Survey: Should We Rebuild in Dangerous Locations?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10.26.07
It is a question that comes up again and again: People are building in places that burn regularly, that get flooded out in storms, or blown away in hurricanes. It has ever been thus, but now they are packed in so tightly that the financial losses are huge, the insurance companies bail out and the government steps in. As one commenter said in our post on Architecture for Humanity, "Maybe this is mother nature saying,"DON'T BUILD HERE!!!" It was a hard survey to build, there are so many questions, so many answers.
Don't build in low lying areas that might be subject to rising ocean levels if polar ice melts.
Start moving existing buildings out of those areas and use them either for agriculture or replacing lost wetlands.
Rebuild communities in fire prone areas such as San Diego in a manner which includes designed "fire breaks".
Use roads and "shelter in place" design to provide strips where is will be easier for firefighters to stop the spread.
Right now on NPR they are talking about how the shelter in place stuff works. Using golf courses as buffers, tile roofs, no pine trees close to houses, etc.
If the climate is warming (tossing a bone to the skeptic) and the southwest is drying, then build for the new environment.
Interesting question: Define "Dangerous Location"? Do we include all "natural disasters", if you take the possibility of hurricane, earthquake, fire, tornado... and maybe the horrific nor'easters & blizzards, you'll probably end up with about 50 square miles for about a billion people (being sarcastic here but you get the point).
It's not so much rebuilding in Dangerous Locations, but letting nature take it's course, adapting to what is there, and not forcing it to mend to our wants, b/c in the end Mother Nature will kick our a##. Not a perfect example, but it seems Europe deals with "development" and planning issues a lot better, maybe the US could learn a thing or two from others, instead of being so stubborn in the ever expanding suburbs into natural areas and insistance on rebuilding in hazard-prone areas. (Don't attack that as an outsider view, I'm US, and hate the way our cities gobble up the remaining natural areas). Perhaps more discussion with dealing with planning, realizing people did suffer losses, but also realizing the errors of our ways to prevent further losses as well.
Just my 2 cents.
It's the public expense that bothers me. Both in emergency services and insurance rates.
We can't really predict when or where natural disasters will strike, but we should at least plan for them by avoiding high risk areas.
Oh, but then the developers won't get any richer. :(
here here to the previous poster. There is not a clear cut answer, but there are many resources we can draw from including events and ideas from even our past as well as present that can help us to determine the best possible solution that won't be temporary and won't yield the same mistakes we, as a country, often make. We need to view things from a world view and then work our way down to the individual, not the other way around.
Basically, our entire culture has a lot to learn, so lets start teaching with San Diego!
We are talking about fires and floods here, but what about GHG emissions from all the air conditioners in Arizona? So that eliminates the options f letting people do what they want but not insuring them with public money. We need to live sustainably and climate-responsibly. That may mean not living in places that require huge applications of technology to keep us warm or cool, or above water.