This month, I’m writing a series: the ABC’s of 21st Century Cities. In previous entries, I explored Artificial Intelligence, Backward Futures and Co-creation. Today is disasters.
Australia and Brazil are suffering deadly disasters; I hope you recover rapidly and fully.
One year ago, Haiti was devastated by a 7.0 earthquake. Over 300,000 people were killed. The core of Port-Au-Prince was virtually leveled. One year later, less than 5% of the rubble has been removed. One million people remain homeless, living in tent cities.
The first disaster happened on January 12, 2010. The second one is ongoing. It’s a double crime – unsafe construction and terrible response.
For 21st century cities, disasters are a way of life
Do you have a nagging sense that there’s an uptick in disasters? It’s true. There are four times as many natural disasters as twenty years ago. The trend is still climbing.
No one is immune. Fifty poorer countries led by India will suffer the most deaths. A recent report estimates we will see one million deaths a year by 2030 . Industrialized countries will pay more in economic and infrastructure loss, estimated at $157 billion annually.
Disasters are reshaping our human geography.
Have you been caught a disaster?
If so, were you ready? It’s more than just individual procrastination; we even vote to avoid fixing infrastructure.
- Elected officials get cheered and then re-elected when they respond to a disaster, as they should. But amazingly, when they beef up infrastructure, they lose elections. For every $1 spent in preparation, we save $15 in recovery.
“The benefits of prevention are not tangible; they are the disasters that did not happen.” Kofi Annan
- Nature or humans? Imagine if Haiti’s construction had been quake-resistant? In New Orleans, Katrina wasn’t the killer, a failed levee was. The two are so deeply intertwined, it’s always both.
- Mississippi and Alabama, each devastated by Katrina, refuse to enact building codes. Florida suffered 40-50% less damage and fewer deaths.
- Some recoveries take half a century, like Berlin. Others leap forward, like London. Still others take centuries and even millennia, like Rome.
- Gumption. Building on Boyd’s OODA decision-making loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act),Vinay Gupta identifies Drive as the missing link between orientation and deciding to act, in other words, leadership and vision.
- Wrong-mindedness. The most difficult problem is not inaction but wrong-minded action. Is New York rebuilding a 2050 future or a 1950 rehash?
- Mindfulness. In contrast, after the 1989 earthquake destroyed the massive Embarcadero highway, San Francisco tore it down and re-established access to the bay from the adjacent neighborhoods. They chose a new, unique future.
- A future of parity. For New Orleans to build a levee system for a 500 year flood event the estimate is $70 billion. The current repair to the levees is costing $15 billion for a 100 year flood. The entire city’s future remains unstable.
Images of the future
A number of organizations are fully mobilized such as the UN’s Resilient Cities program and Architecture for Humanity. Here’s a few still in the future.
- Temporary housing is being designed as prefab or created locally with salvaged materials.
- Future housing will be created on-site via 3d printers.
- Modular solar power enables off the grid energy.
- Geoengineering attempts to turn back atmospheric change to avoid the most extreme consequences of global warming.
- Sensors for emergency alert systems continue to improve
Disaster-ready future cities
Several trends help: localism for food, distributed power especially the use of solar energy, walkable and biking neighborhoods w/ shops and services, DIY initiatives for making things, bartering/trading/sharing networks, communication networks such as twitter and other mobile devices, and so on. A global push for city response plans, strengthening infrastructure, implementing building codes, and building higher and away from oceans is critical.
- The 9/11 Report described New York as a failure of imagination. Can imagination help us?
- The strongest efforts come from within a community. Someone steps up; some vision captures hearts and minds. People begin a million small actions towards recovery.
- If a catastrophic event hits your city, are you ready? Is your neighborhood? Your family? How will you be safe? How resilient is your city?
Disasters destroy normal. Many cities and communities find their true mission, and rebuild even better. It can be a moment of deep reflection and learning, committing, and inspiring.
The next post, E is for Education. I am failing at my goal to post daily so I will try some new strategies. Thank you for reading, tweeting, commenting!
Images: Disaster historic statistics, Haiti tent city, Rotterdam Maeslantkering, Pakistani flood refugees, Lilypad2 floating city, flying disaster relief robots, video games.
hey. great post. admittedly i could only scan through it today. i’ll return though. i wanted to point toward what i think is an important aspect of the emerging disaster “industry” — mapping / symbology mapping. i posted on this briefly.http://www.morgenpeers.ca/new-public-resource-wwwemsymbologyorgas the main EMS site points out, there is a need for other symbol sets that gently conform to the Accessibility standards achieved by the Canadians (and now the Americans with the Crime Mapping Symbology). it raises questions like:what symbology sets do city officials/responders require?have a good weekend.
Morgen, that’s a fascinating avenue of study – a critical communication tool, the symbols on maps. assuming that we will all be reading the maps to find response services, the symbols have to be meaningful for anyone. I found an incredible site that was related to US Homeland Security and a program they are developing for sensors, geolocation, and mapping. Then my computer locked, and I can’t find it again. That’s why there’s no link on the last “image of the future”. Will post if I find it. it was amazing, all real time data. your symbols are part of that story.
you're right about access. looking forward to that link you mentioned.re: access — that's why i'm interested in the symbols also "out of map" — e.g. big printed ones posted around town during crisis?, or simpler apps that show/cycle the symbols with some text-based details about the occurrence the symbol is referencing. but maybe we have bigger issues to solve, like computers that never freeze or lock?
heh. if only… yeah, good ole print. am a devoted fan. Its the FTF of publishing.
Great article… we need to find a sustainable way to live and SOON. I think with the impending currency failure… there could be a lot of Americans living in “Tent Cities” before too long.
Travis, that’s is so true. especially from the Gulf Coast. and I didnt even talk much about earthquakes. In KC, we just have heat coming, hurt the farmers, which hurts us city folk. A fascinating time to be connected globally too. Australia’s horrendous floods – seems like every week, its something. thanks for reading and commenting!
Important subject… Thanks! I’ve spent a lot of time on the Gulf Coast in the years after Katrina, doing stuff like http://www.katrinacottages.com. One small note: while the states of Alabama and Mississippi did not enact new building codes post-Katrina, all of the municipalities in affected areas did enact or update their codes as necessary, as did (I believe) all of the counties. This is appropriate, because building inspectors generally work for the city or the county… The state building inspector usually looks at only the state- or federally-funded buildings.
Thanks Steve, for building code info, good to hear. The insurance industry says these states are still exposed. http://bit.ly/dKhJEa Needs more specific investigation to figure out what their concerns are. When there are no codes, such as smaller communities and in other countries, the insurance companies serve as the first line of defense on building quality standards. AL says they did adopt a building code. so we are making an addendum here. As you said, cities usually serve as first location for permitting. The larger towns I checked, lk Mobile, had codes adopted and building codes dept’s; the counties lk Geneva did not. State jurisdiction covers smaller communities, which in resort areas can include major convention hotels, perhaps even mid-rise residential. Then permitting and oversight is administered through the state so long as they fund it. And states and cities cannot have jurisdiction over federal buildings, even for building code standards; its illegal for regulations to ‘trickle up’ so to speak. A little awkward, so on federal projects, we always cooperated w/ local jurisdictions as a professional courtesy; they just didnt have any review or inspection rights. (for anyone not familiar, no federal projects are built w/out meeting life safety codes or without licensed and insured A/E’s.) Thanks greatly for clariying these points, Steve, your Miami/Gulf Coast knowledge is appreciated. Hope that these communities are getting better construction – I’m pushing codes here, and insurance for that matter. Both are essential for disasters and life safety. Otherwise, it’s just criminal.
Interesting post with lots of creative ideas… the future of cities is on how to make/plan/develop them in a more sustainable way with the help of innovative ideas and political leadership. Thanks for linking to the “Making Cities Resilient” campaign website (http://www.unisdr.org/english/campaigns/campaign2010-2011/). The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction is going to take place in May this year with the public and private sector involved, and these kinds of ideas might generate some interest in how to go forward – http://www.preventionweb.net/globalplatform
United Nations ISDR – thank you for your comment. Resilient Cities is leading the way. I hope that your people that gather in May will think in terms of future cities. The long view solves many of today’s problems. We need to rethink our approach to coastal development, infrastructure, construction standards, life safety, and renewable energies for true resilience. Let me know if you need more information towards your conference. I’ll be watching for reports, hopefully you’ll have live tweeting and blogging?
those on this thread will be interested in the work of a young organization perhaps in need of an "urban" branch or sub-group – CrisisCommonshttp://www.crisiscommons.org
Thanks for your insight on how to “rethink” our develop approaches… definitely nice to see interest in building future resilient cities.We’re going to be tweeting live from the conference and encourage people who are interested in the topic and the conference to use #gpdrr2011.We also want to have a place for people to have an online dialogue about what disaster risk reduction issues matter to them for the Global Platform. So we’ve setup a Facebook Event to capture the discussions – http://tinyurl.com/63dur3e
Thanks for mentioning the modular portable solar power products that I created while with Powerenz. I am no longer with that company but am now creating new portable solar generator products that are more suitable for disaster and emergency situations compared to the past versions of systems. The new solar generators are lighter, waterproof, and look much better than the past versions. In the future be sure to now check out http://www.PortableSolarPower.Biz Thanks again for mentioning my past work as a suitable solution for providing power after disaster situations.