Researchers have found that houses built along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts in the years following a hurricane typically increased in size relative to their original footprints. This trend is occurring despite increasing chances of damaging storms and questionable measures taken to try to make homes more resilient to these events.
The trend could be blunted if sea level rise begins to affect markets for coastal real estate, the researchers say. If regulations and infrastructure upgrades send the same kind of “mixed signals about whether an area is safe to develop” in other locales vulnerable to disasters, such as urban areas prone to wildfires, a similar trend could arise there.
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