The “Katrina Effect”: On the Nature of Catastrophe

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On August 29th 2005, the headwaters of Hurricane Katrina’s storm-surge arrived at New Orleans, the levees broke and the city was inundated. Perhaps no other disaster of the 21st century has so captured the global media’s attention and featured in the ‘imagination of disaster’ like Katrina. The Katrina Effect charts the important ethical territory that underscores thinking about disaster and the built environment globally. Given the unfolding of recent events, disasters are acquiring original and complex meanings. This is partly because of the global expansion and technological interaction of urban societies in which the multiple and varied impacts of disasters are recognized. These meanings pose significant new problems for civil society: what becomes of public accountability, egalitarianism and other democratic ideals in the face of catastrophe? This collection of critical essays assesses the storm’s global impact on overlapping urban, social and political imaginaries. Given the coincidence and ‘perfect storm’ of environmental, geo-political and economic challenges facing liberal democratic societies, communities will come under increasing strain to preserve and restore social fabric while affording all citizens equal opportunity in determining the forms that future cities and communities will take. Today, 21st century economic neo-liberalism, global warming or recent theories of ‘urban vulnerability’ and resilience provide key new contexts for understanding the meaning and legacy of Katrina. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS NOTES ONCONTRIBUTORS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CHAPTER ONE Catastrophe and the “Katrina Effect” Multidisciplinary perspectives on catastrophe The essays Notes PART ONE Reckoning: Disaster and Justice CHAPTER TWO The Effect of Katrina on Ideas of Justice A theoretical approach to prior vulnerabilities and disaster Justice as fairness applied to disaster The capabilities approach and disaster Fairness and capabilities vs. utility Applicative justice, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations in disaster Legal and political challenges to applicative justice in disaster Global disaster insurance Conclusion Notes CHAPTER THREE New Orleans, 2005 and Port-au-Prince, 2010: Some Reflections on Trans-American Disaster in the Twenty-First Century “Is this America?” Writing revolution After Katrina, beyond the American century Notes PART TWO Recomposing Katrina CHAPTER FOUR “It’s the End of the City (as we know it)”: Katrina as Metaphor and Template for the Urban Apocalypse Hurricane Katrina and the end- times narrative Katrina and the death of cities Katrina and environmental collapse Conclusion Notes CHAPTER FIVE A Katrina Lexicon Katrina onomastics Katrina metaphors Katrina uses Appendix Notes PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY Bearing Witness: Journalists in the Eye of the Storm PART THREE Dissembling: Sociology, Philosophy, and Ecology CHAPTER SIX Extending the “Urban Disaster” Paradigm: From New Orleans to Detroit (and Beyond?) Introduction Naming “urban disaster” Disaster, disrespect, and vulnerability Disaster, redevelopment, and opportunity Conclusion Notes CHAPTER SEVEN Witnessing Katrina: Morbid Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Disaster 1. What, if anything, is “wrong”—aesthetically, ethically, or in some other way—with some art, photographic, and other media depictions of disasters; specifically Robert Polidori’s photographs of New Orleans in his exhibition of photographs and book After the Flood ? 2. What is it about visual representations of disasters in media and art that draws us to them—that aside from allegedly informing us,also attracts, satisfies, and even entertains us? Why we are fascinated by them and feel impelled to watch? What makes us“catastrophiles”? 49 Conclusions Notes PART FOUR Accounting For Disaster CHAPTER EIGHT Post-Katrina and Post-Financial Crises: Competing Logics of Risk, Uncertainty, and Security Introduction Economic background to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 Risk management at the enterprise level Consequences, responses, and reactions An alternative framework for regulation Resilience once more Conclusions Notes CHAPTER NINE Shifts in Compensating Victims of Disasters after Katrina Introduction Ex post government compensation Structural compensation fund Comprehensive insurance Government as reinsurer of last resort Liability rules Rapid claims management Concluding remarks Notes PART FIVE Tabula Rasa: Urbanism and Architecture CHAPTER TEN Katrina Effect: The Ruination of New Orleans and the Planners of Injustice The rise of neoliberal urban policy The ruination of New Orleans Katrina effect: A neoliberal story of triage A non- plan to demolish housing Recovery recap Katrina effect: Learning to live with water Katrina eff ect or what have we learned about neoliberal urban policy? Katrina effect: Don’t forget the people of New Orleans Notes CHAPTER ELEVEN Architecture After Katrina: Lessons from the Past or Designs for Someone Else’s Future? Building communities “back better” “Better” for whom? Making the “right” moves in the Lower Ninth Ward? Housing projects, old and (not so) new Conclusion: The “shock” of the old Notes CHAPTER TWELVE Historic Urban Catastrophes: Learning for the Future from Wartime Destruction Notes PART SIX Memory: Forgetfulness and Commemoration CHAPTER THIRTEEN Historic City with a Poor Memory Introduction Social memory in a hazardous landscape Facing hurricanes and adapting to environmental realities Bringing memory into the foreground Memory of the 1915 hurricane Memory of the 1947 hurricane Memory of the 1965 hurricane Memory of the 2005 hurricane Conclusion Notes CHAPTER FOURTEEN Natural and Man-Made: Memorializing Complex Causes Notes INDEX