Accidents, disasters and cities

Abstract

Despite a massive proliferation in the literature on ‘risk’ and ‘disaster management’ in the contemporary world, historians have been slow to clarify their thoughts on these issues. The paper seeks to remedy this state of affairs. For the purposes of exegesis, it separates disasters, mishaps and accidents into ‘natural’, ‘social’, ‘symbolic’ and ‘individual’ categories, before summarizing and interrogating the influential theoretical work of Karl Figlio in this field. In terms of conclusions, the article suggests a provisional social-historical methodology for the recovery and reconstruction of the individual ‘moment’ of the accident; proposes a breaking down of the barriers between ‘domestic’ and ‘non-domestic’ occurrences of this type; and analyses reasons for lack of scholarly interest in the area as a whole. Focused predominantly on Britain, the paper also draws selectively on European and extra-European experience; and deploys numerous examples derived from urban history in order to press home its major points.

Balancing Social Justice and Environmental Justice: Mobility Inequalities in Britain Since circa 1900

“…Such issues have rarely been directly tackled in an historical context; though there has been some research on the health and (by implication) environmental justice implications of factors such as urban air quality and road traffic accidents. For instance, in a US context the dominant role of the automobile in American culture and urban structure has received extensive attention (Frost, 2001;Schrag, 2004;Blanke, 2007;Ladd, 2009), and in the UK Luckin has provided a detailed examination of a range of accidents and other problems within an urban context, including the impact of road traffic accidents in the interwar years and the response of urban authorities (Luckin, 1993;Cooter and Luckin, 1997;Luckin and Sheen, 2009). The role of sound in the urban environment, including problems of noise pollution, has also received limited attention (Garroch, 2003;Payer, 2007), while Ishaque and Noland (2005) review the historical development of pedestrian facilities in Britain, emphasising their marginalisation within urban road space.…”