using HAZUS (National Institute of Building Sciences, 1998). These early approximate estimates are especially important in major disasters because detailed assessments are not needed in the early stages of disaster recovery and the time required to conduct them on a large number of damaged structures using a limited number of qualified inspectors would unnecessarily delay the community recovery process.
Other important physical impacts include damage or contamination to cropland, rangeland, and woodlands. Such impacts may be well understood for some hazard agents but not others. For example, ashfall from the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption was initially expected to devastate crops and livestock in downwind areas, but no significant losses materialized (Warrick, et al., 1981). There also is concern about damage or contamination to the natural environment (wild lands) because these areas serve valuable functions such as damping the extremes of river discharge and providing habitat for wildlife. In part, concern arises from the potential for indirect consequences such as increased runoff and silting of downstream river beds, but many people also are concerned about the natural environment simply because they value it for its own sake.
Social Impacts
For many years, research on the social impacts of disasters consisted of an accumulation of case studies, but two research teams conducted comprehensive statistical analyses of extensive databases to assess the long-term effects of disasters on stricken communities (Friesma, et al., 1979; Wright, et al., 1979). The more comprehensive Wright, et al. (1979) study used census data from the 1960 (preimpact) and 1970 (post-impact) censuses to assess the effects of all recorded disasters in the United States. The authors concurred with earlier findings by Friesma, et al. (1979) in concluding no long-term social impact of disasters could be detected at the community level. In discussing their findings, the authors acknowledged their results were dominated by the types of disasters occurring most frequently in the United States—tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. Moreover, most of the disasters they studied had a relatively small scope of impact and thus caused only minimal disruption to their communities even in the short term. Finally, they noted their findings did not preclude the possibility of significant long-term impacts upon lower levels such as the neighborhood, business, and household.
Nonetheless, their findings called attention to the importance of the impact ratio—the amount of damage divided by the amount of community resources—in understanding disaster impacts. They hypothesized long-term social impacts tend to be minimal in the US because most hazard agents have a relatively small scope of impact and tend to strike undeveloped areas more frequently than intensely developed areas simply because there are more of the former than the latter. Thus, the numerator of the impact ratio tends to be low and local resources are sufficient to prevent long-term effects from occurring. Even when a disaster has a large scope of impact and strikes a large developed area (causing a large impact ratio in the short term), state and federal agencies and NGOs (e.g., American Red Cross) direct recovery resources to the affected area, thus preventing long-term impacts from occurring. For example, Hurricane Andrew inflicted $26.5 billion in losses to the Miami area, but this was only 0.4% of the US GDP (Charvériat, 2000). Recovery problems described in the studies reported in Peacock, Morrow and Gladwin (1997) were determined more by organizational impediments than by the lack of resources.
Psychosocial impacts. Research reviews conducted over a period of 25 years have concluded that disasters can cause a wide range of negative psychological responses (Bolin 1985; Gerrity & Flynn, 1997; Houts, Cleary & Hu, 1988; Perry & Lindell, 1978). These include psychophysiological effects such as fatigue, gastrointestinal upset, and tics, as well as cognitive signs such as confusion, impaired concentration, and attention deficits. Psychological impacts include emotional signs such as anxiety, depression, and grief. They also include behavioral effects such as sleep and appetite changes, ritualistic behavior, and substance abuse. In most cases, the observed effects are mild and transitory—the result of “normal people, responding normally, to a very abnormal situation” (Gerrity & Flynn 1997, p. 108). Few disaster victims require psychiatric diagnosis and most benefit more from a crisis counseling orientation than from a mental health treatment orientation, especially if their normal social support networks of friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers remain largely intact. However, there are population segments requiring special attention and active outreach. These include children, frail elderly, people with pre-existing mental illness, racial and ethnic minorities, and families of those who have died in the disaster. Emergency workers also need attention because they often work long hours without rest, have witnessed horrific sights, and are members of organizations in which discussion of emotional issues may be regarded as a sign of weakness (Rubin, 1991). However, as Chapter 11 will indicate, there is little evidence of emergency workers needing directive therapies either.
The negative psychological impacts described above, which Lazarus and Folkman (1984) call emotion focused coping, generally disrupt the social functioning of only a very small portion of the victim population. Instead, the majority of disaster victims engage in adaptive problem focused coping activities to save their own lives and those of their closest associates. Further, there is an increased incidence in prosocial behaviors such as donating material aid and a decreased incidence of antisocial behaviors such as crime (Drabek, 1986; Mileti, et al., 1975; Siegel, et al., 1999). In some cases, people even engage in altruistic behaviors that risk their own lives to save the lives of others (Tierney, et al., 2001).
There also are psychological impacts with long-term adaptive consequences, such as changes in risk perception (beliefs in the likelihood of the occurrence a disaster and its personal consequences for the individual) and increased hazard intrusiveness (frequency of thought and discussion about a hazard). In turn, these beliefs can affect risk area residents’ adoption of household hazard adjustments that reduce their vulnerability to future disasters. However, these cognitive impacts of disaster experience do not appear to be large in aggregate, resulting in modest effects on household hazard adjustment (see Lindell & Perry, 2000 for a review of the literature on seismic hazard adjustment, and Lindell & Prater 2000; Lindell & Whitney, 2000; and Whitney, Lindell & Nguyen, 2004 for more recent empirical research).
Demographic impacts. The demographic impact of a disaster can be assessed by adapting the demographic balancing equation, Pa – Pb = B – D + IM – OM, where Pa is the population size after the disaster, Pb is the population size before the disaster, B is the number of births, D is the number of deaths, IM is the number of immigrants, and OM is the number of emigrants (Smith, Tayman & Swanson, 2001). The magnitude of the disaster impact, Pa – Pb, is computed for the population of a specific geographical area and two specific points in time. Ideally, the geographical area would correspond to the disaster impact area, Pb would be immediately before disaster impact, and Pa would be immediately after disaster impact. In practice, population data are available for census divisions (census block, block group, tract, or larger area), so a Geographical Information System (GIS) must be used to estimate the impact on the impact area. Moreover, population data are likely to be most readily available from the decennial censuses, so the overall population change and its individual demographic components—births, deaths, immigration, and emigration—are likely to be estimated from that source (e.g., Wright, et al., 1979). On rare occasions, special surveys have been conducted in the aftermath of disaster (e.g., Peacock, Morrow & Gladwin, 1997). The limited research available on demographic impacts (Friesma, et al., 1979; Wright, et al., 1979) suggests disasters have negligible demographic impacts on American communities, but the highly aggregated level of analysis in these studies does not preclude the possibility of significant impacts at lower levels of aggregation (census tracts, block groups, or blocks). Although it is logically possible that disasters could affect the number of births, it does not seem likely that the effect would be large. Moreover, as noted in the previous section on physical impacts, the number of deaths from disasters in the United States has been small relative to historical levels (e.g., the 6000 deaths in the 1900 Galveston hurricane were approximately 17% of the city’s population) or to the levels reported in developing countries. The major demographic impacts of disasters are likely to be the (temporary) immigration of construction workers after major disasters and the emigration of population segments that have lost housing. In many cases, the housing-related emigration is also temporary, but there are documented cases in which housing reconstruction has been delayed indefinitely—leading to “ghost towns” (Comerio, 1998). Other potential causes of emigration are psychological impacts (belief that the likelihood of disaster recurrence is unacceptably high), economic impacts (loss of jobs or community services), or political impacts (increased neighborhood or community conflict).
Economic impacts. The property damage caused by disaster impact creates losses in asset values that can be measured by the cost of repair or replacement (Committee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Disasters, 1999). Disaster losses in United States are initially borne by the affected households, businesses, and local government agencies whose property is damaged or destroyed. However, some of these losses are redistributed during the disaster recovery process. There have been many attempts to estimate the magnitude of direct losses from individual disasters and the annual average losses from particular types of hazards (e.g., Mileti, 1999). Unfortunately, these losses are difficult to determine precisely because there is no organization that tracks all of the relevant data and some data are not recorded at all (Charvériat, 2000; Committee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Disasters, 1999). For insured property, the insurers record the amount of the deductible and the reimbursed loss, but uninsured losses are not recorded so they must be estimated—often with questionable accuracy.
The ultimate economic impact of a disaster depends upon the disposition of the damaged assets. Some of these assets are not replaced, so their loss causes a reduction in consumption (and, thus, a decrease in the quality of life) or a reduction in investment (and, thus, a decrease in economic productivity). Other assets are replaced—either through in-kind donations (e.g., food and clothing) or commercial purchases. In the latter case, the cost of replacement must come from some source of recovery funding, which generally can be characterized as either intertemporal transfers (to the present time from past savings or future loan payments) or interpersonal transfers (from one group to another at a given time). Some of the specific mechanisms for financing recovery include obtaining tax deductions or deferrals, unemployment benefits, loans (paying back the principal at low- or no-interest), grants (requiring no return of principal), insurance payoffs, or additional employment. Other sources include depleting cash financial assets (e.g., savings accounts), selling tangible assets, or migrating to an area with available housing, employment, or less risk (in some cases this is done by the principal wage earner only).
In addition to direct economic losses, there are indirect losses that arise from the interdependence of community subunits. Research on the economic impacts of disasters (Alesch, et al., 1993; Dacy & Kunreuther, 1969; Dalhamer & D’Sousa, 1997; Durkin, 1984; Gordon, et al., 1995; Kroll, et al., 1991; Lindell & Perry, 1998; Nigg, 1995; Tierney, 1997a) suggests the relationships among the social units within a community can be described as a state of dynamic equilibrium involving a steady flow of resources, especially money. Specifically, a household’s linkages with the community are defined by the money it must pay for products, services, and infrastructure support. This money is obtained from the wages that employers pay for the household’s labor. Similarly, the linkages that a business has with the community are defined by the money it provides to its employees, suppliers, and infrastructure in exchange for inputs such as labor, materials and services, and electric power, fuel, water/wastewater, telecommunications, and transportation. Conversely, it provides products or services to customers in exchange for the money it uses to pay for its inputs.
It also is important to recognize the financial impacts of recovery (in addition to the financial impacts of emergency response) on local government. Costs must be incurred for tasks such as damage assessment, emergency demolition, debris removal, infrastructure restoration, and re-planning stricken areas. In addition to these costs, there are decreased revenues due to loss or deferral of sales taxes, business taxes, property taxes, personal income taxes, and user fees.
Political impacts. There is substantial evidence that disaster impacts can cause social activism resulting in political disruption, especially during the seemingly interminable period of disaster recovery. The disaster recovery period is a source of many victim grievances and this creates many opportunities for community conflict, both in the US (Bolin 1982, 1993) and abroad (Bates & Peacock 1988). Victims usually attempt to recreate preimpact housing patterns, but it can be problematic for their neighbors if victims attempt to site mobile homes on their own lots while awaiting the reconstruction of permanent housing. Conflicts arise because such housing usually is considered to be a blight on the neighborhood and neighbors are afraid the “temporary” housing will become permanent. Neighbors also are pitted against each other when developers attempt to buy up damaged or destroyed properties and build multifamily units on lots previously zoned for single family dwellings. Such rezoning attempts are a major threat to the market value of owner-occupied homes but tend to have less impact on renters because they have less incentive to remain in the neighborhood. There are exceptions to this generalization because some ethnic groups have very close ties to their neighborhoods, even if they rent rather than own.
