Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster: Lessons in Local Entrepreneurship

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, the authors 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. They argue that creating space for entrepreneurs to act after disasters is essential for promoting recovery and fosteringresilient communities.

Virgil Henry Storr is Senior Research Fellow and Director of Graduate Student Programs at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, USA, and Research Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at George Mason University. Storr is the author of Understanding the Culture of Markets, and his research on community recovery after disaster has been published in Rationality & Society, the Review of Social Economy, Public Choice, the Journal of Urban Affairs, and the Review of Austrian Economics. Born and raised in the Bahamas, Storr now lives in Manassas, Virginia, with his wife, Nona, and daughter, Winnie.

Stefanie Haeffele-Balch is Associate Director of Graduate Student Programs at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, USA. She is also a PhD Student in the Economics Department at George Mason University. An alumna of the Mercatus Center MA Fellowship and the Presidential Management Fellowship, her work and researchexperience has focused on post-disaster community recovery as well as the political economy of nonprofit organizations, specifically focusing on organizations that attempt to provide affordable housing to the poor.

Laura E. Grube is Mercatus Dissertation Fellow and PhD candidate in Economics at George Mason University, USA, and Visiting Instructor in the Economics Department at Beloit College, USA. Her research focuses on post-disaster economic development and the systems of self-governance that enable individuals and communities to overcome challenges during mundane times and following disaster.