In 1999, a series of flood and rain events inundated Princeville, North Carolina. This historic community, the first town in the United States founded by African Americans, chose to stay in place rather than to relocate. This article presents the relocation decision within the contexts of history, place attachment, and community connections. Interview, observation, and documentary data reveal themes that led to the decision to remain in place. A Discussion section ties the decision to place attachments and recommends that future research should move beyond the individual level of analysis. Recommendations for policy and practice are included. In particular, how residents are attached to their communities and the ways in which they negotiate the environment relative to that place must be linked to mitigation efforts such as relocation buyouts. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, discourse surrounded areas in New Orleans regarding the future of a location similar in many ways to Princeville, particularly, the Lower Ninth Ward. The article concludes with an examination of that discourse and updates reconstruction progress in both Princeville and New Orleans.
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