Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
I'm hoping Ricochet's collective intellect will be applied to this question as creatively as it has been to the libertarian firefighting problem, because my own thoughts about this are conflicted and I need to straighten them out quickly--I'm on a deadline.
I'm working on a piece now for City Journal about the problem of seismic risk mitigation in big cities, especially in the developing world. It's probably the most significant urban planning and policy problem the world now faces; it is certainly the biggest problem Istanbul faces. This article explains why:
... Tens of thousands of buildings throughout the city, erected in a haphazard, uninspected rush as the population soared past 10 million from the 1 million it was just 50 years ago, are what some seismologists call "rubble in waiting." ...
Istanbul is one of a host of quake-threatened cities in the developing world where populations have swelled far faster than the capacity to house them safely, setting them up for disaster of a scope that could, in some cases, surpass the devastation in Haiti from last month's earthquake.
Roger Bilham, a seismologist at the University of Colorado who has spent decades studying major quakes around the world, including the recent quake in Haiti, said that the planet's growing, urbanizing population, projected to swell by two billion more people by midcentury and to require one billion dwellings, faced "an unrecognized weapon of mass destruction: houses."
The issue is not, of course, that there are more earthquakes than there used to be (at least I hope not -- there are some scientists who are beginning to deviate from the party line and say, "Well, actually, this is a little out of the ordinary." But let's pray they're wrong.)
The issue is that contemporary trends in development -- massive urbanization coupled with a the use of cheap, dangerous building materials to accommodate poor but swelling city populations -- mean that when earthquakes do happen, the consequences are vastly more horrific.
The urban planning problems are deeply vexing to people like me who are instinctively averse to introducing heavy-handed government regulation and who understand perfectly that doing so comes at a high economic cost. The problem involves all sorts of interesting associated issues: corruption, public education, the cost-benefit ratio of protecting a city against a risk that can't be estimated with great precision. (Should scarce resources be allocated for this when we don't even know for sure that it will happen?)
Should the problem be addressed by governments at all? Should governments simply focus on freeing the markets and reducing the state sector in the belief that this is the surest path toward the growth of a middle-class, who will, we hope, have the good sense to demand, build, and live in properly retrofitted buildings? Or is this an issue more like national defense or policing, the kind of problem only a strong government can solve?
Here are some good pieces that suggest why the issue is complicated and interesting--How Milton Friedman Saved Chile is particularly provocative--but they don't go far enough or deep enough.
That's what Ricochet's for, right? Maybe together we can solve this problem and save a few billion lives.
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Jun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
I live in Vancouver, BC., an earthquake zone. The solution in this area takes the form of municipal and planning regulations that must be met or construction is not allowed to proceed. All new buildings must meet high earthquare standards and old building, when renovated must also be made to comply or they must be razed. The key is to have an incorruptible municipal authority dedicated to imposing strict and proven engineering standards. In my neighbourhood for example one of the newer high-rise condo building sits atop a massive concrete pour, which serves as a quake dampener, not something a developer would have done without municipal impetus.
Aug '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
After skimming the articles, the impression I get is that you can have all the building codes in the world, but if people are too poor to meet them, the temptation to circumvent the codes will be too great. That suggests that in order to meet building codes in the first place, you need wealth. That, then, raises the question, "If people become that wealthy, won't they want to build earthquake-proof buildings anyhow, codes aside?"
I don't see it as an unwarranted intrusion if the state institutes earthquake education in schools (more warranted than sex education, since you can't abstain from earthquakes), or if the state uses taxpayer funds for an earthquake warning system -- but then, that, as a technological fix, also requires wealth.
Claire, as an animal-lover, are you interested in etho-geological forecasting (trying to predict earthquakes based on unusual animal behavior)? Supposing it works, perhaps it's a low-tech, low-cost way to get advanced warning of quakes.
In a poor country, I suspect it's more important for people to be able to afford their earthquake protection than it is for the protection to be state-of-the-art.
Jun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
I would also add that the engineering science around earthquake resistant structures is reasonably well known if not proven, as the stresses that a structure is subject to during a quake are predictable. So there is no dearth of potential solutions. What is required is the political will as any increase in cost or any limit to building size is perforce made up in a decrease in land value to the extent that such increases in cost cannot be charged to the final consumer of the product, this economic condition works against land holders’ interests. Limits on building size decrease the revenue that might be gained from the land, just as increases in building cost associated with better construction require an increase in final sale price or rent to compensate the land owner at the industrial average or historical profit rate. And lest any think that a historic profit is not important, bear in mind that profit margin is the only way a developer/builder can be compensated for building, if that margin is not high enough to cover the cost of building safe buildings, you end up with unsafe buildings.
Aug '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Can I ask a very naive question. Suppose you have to live in a building badly engineered for quakes -- really badly engineered, totally shoddy. Would it be worth it to invest in sturdy furniture to duck under in a building like that, or would the awfulness of the building erase any benefits of having sturdy furniture?
I live in a place where the shaking from peoples' car stereos is considerably worse than the earthquakes we have, so I really don't know.
Jun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Why municipal authority? Municipal authorities, those closest to the people, are most acutely aware of local conditions, both market and seismic. In addition all construction is location dependant in that in Canada, for example, we have a national building code that that must be adapted to the Vancouver area because this part of the country gets more rain and is not as cold as other parts of Canada. Where the national standard might be more than adequate for the dry frigid prairies, that standard has proven unworkable in Vancouver. Accordingly, where Vancouver and surrounding areas are profoundly concerned with earthquakes other Canadian city executives living in more geologically stable areas do not give quakes a passing thought.
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Fascinating question. I know tons of people in Istanbul who are wealthy enough to live in safer buildings, but don't. From a strictly libertarian point of view--they're fools. That's their right and their problem. But seismologists put the probability of 7.0+ magnitude quake here at 60 percent in the coming 20 years. It's entirely reasonable to imagine half a million people will die. The estimated costs of the cleanup are so high that you can safely say Turkey will be set back 50 years in its economic development. (And don't forget that the rest of the world will send a fortune in foreign aid.) If I were the government looking at this, I might well think, "To hell with libertarianism, our national security is at stake, if we let people be this stupid it will destroy us all."
Mind you, the Turkish government doesn't remotely see it this way, but I doubt that's because they're such terrific libertarians.
Jun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Can I ask a very naive question. Suppose you have to live in a building badly engineered for quakes -- really badly engineered, totally shoddy. Would it be worth it to invest in sturdy furniture to duck under in a building like that, or would the awfulness of the building erase any benefits of having sturdy furniture?
I live in a place where the shaking from peoples' car stereos is considerably worse than the earthquakes we have, so I really don't know. · Oct 10 at 11:19am
Short answer is yes. Best response to trembling is to leave the building and head for the great outdoors. Failing that, get something strong around and over you. Recommendation stand in a doorway as it frames around you. A good table will do the same but leaves you threatened by the prospect of being buried in a heap of rubble. And whatever you do, never, absolutely never light a cigarette after a quake, as you have no idea of whether gas lines are leaking.
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
The most important thing to do if you live in a seismic zone--whether or not the building is at high risk of collapse--is to secure any item that might fall on you to the wall. (Easy to do, costs nothing. Almost no one here does it.) Most injuries in a quake are caused by flying/falling objects. If the building isn't structurally sound, the usual duck-cover-hold advice might hold, might not: It depends if and how the building collapses.
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
And of course, this is everyone's first impulse. Right after this city is ground to rubble, what's left of it will predictably go up in flames.
Aug '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
The estimated costs of the cleanup are so high that you can safely say Turkey will be set back 50 years in its economic development. (And don't forget that the rest of the world will send a fortune in foreign aid.) If I were the government looking at this, I might well think, "To hell with libertarianism, our national security is at stake, if we let people be this stupid it will destroy us all."
If people expect to be cleaned up after or bailed out, is it really libertarianism anyhow?
Jun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Claire, humans tend to be cognitive misers in that they concentrate their thoughts and efforts into areas that will reward their energies. Thus when it comes to things such as sound housing, to most people a place that looks good is as safe as it looks. Few in the general public have the expertise to assess the safety of a structure, so they leave this to trust, which trust is, rightly or wrongly, placed in the hands of bureaucratic authority or worse still fate. What is wrong with the libertarian argument that has people moving to safer structures is that none of us, structural engineers excepted, really know anything about safe structures. Add to this the randomness of earthquakes, and you have a perfect manyana condition.
Edited on Oct 10, 2010 at 11:54amRe: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
If people expect to be cleaned up after or bailed out, is it really libertarianism anyhow? · Oct 10 at 11:44am
I honestly think the policy here--at both the household and government level--is, "Man, do we hope that doesn't happen, because it would really be awful."
I don't think anyone has a reasonable expectation of being bailed out by the government--everyone remembers that in the last big quake, in 1999, people were left trying to dig out their relatives with their hands.
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Is there a public-policy remedy for this? Back to my "should the state step in to protect people from their stupidity?" question.
Jul '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
As is well-known, I am very fond of rubble, in the right time and place.
But anyway, here's your answer:
http://www.theplayhousecompany.co.uk/specification.php?code=090461&title=Large_playhouse_with_slide
Aug '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
The most important thing to do if you live in a seismic zone--whether or not the building is at high risk of collapse--is to secure any item that might fall on you to the wall. (Easy to do, costs nothing. Almost no one here does it.)
Well, "easy to do" is a relative term, and while the dollar cost of doing it may be little, the time and knowledge cost of this type of home maintenance seem non-negligible to me (I'm basing this on the instructions I found here for securing object in your home).
My experience is that figuring out even basic tools and fasteners (much less locating studs) is beyond many people. This may be rather pathetic, but there it is.
Perhaps part of "Earthquake Ed" in schools should be training kids to do this type of home maintenance? Little kids -- boys especially -- love playing with tools and often seem cleverer with their hands than adults. Learning these skills would encourage spatial-thinking development, anyhow -- and as the "green" curriculum in our own public schools has demonstrated, kids can sometimes successfully nag parents into changing their behavior.
Edited on Oct 10, 2010 at 1:41pmJun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
One way to handle safe building methods in the private sector is to grant, by way of zoning law, increases in floor space ratios (FSR). Thus if you want to promote a change in the material used or the type of construction methods allow a developer an increased FSR. Thus if the zoning allows for a ten story building (an FSR of ten roughly) using standard construction methods, if the developer meets aggressive safety standards the FSR increases to 15 or even 20 should the site allow for such building heights. The increased FSR allows the developer to capture greater revenues, which presumably compensate for the increased cost associated with the 'safer' construction. What is most important about this method is its predictability, everybody knows going in what is at stake and profits are predictable in that they are subject only to the vagaries of the local real estate market.
Jun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Is there a public-policy remedy for this? Back to my "should the state step in to protect people from their stupidity?" question. · Oct 10 at 11:54am
Should the state fine speeders?
Jul '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Is there a public-policy remedy for this? Back to my "should the state step in to protect people from their stupidity?" question. · Oct 10 at 11:54am
Doesn't using government for what it does well make sense? In Turkey's case that's telling citizens what it wants them to know, right? I have no idea if this is already happening, or to what degree, but it seems that aggressive educational offensives (as MFR noted from the Brookings piece) would be somewhat useful. After all, if people are constantly hearing that it is a problem, isn't it likely that niche markets for earthquake "safe" construction will develop? Won't the people who start using them be the folks most likely to expect quality?
No fix, to be sure. But a potential improvement that isn't inherently counterproductive.
I also have my doubts about heavy-handed statist, or corporatist initiatives (not least because they magnify corruption) but they're probably the places to look for silver bullets.
Aug '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
Perhaps some good propaganda is in order. Kids either love or hate disaster stories, but they almost always pay attention to them one way or the other:
******************************************
Daddy Didn't Secure -- a short bit of shameless propaganda:
Daddy didn't secure the furniture in our house against a quake.
First a little quake came and a shelf fell over, squashing the rooster.
Then another quake came and a heavy lamp toppled, squashing the cat.
Then another, bigger quake came along, and the bookcase fell over, squashing my littlest brother.
And then a really big quake came along, and the dresser fell on mommy.
Now I have no rooster, no cat, no littlest brother, and no mommy.
Well, at least Daddy didn't light his pipe afterwards and blow the whole neighborhood up.
******************************************
Perhaps, with cute illustrations and whatever cultural alterations necessary to make it suitably Turkish, it would make a nice children's book?
Edited on Oct 10, 2010 at 2:03pmJun '10
Re: Rubble in Waiting: Are There Conservative Solutions to the Earthquake Problem?
The cost/benefit of structural requirements is easily worked out and certainly known precisely by developers and intuitively by occupents. These costs can't be legislated away by building codes, so unless there are subsidies (in Turkey) or sufficient excess returns (in Vancouver) developers will not build to withstand the 100 year quake so there really isn't a "statist solution" short of the government building public housing. It appears that the choice in Turkey is to house all in shoddy construction or many in fine buildings, the rest in shanty towns.
Unless there are people unknowingly living in bad buildings who would be willing and able to pay for better construction, I don't see a conservative free-market solution either.
California required quake building code remediation for hospitals several years ago, easily $20-25 million for a 300-bed community hospital. Many hospital owners just laughed out loud -- their facilities are losing several millions dollars a year and they would happily sell it for $1. Their answer has been "give us a waiver or we will mail you the damn keys and you can run the hospital and the affiliated ER for that community -- make my day"
Edited on Oct 10, 2010 at 2:07pm