Risky Cities
188 pages, 6 x 9
7 b&w images
Paperback
Release Date:18 Mar 2022
ISBN:9781978820302
Hardcover
Release Date:18 Mar 2022
ISBN:9781978820319
Risky Cities
The Physical and Fiscal Nature of Disaster Capitalism
By Albert S. Fu
SERIES:
Nature, Society, and Culture
Rutgers University Press
Over half the world’s population lives in urban regions, and increasingly disasters are of great concern to city dwellers, policymakers, and builders. However, disaster risk is also of great interest to corporations, financiers, and investors. Risky Cities is a critical examination of global urban development, capitalism, and its relationship with environmental hazards. It is about how cities live and profit from the threat of sinkholes, garbage, and fire. Risky Cities is not simply about post-catastrophe profiteering. This book focuses on the way in which disaster capitalism has figured out ways to commodify environmental bads and manage risks. Notably, capitalist city-building results in the physical transformation of nature. This necessitates risk management strategies –such as insurance, environmental assessments, and technocratic mitigation plans. As such capitalists redistribute risk relying on short-term fixes to disaster risk rather than address long-term vulnerabilities.
Fu offers a theoretically rich and empirically grounded analysis of how disaster capitalism and unsustainable urban development transforms environmental bads into economically valuable goods. These transformations have devastating consequences, further exacerbating social and environmental inequities in a highly urbanized and warming world. Risky Cities is essential reading for anyone with interests in urban political economy, environmental social science, and global studies.
I see Risky Cities becoming the landmark work on how ‘everyday’ urban risks are produced and then commodified—and what we might do to arrest this process.
Risky Cities is a critical examination of global urban development, capitalism, and its relationship with environmental hazards. It is about how cities live and profit from the threat of sinkholes, garbage, and fire. Risky Cities is not simply about post-catastrophe profiteering. This book focuses on the way in which disaster capitalism has figured out ways to commodify environmental bads and manage risks. Notably, capitalist city-building results in the physical transformation of nature.
Albert S. Fu is professor of sociology at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. He has previously published articles in Cities, City & Community, Critical Sociology, International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, and Urban Studies.
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Living with Disaster & Capitalism
Chapter 2: Sinkholes and the Risky Foundations of Cities
Chapter 3: The Logistical Nightmare of Trash & Urban Nature
Chapter 4: Fire, the Wildland-Urban Interface, and Feedback Loops
Chapter 5: Assessing and Managing Risk
Conclusion: Regenerative Urbanism
References
Index
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Living with Disaster & Capitalism
Chapter 2: Sinkholes and the Risky Foundations of Cities
Chapter 3: The Logistical Nightmare of Trash & Urban Nature
Chapter 4: Fire, the Wildland-Urban Interface, and Feedback Loops
Chapter 5: Assessing and Managing Risk
Conclusion: Regenerative Urbanism
References
Index
