Fault zone regulation, seismic hazard, and social vulnerability in Los Angeles, California: Hazard or urban amenity?

Public perception and regulation of environmental hazards are important factors in the development and configuration of cities. Throughout California, probabilistic seismic hazard mapping and geologic investigations of active faults have spatially quantified earthquake hazard. In Los Angeles, these analyses have informed earthquake engineering, public awareness, the insurance industry, and the government regulation of developments near faults. Understanding the impact of natural hazards regulation on the social and built geography of cities is vital for informing future science and policy directions. We constructed a relative social vulnerability index classification for Los Angeles to examine the social condition within regions of significant seismic hazard, including areas regulated as Alquist‐Priolo (AP) Act earthquake fault zones. Despite hazard disclosures, social vulnerability is lowest within AP regulatory zones and vulnerability increases with distance from them. Because the AP Act requires building setbacks from active faults, newer developments in these zones are bisected by parks. Parcel‐level analysis demonstrates that homes adjacent to these fault zone parks are the most valuable in their neighborhoods. At a broad scale, a Landsat‐based normalized difference vegetation index shows that greenness near AP zones is greater than the rest of the metropolitan area. In the parks‐poor city of Los Angeles, fault zone regulation has contributed to the construction of park space within areas of earthquake hazard, thus transforming zones of natural hazard into amenities, attracting populations of relatively high social status, and demonstrating that the distribution of social vulnerability is sometimes more strongly tied to amenities than hazards. Key Points Spatial distribution of social vulnerability is anticorrelated with earthquake hazard California fault zone regulations promote the construction of urban greenspace Greenspace enhances home values and amenitizes areas closest to fault zones