In Miriam Greenberg’s article, “The Disaster Inside the Disaster; Hurricane Sandy and Post-Crisis Redevelopment,” she touches on the idea that even natural disasters are not completely arbitrary. The systematically unequal rebuilding efforts after a disaster, as well as the existing economic disparity and status quo, creates a country where poorer areas suffer more because of supposedly “natural” disasters.
So you have to ask: How natural are these “natural disasters”?
Obviously, we can’t control nature. No amount of government or private money could protect us against the whims of the world, but if you take a look at various studies and scholarly articles on the subject, it becomes clear that while natural disasters occur everywhere, lower income areas suffer the most. Not only do they lack the solid infrastructure that their neighboring affluent areas have, but they also don’t receive the same focused rebuilding as those areas. Thus, a horrible cycle is created.
A horrible cycle indeed…
One research article that studies this cycle is “The Income Distribution Effect of Natural Disasters: An Analysis of Hurricane Katrina.” In this study, the three authors look at various income distributions and how they relate to natural disasters, specifically honing in on Hurricane Katrina. Greenberg also focused on this, but the nuance in this particular study is that it narrows in on the actual economics behind why certain areas weren’t as affected as others – using concepts in economics to prove that natural disasters are not distributed equally.
The study concludes that Hurricane Katrina was as disastrous as it was because of the poverty epidemic. The neighborhoods around New Orleans were already not in the best shape, leading the hurricane to devastate certain areas. And to make matters worse, the governments (city, state, and federal) didn’t even rebuild those neighborhoods afterwards with the relief money.
The question I had to ask, though – is it a chicken and egg sort of problem? Meaning, are the areas lower income because they were built in places that are susceptible to harsh weather and natural disasters? Did wealthy people just not want to live there? Or are the natural disasters more detrimental there because of the lower income strata that the citizens fall under? And therefore less money is offered to those areas, furthering the economic and “natural disaster impact” gaps?
Regardless of how you answer this – the basic idea is that even though we can’t control nature, we should be utilizing whatever methods we can to bridge this “natural disaster impact” gap.
For instance, Greenberg suggests furthering equity amongst protective infrastructure and rebuilding all areas in a stable way after a natural disaster . It could legitimately make a huge difference in preventing a natural disaster from hitting a lower income area again. Disasters won’t happen again, or won’t be as bad, if an area is properly rebuilt after being struck.
The bottom line: Whatever control we do have, we should utilize. After all, this is a democracy – shouldn’t every neighborhood, regardless of income level, receive protection and rebuilding aid from these “not completely arbitrary natural disasters”?
Sources:
Brendler, Michael & White, Mary & Shaughnessy, Timothy. “The Income Distribution Effect of Natural Disasters: An Analysis of Hurricane Katrina.” Regional Analysis and Policy, 2010.
Article by Miriam Greenberg: “The Disaster Inside the Disaster: Hurricane Sandy and Post-Crisis Redevelopment.”
I had the same question as I approached the problem: Was the lower income neighborhoods more prone to natural disasters to begin with? It seems entirely possible that disaster prone areas are less marketable and therefore cheaper on the market. On the other hand, safer or less disaster prone areas should be more marketable and subsequently more expensive. If that is the case, then it is easy to see why the poor would end up living in the more disaster prone area while the wealthier would live in the safer areas. However, if this really was the situation, it seems almost immoral to have the poor live in those areas and then to “forget” about them when a disaster strikes.