It happened so fast: winds whipping up to 80 mph in Pasadena. And then within hours, Altadena was burning.

Thankfully, we were not in the evacuation zone. But we were close enough to be scared. Our immediate problem—beyond the heartbreak of hearing of friends who had lost their homes—was the thick smoke. The hazardous air quality continued for days with emergency evacuation alerts waking us from sleep and scares about the water making things feel even worse. But then, of course, we were so grateful to be safe at the end of each day, when so many had lost everything.

As we waited for the air to clear, it seemed like an appropriate time to re-read Mike Davis’ classic Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. Published in 1998, it contained no mention of climate disaster or a heating world—and yet, despite this, how well the book has stood the test of time.

Even when I was a kid, people in LA wanted to live in the canyons or along a ridge with a view. Over the last ten years, my husband and I have searched high and low for a new home—but the best ones always seemed to always be located on some gorgeous hillside thick with chaparrals. LA has seen a population explosion and this has meant a massive building spree of suburbs creeping into the hills, as well as so many fantastically expensive homes in canyons and on hillsides—all this making any kind of forestry management and fire control impossible.

Davis writes:

Research has also established the overwhelming importance of biomass accumulation rather than ignition frequency in regulating fire destructiveness. As Richard Minnich, the world authority on chaparral brushfire, emphasizes: “Fuel, not ignitions, causes fire. You can send an arsonist to Death Valley and he’ll never be arrested.”

When I was a kid, fires were also a frequent occurrence—but there were animals in the hills, like goats and sheep, that kept the brush back. There were large fire belt areas under state management as well. It wasn’t just over-development, but I also grew up in a comparatively benign period weather-wise, in LA. In my childhood, we got a lot of rain. I have vivid memories of weeks of rain in winter. Of splashing in puddles and of earthworms wriggling around in the early mornings after a rain shower. But when I moved back from Japan to LA in 2011, after two decades away, the absence of rain bothered me terribly. My son never had a need for an umbrella, and I will never forget the first time I took my pup out in a very rare rain shower (which was not actually that rainy), and he just stood there looking confused. I was surprised reading Davis’ book to learn about the long periods of drought in California’s history that can be understood looking at the archaeological record, making me realize that my childhood was a glorious time of rain.

Compared to my youth, the last decade has not only seen a lack of rain, but it has also bore witness to climate driven rising temperatures, massively over-development in vulnerable areas, as well as a lack of investment in electrical infrastructure. This last issue is relevant since a faulty transmission tower is almost surely the spark that ignited the Eaton Fire.

Looking for a new home, this state of disaster was constantly on our minds. How to find something out of the way of fires? Maybe in town where I can walk to buy food and flowers, visit the dentist on foot. We are still sharing one car, after all. And we wanted to have our power delivered underground. Isn’t there are more rational way to live? More like the Europeans or the Japanese? Because let’s face it: the North American level of consumption is no longer sustainable, if it ever was in the first place.

I don’t think the Japanese or French level is either, but it is a start.

Essay in 3 Quarks Daily

A loosely related collection of essays built around the central theme that Los Angeles is a disaster-prone wasteland. It argues that LA is unusually vulnerable to disasters (a chapter each to earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, man-eating cougars, and rioting), that American culture is obsessed with this destruction, and that it is at least on some level deserved.

I generally like my books with more empathy than this one. That my preconceived notions of Los Angeles were basically confirmed doesn't really help.

It also feels dated; if it were written now, it would focus more on the coming twinned crises of climate change and drought. The concept of the urban degradation and racialized violence/rioting feels like an 80s nightmare reflected through the lens of rich white suburbanites compared to our present nightmare of skyrocketing income inequality, environmental injustice and police/ICE brutality. Davis seems sympathetic to poor, black, and brown people, but he never gives us their perspective, let alone their words. It would be a more interesting book if he did. I realize I'm complaining about what it *doesn't* do, but it's just weird to read in 2018; it feels like its written in the present tense about a city that doesn't exist anymore, and never quite did.

Two and a half stars.

super in depth about the various disasters that plague la and the history: whether man made or natural

Review is soon forthcoming on jimbotimes. com

Mike Davis writes like he is gossiping with you in the corner of a diner. At the same time, he seems like that kid you grew up with who is always embellishing his stories. Although the gossip is good, you don't always know if you can believe that things are really that bad.

I was ready to give this book 5 stars after the first few chapters on earthquakes, city development, and wildfires. But, the following chapters on tornadoes and literary tales of LA's destruction weren't very good. The chapter on tornadoes was too detailed and boring. In literary survey chapter, he seemed to be talking about the same book over-and-over. I think he could have woven the chapter on fiction into some of the other chapters to highlight some of the other disasters. The last chapter on violence was also pretty good.

happy new year! most disturbing book I’ve ever read

Another gem from Mr. Calamitous. Davis seems to enjoy cataclysm and apocalypse, especially when it strikes those moronic enough to build their house in a tinder box like Malibu. I tend to agree with him. You can't escape. You're either gonna die from a tornado or from Killer Bees. Watch your back.

This is an interesting, but not great, book. I read it because my library didn't have a copy of _City of Quartz_. It is a dissection of Southern Californian fears, from fires, earthquakes, and floods to crime to racial demons. There is a lot of fascinating stuff in here (Los Angeles has more tornadoes than Oklahoma City!), but my favorite chapter concerns the literary and filmic destruction of LA. It is occasionally humorous, but I found the history of the popular depiction of racial wars very disturbing - have some of us come nowhere in the last century? I'll finish by noting that many people say that this book is a work of fiction, not history. Had I known that going in, I might not have read it. True or not, Davis' biases are evident.

Well, I could knock it for being sprawling and unfocused, but this is Los Angeles we’re talking about, so that seems a bit unfair, doesn’t it? Essential reading!

obviously i loved this

Throughout its history, Los Angeles has been threatened many times by several types of disaster - some natural, some man-made and some a combination of both. Of course, many of these disasters could have been avoided.

As well, in fiction from 1909 to 2021 LA has been destroyed 138 times by different types of catastrophe - some inspired by real-life crises, others by real-life fears and prejudices.

The recent 'GQ' article 'LA Asks: Was Mike Davis Right?' by Rosecrans Baldwin - in the wake of the latest disaster that has threatened LA - led me to this very interesting if very grim history by the late renowned writer Mike Davis.

è il 1998, e due termini oggi abbastanza familiari a chi si interessa di politiche sociali non sono ancora diffusi: antropocene e gentrificazione.
è l'assenza che più mi è saltata agli occhi leggendo questo ottimo "geografie della paura" di mike davis, analisi del cuore nero che si nasconde dietro ai lustrini di los angeles, in una vera e propria metafora della morte del sogno americano.
da una parte abbiamo l'azione dell'uomo su una natura che dietro ai campi fertili nasconde minacce difficilissime da gestire: non solo la continua spada di damocle dei terremoti (con al vertice il temibile big one, perenne incubo dei californiani: la paura che una scossa gigantesca colpisca la faglia di san andreas), ma anche incendi (e il libro può essere utile a capire meglio il maxi-incendio del 2018), animali selvaggi e tornado, questi ultimi minimizzati dalla stampa locale per non spaventare i potenziali acquirenti provenienti dal midwest! i danni di queste calamità sono stati lettralmente ingigantiti da cementificazioni selvagge, pessime strategie sociali e una continua serie di lavori sbagliati sul territorio.
dall'altra parte c'è una divisione sociale del territorio insensata, dominata da politiche classiste (se non apertamente razziste), che arrivano alla gestione paranoica della sicurezza, tra cittadini-vigilantes e strutture carcerarie imponenti come unica soluzione ai problemi di ordine sociale.

personalmente mi è parso di vedere nella l.a. di davis la versione gigantesca ed estremizzata degli errori che la società sta facendo sulle proprie città, e forse non è un caso che non poche "parole d'ordine" purtroppo ora familiari siano emerse nella lettura.

interessante parentesi il capitolo sulla "distruzione letteraria di l.a.", analisi della storia letteraria della fine della città californiana: romanzo dopo romanzo sembra che il sogno o l'incubo di una distruzione della città sia uno dei temi ricorrenti della letteratura popolare americana, magari con il condimento di un aperto razzismo (fino ad arrivare agli infami "diari di turner" -il "vangelo" dell'estrema destra americana- e al loro sogno non solo di sterminare la popolazione non bianca ma di impiccare come traditori i liberal -i "buonisti radical chic"?- che non approvano la pulizia etnica).