Thu Nov 2 05:15:39 EST 2006
Published by EH.NET (October 2006)
Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. Campanella, editors, _The Resilient
City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster_. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005. xiv + 376 pp. $25 (paperback), ISBN:
0-19-517583-2.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Donald E. Frey, Department of Economics, Wake
Forest University.
This volume presents a set of fourteen case studies (plus
introduction and conclusion) of urban recovery following major
disasters, which range from earthquakes and fires to military and
terrorist traumas. The editors, Vale and Campanella are affiliated
with MIT and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
respectively. This volume appeared too soon to have a chapter on the
post-Katrina recovery of New Orleans. Despite the sub-title, parts of
several chapters deal with pre-modern urban disasters. None of the
authors is identified as an economist; but urban designers, planners,
architects, journalists, and historians are represented.
Though most urban economics texts say surprisingly little about urban
disaster and recovery, an economic approach to the topic would
probably emphasize certain stylized facts: 1) that death and damage
in modern cities are far less for comparable disasters than in
third-world cities, due to standards of construction and technologies
that poor countries cannot afford; 2) that recovery of key functions
often starts quickly due to redundancy in urban infrastructure,
substitution possibilities, and excess capacity; 3) that needed
resources can potentially flow very quickly from the untouched larger
society into the stricken area, provided, 4), that financial
resources (insurance, grants, loans and savings) are readily
available; 5), that a city becomes increasingly disaster-resistant as
revised building codes, new technologies, etc., affect successive
rebuilding efforts; finally, 6) that cities remain in disaster-prone
locations because the modern city is typically so highly productive
compared to the cost of rebuilding.
_The Resilient City_ does not take such "stylized facts" at face
value and work from them. Rather, without doing so explicitly, it
reveals that such economic "givens" may actually be dependent on a
host of deeper factors. For example, the availability of massive
financing (and thus resources) must, in fact, occur in successful
recoveries; however, political leadership, legal frameworks, cultural
attitudes, traditions, and social goals may significantly affect
whether, in what form, and at what rate, financing of redevelopment
actually occurs.
The essays are partitioned into three sections. The first part (three
chapters) deals with the dominant public "narratives" that emerge
around disasters in order to interpret them and give them a public
meaning. A narrative "grid over the bewildering mayhem" provides
direction and hope. Such semi-official narratives may well have
abetted the decision-making that allowed rapid reconstruction after
the Chicago fire and the San Francisco earthquake; both were
interpreted publicly as blessings in disguise, allowing for new
futures that were grander projections of the cities' pasts.
Part two deals with the symbolic dimensions of urban recovery,
particularly of cities devastated by war. Again, while economists
would note the aggregate importance of financing and resources needed
to rebuild, the authors of these studies are more interested in
particular _purposes_ to which resources are devoted, and why. One
essay is a case study of the post-war rebuilding of East and West
Berlin by the competing Soviet and Western powers. The ideological
competition no doubt sped the recovery, but it also shaped the
recovery in the two sectors. Though occurring virtually side-by-side,
the design, functional, and architectural choices were significantly
different. A similar statement can be made for the post-war
reconstruction of Warsaw. Though the Soviets and the local communist
government had no Western competition, communist ideology competed
with indigenous Polish nationalism as major planning decisions were
made.
Finally, part three deals with the "conflict-riddled nature of
resilience." Perhaps the occupying powers of Berlin and Warsaw had a
relatively free hand. However, the story was very different in Los
Angles after the riots of 1992. The deep divisions among the
population groups of L.A. that led to the riots in the first place
hindered rebuilding. The area remained unattractive to large
retailers, the NIMBY syndrome worked against proposals for
redevelopment, and efforts to work with existing minority
power-structures fell afoul of long-standing factional divisions
among those very minorities. Instead, the riot area recovered despite
itself as an influx of Latin immigrants, and the institutions they
brought in their wake, created a sort of vitality amidst vacant lots
and buildings.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina could have added another chapter
to this volume. It is clear that the productivity of New Orleans as
an entertainment venue and as an international port has been great
enough to spur a rapid influx of capital, and some population, to
restore those sectors. It is also clear that the political divisions
among national, state and local leaders, which were vastly heightened
during the first traumatic days, have impeded the restoration of
public infrastructure of the city. For its part, residential housing
has thus far depended on private financing such as insurance,
personal resources, and loans; and the result seems to be that lower
income areas of the city have yet to see much recovery. Several of
the pieces in _The Resilient City_ note that disasters only sometimes
have been used as opportunities to take account of new realities.
There appears so far to have been little high-level thought devoted
to whether rebuilding a sinking city that is already below sea-level,
located along an eroding coastline, is economically rational. At
present, the decision may be made by default as many citizens simply
fail to return and rebuild.
Donald E. Frey has recently completed a book manuscript titled
_America's Economic Moralists_. He has taught urban economics for
many years and has written about the use and abuse of the economic
multiplier when evaluating the benefits of local economic development
projects.
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