ABSTRACT
Traditional development patterns and urban growth in the United States have created communities that fail in some very fundamental ways. When development patterns do not take hazards into account, the social, economic, and environmental fabric of communities becomes brittle. e traditional approach to preventing disasters was to contain or control the hazard itself, oen through the construction of large-scale engineering works, such as dams, dikes, levees, seawalls, and similar projects. In many instances, these structural mitigation projects have provided a false sense of security, leading to massive displacement and property damage when they ultimately fail. Nothing points to this troubling reality more than the damage in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina oodwaters broke and overtopped levees. Large-scale protection works can also impair nature’s ability to mitigate against extreme events. Numerous studies provide examples of engineering works that have been counterproductive at best, or have even exacerbated vulnerability by interfering with natural processes. Events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and oods are natural (although they may be worsened by human activities) and inevitable phenomena, and only when we choose to build structures and place settlements in their paths do they become disasters.
