Don't Blame Climate Change for the Hurricane Harvey Disaster, Blame Society

There is an old adage in disaster studies: "there is no such thing as a natural disaster." This article explains that idea clearly by arguing that nature and climate change are not driving causes of crises like Harvey, but instead the causes originate from social and political structures and human decisions. Kelman writes:

A disaster involving a hurricane cannot happen unless people, infrastructure and communities are vulnerable to it. People become vulnerable if they end up lacking knowledge, wisdom, capabilities, social connections, support or finances to deal with a standard environmental event such as a hurricane.

The socionatural disaster in Houston, as well as in New Orleans during Katrina, were largely caused by uncontrolled sub/urbanization, unregulated development of industry and housing, and as Michael Grunwald, writing in Poltico outlines, by Federal flood insurance policy. However, in Katrina we witnessed the failure of the structural, technological mitigation system and the failed political evacuation, rescue, and rebuilding, which all took its heavies toll on African Americans and the poorest residents of New Orleans and surrounding Parishes. We have yet to see the uneven toll that our social order has taken on the people of Southeast Texas. This will become more clear in the days, weeks, and months, and honestly years. 

Flint, Michigan's water crisis: what the national media got wrong

Connor Coyne, writing for Vox.com, on the unfolding of the Flint poisoned water crisis:

In October 2015, the state finally confirmed the worst of our fears: There was lead in the water after all. The city switched back to Detroit water, but the damage had already been done. We, and our children, were being poisoned.

The whole article is worth a read. It's part first person narrative and part sociological overview of the crisis. 

Immaculate Conception Theory of Your Neighborhood's Origins

I've long maintained that just about all (sub)urban development is at one point pejorative from someone's view point. The work of time, history, and change makes older neighborhoods appear more authentic, just, valued, and/or sustainable. Yet, all (sub)urban development under capitalism was produced for its exchange value and profit, not just its pretty use values and authentic qualities (in the eye of the beholder of course). Moreover, population shifts and exchange value shift can make a neighborhood once deemed "bad" (i.e., black, immigrant, working class, etc) into the prized authentic sustainable neighborhood of a gentrifying population. The reverse works too (white flight from some suburbs has left areas of poverty and spatial inequality). 

Many people in the central or older areas of towns and cities often feel secure in their idea that their neighborhood wasn't created within the conditions of class and racial inequality. Yet, most were. The old looking houses and the mature trees hide the fact that when the neighborhood was build, say 100 years ago, it looked just as brand new as the shiniest new suburb today. Daniel Hertz pokes a hole in these representations of space and calls these ideas the "immaculate conception theory" of neighborhood creation. He writes:

These assumptions mostly revolve around the idea that older housing was built the right way: ethically, modestly, with an eye to community rather than profit. These older values, in turn, highlight the faults of modern buildings: gaudy and wasteful, disruptive to existing communities, and motivated only by money.