Callisdrun
11-12-2008, 17:53
In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the fact that the vast majority of the city's most earthquake-vulnerable buildings that are privately owned and have not been retrofitted was pointed out.
Also discussed was a possible mandatory program of retrofitting.
You can read the article here (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/11/MNHF14LOBK.DTL), but mainly this brings up a question in my mind about preparing for natural disasters and property rights.
If there is an earthquake, it will be the city (and other governmental bodies) that provides the effort to rescue people, control the damage, etc. So then, since public money will be used for these efforts, does the city then have a right to force the owners of these highly quake-vulnerable buildings to take steps to mitigate damage? Or do the owners of the buildings have a right to be stingy and stupid? Many are not actual residents but landlords, so the people getting injured and killed in the unsafe buildings would often not be the owners themselves but tenants.
Since most cities are vulnerable to some form of natural disaster or another, there are analogies outside of Earthquake country. Does a city have the right to say to building owners "Look, you have to do this and this on your building, because if you don't and this natural disaster happens, which it eventually will, cleanup and recovery's going to be a much bigger pain in the ass," or do the property rights of the building owners trump the city's argument?
In this case, it's not only a perceived danger, either. There will be another big earthquake, maybe on the mighty San Andreas fault but more likely on the Hayward.
Oh, and before this turns into a debate about whether San Francisco should exist, or whether it's going to slide into the sea, that's not what this thread's about. First of all, most cities suffer some sort of natural disaster. A couple large earthquakes, one of which is really big, every century or so isn't all that terrible. Some places get hurricanes, others get tornadoes. Secondly, no, SF isn't going to slide into the sea. Plate tectonics don't work that way. It's not even a subduction fault, and even if it was, ocean crust subducts underneath continental crust.
Now that that's out of the way, your thoughts NSG?
Also discussed was a possible mandatory program of retrofitting.
You can read the article here (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/11/MNHF14LOBK.DTL), but mainly this brings up a question in my mind about preparing for natural disasters and property rights.
If there is an earthquake, it will be the city (and other governmental bodies) that provides the effort to rescue people, control the damage, etc. So then, since public money will be used for these efforts, does the city then have a right to force the owners of these highly quake-vulnerable buildings to take steps to mitigate damage? Or do the owners of the buildings have a right to be stingy and stupid? Many are not actual residents but landlords, so the people getting injured and killed in the unsafe buildings would often not be the owners themselves but tenants.
Since most cities are vulnerable to some form of natural disaster or another, there are analogies outside of Earthquake country. Does a city have the right to say to building owners "Look, you have to do this and this on your building, because if you don't and this natural disaster happens, which it eventually will, cleanup and recovery's going to be a much bigger pain in the ass," or do the property rights of the building owners trump the city's argument?
In this case, it's not only a perceived danger, either. There will be another big earthquake, maybe on the mighty San Andreas fault but more likely on the Hayward.
Oh, and before this turns into a debate about whether San Francisco should exist, or whether it's going to slide into the sea, that's not what this thread's about. First of all, most cities suffer some sort of natural disaster. A couple large earthquakes, one of which is really big, every century or so isn't all that terrible. Some places get hurricanes, others get tornadoes. Secondly, no, SF isn't going to slide into the sea. Plate tectonics don't work that way. It's not even a subduction fault, and even if it was, ocean crust subducts underneath continental crust.
Now that that's out of the way, your thoughts NSG?