Is Housing Diversity Good for Community Stability?: Evidence from the Housing Crisis
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Globally, hazards are increasingly threatening housing each year, and housing constructed outside the formal sector may be particularly vulnerable. Yet, limited studies have investigated the perceptions of those responsible for designing and building this housing. These safety perceptions motivate the informal housing construction practices that ultimately determine housing safety. Thus, this study investigates the multi-hazard housing safety perceptions of individuals involved with housing construction in Puerto Rico. We surveyed 345 builders and hardware store employees across Puerto Rico to understand their perceptions of expected housing damage in hurricanes and earthquakes, important mitigation measures, and barriers to safer housing construction. Our results reveal that prior hazard experience did not influence perceptions of expected housing damage, but previous housing construction experience did. Respondents viewed wood and concrete housing as less safe in hurricanes and earthquakes, respectively. Yet, respondents appeared uncertain about the importance of mitigation measures for concrete houses in earthquakes, likely due to a combination of limited earthquake experience and “hidden” reinforcement detailing in a reinforced concrete house. Interestingly, our results also show that respondents perceive technical construction capacity as a major barrier to safer informal housing construction rather than resource constraints alone. These findings suggest areas for technical construction capacitymore »
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Over the last three decades, the growth in housing costs relative to household incomes across cities in the United States has dramatically affected households' housing options. For this study, we apply a logit model to data from the American Housing Survey to provide evidence on how rising house costs affect female-headed households' decisions to move from the current home to another. Estimates reveal that total housing cost is a significant determinant of a female-headed household’s decision to move. We also found that lower-income female-headed households are more likely to move to a new location than higher-income female-headed households. These results support the idea that affordable housing programs should be maintained and expanded to offer some alleviation to the burden of rising housing costs on lower-income female-headed households and other vulnerable groups
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Ruiz-Rodriguez, Magdalena (Ed.)Nutritionally-based mutualisms with bacteria are known to occur in a wide array of invertebrate phyla, although less commonly in the Platyhelminthes. Here we report what appears to be a novel example of this type of association in two geographically disparate and phylogenetically distant species of tapeworms of eagle rays—the lecanicephalidean Elicilacunosus dharmadii off the island of Borneo and the tetraphyllidean Caulobothrium multispelaeum off Senegal. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy revealed that the grooves and apertures on the outer surfaces of both tapeworms open into expansive cavities housing concentrations of bacteria. This led us to reject the original hypothesis that these structures, and their associated mucopolysaccharides, aid in attachment to the host mucosa. The cavities were found to be specialized in-foldings of the tapeworm body that were lined with particularly elongate filitriches. Given tapeworms lack a gut and employ filitriches to assist in nutrient absorption, enhanced nutrient uptake likely occurs in the cavities. Each tapeworm species appeared to host different bacterial monocultures; those in E . dharmadii were coccoid-like in form, while those in C . multispelaeum were bacillus-like. The presence of bacteria in a specialized structure of this nature suggests the structure is a symbiotic organ. Tapeworms are fully capablemore »
