Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, of Salida, Colorado, coined (or at least popularized) the term Stupid Zones, and has had a long running discussion about them.
The idea is that some places, while they are wonderful places to live most of the time, are in places where there is a high risk of natural disasters. In Colorado, this mostly consists of places where there are high fire, landslide and avalanche risks. But, flood plains, coastal areas subject to hurricanes or tsunamis, active volcanos, and ring of fire earthquake zones also fit the profile.
Quillen has argued that while development should be permitted in those places, that public resources, including fire control, disaster relief funds and subsidized insurance arrangements should not be used to support this development. Today, I revisit the idea in a larger and less abrasive context. I suggest that we need to, in addition to recognizing the predictable inevitability of natural disasters, to think in terms of living in harmony with elements of nature that we cannot overcome in how we use land and how we live, rather than purely trying to conquer nature.
My own fair city of Denver, which is at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River, contained large swaths of stupid zones from its founding in 1858 until the construction of the Cherry Creek dam in 1950,and the Chatfield Reservoir in 1965. Thousands of people died from floods over the years in the interim, and there was immense property damage.
Prior to the construction of the dams, combined with other flood control measures, these rivers repeatedly produced deadly floods. Yet, members of the public developed the flood plains over and over again. Even if many people are wise enough to see the long term and the big picture, there will always be someone who is captivated by short term prospects for gain and overlooks distant risks, even inevitable distant risks.
Developing With Our Eyes Open
There is nothing inherently wrong with development in a stupid zone, so long as the people who build there flee from the usually predictable risks in advance, and are willing to regularly rebuild at their own expense. The legal, mathematical and engineering advances of the ancient Egyptians were largely attributable to their need to preserve property rights and rebuild from scratch on the banks of Nile River, which floods annually (or did until recent flood control measures were implemented).
But, in the face of increasing scientific knowledge, the certainty that global warming will increase sea levels over time, the increasing importance of government in many parts of the economy, and predictions of increased hurricane frequency in the medium term, it is time for a fundamental rethinking of how we manage development and natural resources in low lying areas along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts.
Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike are all disasters which were almost inevitable sooner or later. And, it is almost inevitable that similar disasters will follow. For example, it is only a matter of time before Miami, Florida endures what New Orleans already did, and Galveston is likely to today. Tropical Storm Hanna, this year, didn't wreck the immediate devistation that the bigger storms have their year all along the Atlantic Coast, but did continue the gradual process of eroding away beaches, marginal islands and sand spits there, some of which have homes on them. In a matter of years or decades, those homes and businesses will fall into the sea.
The damage wrought from these storms is a predictable disaster. Amazingly, people still even place mobile homes in these areas, despite the fact that these structures almost inevitably bear a disproportionate share of the death and destruction in the wake of a hurricane or tornado (also common in most hurricane prone regions).
Policy Responses To Predictible Disasters
Our national flood insurance program, which provides particular assistance to homeowners in the still flood prone Mississippi River watershed (remember Iowa, earlier this year?), has finally, a few years ago, started to make assistance contingent upon rebuilding flooded areas away from areas that are at risk if aging levees fail. But, it isn't clear that we have taken nearly so decisive a stance towards coastal development at risk from hurricanes and other coastal natural disasters.
Yet, while the Army Corps of Engineers has the hubris to believe, sometimes rightly, that it can protect cities and villages from engorged rivers almost all of the time, no amount of infrastructure can hold back the ocean. We are also beginning to learn that even constricting major rivers with levees has come with a high environmental cost to riverine ecosystems, major national wetlands, and the movement of silt necessary to prevent coasts from eroding and to keep rivers healthy.
It doesn't help that land use is primarily regulated by state and local governments that often take a short term and narrow view of the challenges they face, rather than seeing themselves as part of a bigger picture.
Building codes need to recognize that construction must either sustain only minor damage in even a major storm, or be disposable and non-residential. Disaster relief programs, once they meet the imperative of protecting human life, need to more meaningfully discourage risky rebuilding.
Private casualty insurance programs in these areas may need to look more like "permanent" life insurance, a financial product which is as much a savings account for an inevitably necessary payout, as it is a risk spreading device.
Giving In To Nature
Even the larger rhythm of life may need to adapt. Perhaps hurricane prone areas should put as much of their school's "summary vacation" during hurricane season, rather than during the actual summer which is much more tolerable than it was of the languid days of half a century ago before air conditioning was widespread.
Indeed, perhaps the people of Louisiana and neighboring states should follow the traditions of their French forebears, and go on a nearly universal vacation for a month at the peak of hurricane season, to reduce the chore of evacauating those who remain when necessary.
The larger lesson, I think, and it goes well beyond the specific examples in this post related to hurricanes and stupid zones, is that we, as a nation and a people, need to re-evaluate the attitude that nature can or should be conquered. Sometimes give and take is a better policy.
For example, despite the fact that the United States has more people that face very hot summer days than almost anyplace else in the developed world, we have almost universally abandoned that Spanish and Mexican practice of taking siestas which reserves times in the hot outdoors for cooler mornings and evenings.
Does this make sense in a world where coal fired electricity powering air conditioners, and expensive gasoline driving our car aid conditioners contribute greatly to our nation's air pollution, carbon footprint and international oil dependence?
Harmony Isn't Defeat
In the wake of government mismanagement of its response to Hurricane Katrina, a popular cry was to build it all back. To rebuild was to defy the callous goverment indifference that killed sixteen hundred people in New Orleans. Years later, New Orleans has only half of its population back, and some portion of the 1.6 million resident of Louisiana who evacated in the face of Gustav will likewise never return.
But, giving into nature doesn't have to amount to defeat. In Denver, there are still buildings in the hundred year flood plain, that has repeatedly been swept away. But, for the most part, those buildings are non-residential and/or have ground level parking garages that will escape mostly unscathed even in a serious flood. Deeper in the flood plain are bike paths, designed to be unfriendly (not always with success) to "urban camping," with little infrastructure, that flood every year. Most of the year, these bike paths are just one more of the city's jewels, whose purposes are unappreciated by everyone but urban planners.
We can rethink our coastal cities and getaways in a manner that greatly reduces the risk, without abandoning them entirely. We may also find that rethinking the way we plan our days to be in better harmony with nature, also brings us happy relief from the relentless pressure and monotony we impose upon ourselves in blind devotion to our economic needs that gives no thought to when we sacrifice much for that way of life and get little in return.