A Trialectic Approach to Urban-Nature and Disaster Capitalism

• In Event: 557 - Theory Section Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Modernity and Nature

Abstract

Today, the world’s urban population exceeds that of those living in rural areas. At the same time, we have also seen catastrophic disasters such earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis devastate cities. Outside of warfare, natural disaster represents the greatest challenge to the physical nature of cities. This is due to the relative fixity of cities, in which they are bound by particular historical and environmental conditions. Scholars in the fields of disaster, environmental, and urban studies have addressed the social and political components of natural disaster, and its consequences for urban populations. However, despite the growth of work in this area, there are gaps between the varied disciplinary approaches to urban disaster. To bridge these gaps, this paper emphasizes the nature of capitalism in modern cities, as well as how capitalism benefits from cycles of disaster. Urban natural disasters, as I will argue, are a convenient form of “creative destruction” in the absence of systemic crisis. Using a trialectic approach to: Capitalism and the Built Environment, Natural Disaster and the Built Environment, and Natural Disaster and Capitalism, I provide a conceptual framework that links several co-constitutive processes within urban environments.

Author

• Albert S. Fu, Kutztown University