Rebounding after disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods can be daunting. Communities must have residents who can not only gain access to the resources that they need to rebuild but who can also overcome the collective action problem that characterizes post-disaster relief efforts.
Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster argues that entrepreneurs, conceived broadly as individuals who recognize and act on opportunities to promote social change, fill this critical role.
Using examples of recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Hurricane Sandy on the Rockaway Peninsula in New York, Dr. Storr and his co-authors Drs. Haeffele-Balch and Grube, demonstrate how entrepreneurs promote community recovery by providing necessary goods and services, restoring and replacing disrupted social networks, and signaling that community rebound is likely and, in fact, underway. We argue that creating space for entrepreneurs to act after disasters is essential for promoting recovery and fostering resilient communities.
Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster builds on previous work that Dr. Storr has conducted on the community recovery post-disaster including:
“Social Capital and Social Learning after Hurricane Sandy” (with Stefanie Haeffele-‐‑Balch and Laura E. Grube), Review of Austrian Economics, forthcoming.
“Commercial relationships and spaces after disaster” (with Emily Chamlee-Wright), Society, 51 (6) 2014.
“Post-disaster community recovery in heterogeneous, loosely-connected communities,” (with Stefanie Haeffele-Balch), Review of Social Economy, 70 (3) 2012.
“The capacity for self-governance and post-disaster resiliency” (with Laura E. Grube*) Review of Austrian Economics, 27 (3) 2013.
“The role of social entrepreneurship in post-Katrina recovery” (with Emily Chamlee-Wright), International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2 (1/2) 2010.
“The Entrepreneur’ʹs Role in Post-‐‑Disaster Community Recovery: Implications for Post-‐‑Disaster Recovery Policy” (with Emily Chamlee-‐‑Wright), Mercatus Center Policy Series, Policy Primer No. 6, July 2008.
You can purchase Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster at Palgrave Macmillan and Amazon.com. You can also read chapter 1 at palgrave.com.
Visit http://www.communityrevival.us/ for more information on the book.
Categories: Virgil Storr's Research
Virgil Henry Storr 