Disasters And Social Change: Consequences For Community Construct and Affect

Social scientists have long posited that disasters are capable producing significant changes in the structure, social life, and even the culture of the communities and societies they impact (Prince 1920; Sorokin 1942). When one sees the devastation and disruption created by both natural and technological disaster agents, these claims seem plausible. However, the literature on community recovery, most of which focuses on natural disasters, suggests that major social change rarely results from such events. The current consensus is that disasters do not cause growing, prosperous communities to decline; nor can they "save" declining communities