Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005
The environment has become the center of attention in recent years. The world is at the brink of several interrelated ‘green’ crises: environmental degradation, climate change, peak oil, food crisis, and various natural disasters. Hence, there is a viable threat to society. This essay aims to explor...
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ftkthstockholm:oai:DiVA.org:kth-98691 2023-05-15T16:05:58+02:00 Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 Jakobsson, Angelina 2012 application/pdf http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-98691 eng eng KTH, Urbana och regionala studier SoM EX 2012-23 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-98691 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Societal collapse city collapse environment natural disaster crisis catastrophe flooding Jared Diamond Clive Ponting Samhällskollaps stadskollaps miljö naturkatastrof kris sammanbrott orkan översvämning Social Sciences Samhällsvetenskap Environmental Sciences Miljövetenskap Student thesis info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis text 2012 ftkthstockholm 2022-08-11T12:30:36Z The environment has become the center of attention in recent years. The world is at the brink of several interrelated ‘green’ crises: environmental degradation, climate change, peak oil, food crisis, and various natural disasters. Hence, there is a viable threat to society. This essay aims to explore the significance of the environment for societal collapse—with a Western world city focus. The method of choice is a literature-based critical instance case study. In this thesis, the environmentally focused collapse theories of Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting are tested on the empirical example of the city of New Orleans, USA. In 2005, New Orleans was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. As a result, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, almost 1,800 people lost their lives, and the infrastructural systems suffered lengthy breakdowns. Consequently, the supply of basic services such as water, food, sewage, electricity, heating, communications, transportation and shelter was severely compromised. The study shows that in the specific case of New Orleans, the underlying reasons for collapse cannot be explained by ‘green’ collapse theories alone. In fact, poor wetlands management was the only environmental issue of importance. Contributing causes were various managerial flaws (including lack of financing) on all levels in terms of emergency prevention, preparedness and response, as well as long-term structural implications for social justice. Thus, the environmentally related theories of Diamond and Ponting do not prove a perfect match. Instead, the collapse of New Orleans had better been explained by a ‘root cause mix’ theory, which takes political, economic, social and environmental aspects into consideration. Miljöfrågor har hamnat allt mer i fokus de senaste åren. Världen står på tröskeln till ett flertal miljörelaterade kriser: miljöförstöring, klimatförändring, peak oil (oljeproduktionstoppen), global matkris samt diverse naturkatastrofer. Detta medför sammantaget ett allvarligt hot mot samhället. Examensarbetet syftar till ... Bachelor Thesis Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm: KTHs Publication Database DiVA Orleans ENVELOPE(-60.667,-60.667,-63.950,-63.950) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm: KTHs Publication Database DiVA |
op_collection_id |
ftkthstockholm |
language |
English |
topic |
Societal collapse city collapse environment natural disaster crisis catastrophe flooding Jared Diamond Clive Ponting Samhällskollaps stadskollaps miljö naturkatastrof kris sammanbrott orkan översvämning Social Sciences Samhällsvetenskap Environmental Sciences Miljövetenskap |
spellingShingle |
Societal collapse city collapse environment natural disaster crisis catastrophe flooding Jared Diamond Clive Ponting Samhällskollaps stadskollaps miljö naturkatastrof kris sammanbrott orkan översvämning Social Sciences Samhällsvetenskap Environmental Sciences Miljövetenskap Jakobsson, Angelina Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
topic_facet |
Societal collapse city collapse environment natural disaster crisis catastrophe flooding Jared Diamond Clive Ponting Samhällskollaps stadskollaps miljö naturkatastrof kris sammanbrott orkan översvämning Social Sciences Samhällsvetenskap Environmental Sciences Miljövetenskap |
description |
The environment has become the center of attention in recent years. The world is at the brink of several interrelated ‘green’ crises: environmental degradation, climate change, peak oil, food crisis, and various natural disasters. Hence, there is a viable threat to society. This essay aims to explore the significance of the environment for societal collapse—with a Western world city focus. The method of choice is a literature-based critical instance case study. In this thesis, the environmentally focused collapse theories of Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting are tested on the empirical example of the city of New Orleans, USA. In 2005, New Orleans was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. As a result, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, almost 1,800 people lost their lives, and the infrastructural systems suffered lengthy breakdowns. Consequently, the supply of basic services such as water, food, sewage, electricity, heating, communications, transportation and shelter was severely compromised. The study shows that in the specific case of New Orleans, the underlying reasons for collapse cannot be explained by ‘green’ collapse theories alone. In fact, poor wetlands management was the only environmental issue of importance. Contributing causes were various managerial flaws (including lack of financing) on all levels in terms of emergency prevention, preparedness and response, as well as long-term structural implications for social justice. Thus, the environmentally related theories of Diamond and Ponting do not prove a perfect match. Instead, the collapse of New Orleans had better been explained by a ‘root cause mix’ theory, which takes political, economic, social and environmental aspects into consideration. Miljöfrågor har hamnat allt mer i fokus de senaste åren. Världen står på tröskeln till ett flertal miljörelaterade kriser: miljöförstöring, klimatförändring, peak oil (oljeproduktionstoppen), global matkris samt diverse naturkatastrofer. Detta medför sammantaget ett allvarligt hot mot samhället. Examensarbetet syftar till ... |
format |
Bachelor Thesis |
author |
Jakobsson, Angelina |
author_facet |
Jakobsson, Angelina |
author_sort |
Jakobsson, Angelina |
title |
Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
title_short |
Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
title_full |
Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
title_fullStr |
Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Collapse and the City: The Breakdown of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
title_sort |
collapse and the city: the breakdown of new orleans during hurricane katrina, 2005 |
publisher |
KTH, Urbana och regionala studier |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-98691 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-60.667,-60.667,-63.950,-63.950) |
geographic |
Orleans |
geographic_facet |
Orleans |
genre |
Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness, and Response |
genre_facet |
Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness, and Response |
op_relation |
SoM EX 2012-23 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-98691 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
_version_ |
1766401884448358400 |