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Social vulnerability to natural disasters, climate driven and other, is not caused by a single agent but by the complex interaction of environmental and social forces. Key determinants of social vulnerability are a community’s ability to resist and be resilient to environmental change. For the most part, historically-constituted social and political inequalities produce social vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters ; Neighborhoods in Miami-Dade are characterized by a high degree of economic and racial stratification. This spatial and demographic heterogeneity reflects differentials of vulnerability to SLR. Because of a tendency to prefer coastal waterfront views, much of the higher valued land in the County is located on former coastal wetlands, filled marshes, and low lying beaches. The most recent real estate boom included consumption of former farmland including the farms along the drainage canal system crossing the limestone ridge. These canals, were located in former transverse glades, stream like features that passed surface water from the Everglades to Biscayne Bay and are therefore much lower than older developments located on higher surrounding areas. These interior areas and those in the former stream valleys (the Miami airport for example) are also subject to the effects of early sea level rise. Because some of the most valuable properties will be the first affected by SLR the inhabitants can be expected to be the first to try to do something about the impacts. In contrast, better-elevated interior lands will survive longer and will become more valuable with time. Many of these older neighborhoods have already survived substantial storms or floods and include many lower income areas. Such lands will likely become more desirable as awareness of SLR increases.

Moreover, poorer interior neighborhoods have high percentages of renters, a key variable of social vulnerability as it puts residents at greater risk of displacement. These interior lands will become the only remaining locations for terrestrial ecosystem components to move into setting up competition for space between human and biological systems.