Housing

Where do you live? For many people this seemingly simple question doesn’t have a simple answer. Some retirees spend winters in Florida or Arizona and summers in New York or Minnesota. Others buy an RV and move from place to place, with no fixed place of residence. College students spend part of the year in their college towns and part in their home towns. Migrant farm workers often move from place to place over the course of a year, spending no more than a few weeks or months at any given location.

The elderly population of the United States is large and growing rapidly. In 2000, there were 35 million persons aged 65 and older, making up 12% of the total population. This population is projected to exceed 86 million by 2050, making up 21% of the total (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). The oldest segment of the elderly population is growing particularly rapidly, with the population aged 85 and over projected to grow more than five-fold between 2000 and 2050, from 4 million to 21 million.

Many studies have considered the economic, social, and psychological effects of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, but few have considered their demographic effects. In this paper we describe and evaluate a method for measuring the effects on Hurricane Andrew on the housing stock and population distribution in Dade County, Florida