Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster
Much of Plaquemines lies below sea level—six feet under, people sometimes say. This arrangement is made possible by levees—four sets of them. Two run along the river, one on each bank. Another two—known as “back levees”—run between the parish and the Gulf, to prevent the sea from rolling in. The levees, which keep water out, also keep water in. Whe
... See moreElizabeth Kolbert • Under a White Sky
Such resemblances to cities of the third world are in no way casual, or based on the “color” of a polyglot population: these are all cities arranged primarily not to improve the lives of their citizens but to be labor-intensive, to accommodate, ideally at the subsistence level, since it is at the subsistence level that the work force is most apt to
... See moreJoan Didion • After Henry: Essays
Erosion of cities by automobiles entails so familiar a series of events that these hardly need describing. The erosion proceeds as a kind of nibbling, small nibbles at first, but eventually hefty bites. Because of vehicular congestion, a street is widened here, another is straightened there, a wide avenue is converted to one-way flow, staggered-sig
... See moreJane Jacobs • The Death and Life of Great American Cities
