Interrupted rhythms and uncertain futures: Mortgage finance and the (spatio-) temporalities of climate breakdown

Knuth, Sarah; Cox, Savannah; Zavareh Hofmann, Sahar; Morris, John; Taylor, Zac; McElvain, Beki

Abstract

As intensifying climate-related disasters strike cities across the United States, they are provoking rising concern for the stability of the U.S. housing market and broader financial system. How homeowners, mortgage lenders, federal institutions/regulators, and investors will variously encounter and manage climate risk is an urgent question for urban scholars, as is who might bear the costs of restabilizing mortgage finance under new breakdowns. This paper’s multi-scalar intervention draws on financial “following” methods to explore how climate risks are being experienced and governed at multiple illustrative moments of U.S. mortgage finance: (1) working households at the front line of urban climate impacts, (2) mortgage professionals brokering loans to them, (3) government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) negotiating incoming federal climate risk disclosure requirements, and (4) capital markets off-taking GSE risks through financial derivatives like credit risk transfers. Emerging concerns include ruptures between household risks and financial system-preserving responses and new dangers of “climate redlining.”

Citation

Knuth, S., Cox, S., Zavareh Hofmann, S., Morris, J., Taylor, Z., & McElvain, B. (2023). Interrupted rhythms and uncertain futures: Mortgage finance and the (spatio-) temporalities of climate breakdown. Journal of Urban Affairs, https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2023.2229462

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 20, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Aug 3, 2023
• Publication Date: Aug 3, 2023
• Deposit Date: Feb 22, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 23, 2024
• Journal: Journal of Urban Affairs
• Print ISSN: 0735-2166
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-9906
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2023.2229462
• Keywords: Urban Studies, Sociology and Political Science, Geography, Planning and Development
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/24414305
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07352166.2023.2229462