Climate Gentrification and Urban Inequality: How Flood Risk and Adaptation Reshape Housing Markets and Neighbourhoods

Can climate adaptation make cities safer while also making them more unequal?

As climate change increases the risk of flooding across the UK, cities face a growing challenge: how can they protect communities from environmental hazards without worsening existing social and economic inequalities? While flooding threatens homes, infrastructure and livelihoods, its consequences extend far beyond physical damage. Flood risk can influence property values, housing affordability, investment decisions and the long-term development of neighbourhoods.

Some flood-prone communities may experience declining property values, reduced investment and increasing social vulnerability. Conversely, areas perceived as safer, or benefiting from flood protection and regeneration, may attract investment and more affluent residents, potentially increasing housing costs and displacement pressures. These contrasting processes raise important questions about climate gentrification, whereby climate-related risks, perceptions of safety and adaptation interventions contribute to changing housing markets and socio-spatial inequalities. This PhD offers an exciting opportunity to investigate these emerging challenges and develop innovative approaches to ensuring that climate adaptation supports more resilient, affordable and socially just cities.

Research background and significance

Existing research has examined the relationship between flood exposure, property prices and social vulnerability. Studies have demonstrated that flood risks can influence housing market outcomes, while research on climate and environmental gentrification has highlighted the potential for environmental improvements and adaptation investments to generate unequal social consequences.

However, important gaps remain in understanding how these processes interact over time and across different urban contexts. In particular, further research is needed to establish when flood exposure contributes to neighbourhood decline, when adaptation and regeneration generate housing market pressures, and how these contrasting trajectories affect different socioeconomic groups.

There is also a need to move beyond conventional flood vulnerability assessments, which often focus on physical exposure and existing social characteristics, towards approaches that capture the evolving relationships between environmental hazards, housing markets, neighbourhood change and adaptation policies. Addressing these gaps is particularly important for UK cities facing increasing housing demand, ambitious development targets and growing pressures to invest in climate resilience.

Research aims and questions

The overarching aim of this project is to investigate how flood risk and climate adaptation influence housing markets, neighbourhood change and socio-spatial inequalities, and to develop evidence-based approaches for more equitable urban planning.

The research will address four interconnected questions:

• How do flood exposure and perceptions of climate risk influence property values, rental markets and neighbourhood development trajectories?
• Under what conditions do flood risks and adaptation investments contribute to housing market decline, gentrification or displacement pressures?
• How might future climate change, housing development and adaptation interventions reshape the spatial distribution of risk, affordability and social vulnerability?
• How can spatial data, artificial intelligence and community-generated evidence support more equitable flood adaptation and housing planning decisions?

Expected contributions and impact

This project is expected to make three important contributions.

Theoretical contribution: Advance understanding of climate gentrification by examining the mechanisms connecting flood risk, adaptation investment, housing market change and socio-spatial inequality.

Methodological contribution: Develop an integrated analytical framework combining GIS, longitudinal housing market analysis, explainable AI and community-generated evidence to examine changing patterns of climate vulnerability.

Policy and practical contribution: Produce evidence and potentially an accessible digital decision-support tool to help local authorities identify vulnerable neighbourhoods, evaluate adaptation options and consider the distributional consequences of housing and flood management policies.

Rather than assuming that adaptation inevitably produces gentrification, the research will investigate the circumstances under which interventions reduce vulnerability, reinforce existing inequalities or create new pressures on disadvantaged communities.

Research environment and doctoral development

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary supervisory team at Loughborough University, bringing together expertise in urban planning, housing, climate adaptation, spatial data science and artificial intelligence. The project will provide opportunities to develop advanced research skills in GIS, spatial statistics, quantitative modelling, AI applications and participatory methods, alongside engagement with policy challenges affecting UK cities.