COVID-19 has significantly and unevenly impacted the United States, disproportionately affecting socially vulnerable communities. While epidemiologists and public health officials have suggested social distancing and shelter-in-place orders to halt the spread of this virus, the ability to comply with these guidelines is dependent on neighborhood, household, and individual characteristics related to social vulnerability. We use structural equation modeling and multiple data sources, including anonymized mobile phone location data from SafeGraph, to examine the effects of different social vulnerability and built environment factors on COVID-19 prevalence over two overlapping time periods (March to May and March to November of 2020). We use Chicago, Illinois as a case study and find that zip codes with low educational attainment consistently experienced higher case rates over both periods. Though population density was not significantly related to the prevalence in any period, movement of people made a significant contribution only during the longer time period. This finding highlights the significance of analyzing different timeframes for understanding social vulnerability. Our results suggest social vulnerability played an influential role in COVID-19 prevalence, highlighting the needs to address socioeconomic barriers to pandemic recovery and future pandemic response.

Previous urban sprawl studies have typically taken a cross-sectional approach without examining how sprawling urban areas are performing over time. Longitudinal studies of individual or household travel behavior and built-environment preference have made some progress in this direction, but very few studies have explored the longitudinal interaction of urban form with transportation and environmental outcomes. This study begins to fill this gap by evaluating the transportation and environmental impact dynamics of several key dimensions of urban sprawl: density, land use mix, centrality, and street connectivity. The central hypothesis is that while the built environment is durable and development patterns change slowly, the impacts of urban sprawl are dynamic rather than static and are accelerated in more sprawling cities relative to less sprawling cities. To test this hypothesis, a panel dataset of 7 years (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007) was developed for 60 Metropolitan Statistical Areas of the US and a hybrid modeling framework that incorporates fixed and random effects is applied to evaluate different transportation and environmental outcomes over time. We found that the influence of urban centrality or the strength of urban subcenters on the travel pattern of commuters and transit users is dynamic. This suggests that people living in cities with stronger centers drive less and use public transportation more over time. For environmental outcomes, we found that cities with higher density have experienced a significant decrease in ambient ozone and PM 2.5 concentrations after controlling city-specific variables.

While recent research has recognized the importance of considering social vulnerability, the changing patterns of social vulnerability within cities and the climate adaptation challenges these shifts pose have yet to receive much attention. In this article, we evaluate the changing patterns of social vulnerability in three coastal cities (Houston, New Orleans, and Tampa) over a thirty-year time period and integrate neighborhood change theories with theories of social vulnerability to explain those patterns. Through this analysis, we highlight emerging dimensions of vulnerability that warrant attention in the future adaptation efforts of these cities.

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