The Global Calculus of Climate Disaster

Such subsidence was directly responsible for the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, but it is a process unfolding around the world in fast-urbanizing river deltas. In this urban “tropics of chaos,” the calamities that befall slum dwellers must be seen not as “natural” disasters, but as anthropogenic climate disruptions in which uneven development and social inequality play a key role. In global terms, the top ten cities whose populations are exposed to natural disasters today are almost evenly split between developed and developing countries: Mumbai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Kolkata, Greater New York, Osaka-Kobe, Alexandria, and New Orleans.

Source: bostonreview.net