How Hurricane Sandy Displaced Everyone It Touched

In the history of the United States, we've moved people for all sorts of reasons, blithely certain that they'll be fine. The sterile terms we've given these processes—"managed retreat" or "urban renewal"—suggest that they're, well, manageable. But it's not as easy as the planners would have us believe. Over decades, I have studied the significant social, emotional, and psychological costs of displacement. As a psychiatrist, I have seen the painful and often unseen effects of urban renewal, gentrification, and other major changes in cities.

Displacement triggers lifelong sorrow, what psychologist Marc Fried famously called "grieving for a long home." And it's not just grief over a place. Displacement breaks up social networks, and disperses social capital. It costs individuals an enormous amount of money, very little of which is replaced by any of the "repayment" schemes, which typically cover the cost of a house, but not the intangibles like replacing one's neighborhood. And it sets people back, adding opportunity costs to other kinds of problems. I've called this "root shock," to try to capture the ways in which upheaval disturbs our very connection with the earth.