Logan looks broadly at the impacts of hurricanes on the Gulf Coast from 1950-2005, questioning whether their effects on population and employment are long-term or short-lived and asking which population groups are more vulnerable to damage and displacement. A significant barrier to such analysis is the lack of detailed information on the actual wind damage from historical hurricanes. Logan and Zengwang Xu examine the potential for hurricane wind models to be used as a basis for filling this important data need.

Logan in studying trends in school segregation since 1970 shows that the substantial desegregation in the 1970s did not continue after 1980. He is also evaluating the relationship between racial and class segregation and the disproportionate exposure of minority students to subpar schools.

The complex relationship between demographic processes, spatial segregation, and inequality is evident in work by Logan on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Logan finds that primarily black neighborhoods within the city limits were more likely to be damaged and less likely to be rebuilt than were otherwise similar neighborhoods.

Hurricanes have a devastating effect on nursing home residents, as they may be adversely affected either by being transferred to another setting or by sheltering in place. Using existing nursing-home data from multiple sources, Logan and his collaborator, Vincent Mor, seek to understand the consequences of hurricanes and evacuation decisions, providing the first evidence base to inform the creation of evacuation guidelines.

This project brings together 14 research teams at different universities and several disciplines to analyze changes in U.S. society over the last several decades and particularly post-2000, using trend data from Census 2010, the American Community Survey, and Current Population Survey. Particular emphasis is placed on the relationship between urban change and inequality.

In China, controls on movement of people to urban areas have been more explicit, as they were in apartheid South Africa. This control has altered the trajectory of these cities and created an underclass without full access to relevant service. Logan is building on a long history of work examining population distribution and stratification in Chinese cities. His recent work uses both original surveys and Chinese census microdata to evaluate residential restructuring, disparities in access to housing between local urbanites and migrants, and the development of private housing markets.

This project studies racial and ethnic differentiation in U.S. cities in 1880, with a particular emphasis on the relationships between people and places. Using geocoded data from the 1880 Census, Logan was able to measure, for example, the ethnic composition of one’s neighbors at the level of the household and to group proximate households with similar “neighborhoods” into an overall neighborhood.