Anti-City Policies Contributed to Katrina Disaster

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A federal policy of urban neglect is partly to blame for the extensive damage done to New Orleans by Katrina and the disastrous conditions left in its wake, according to Mark Gottdiener, Ph.D., an expert on urban culture and policy.

  "The Bush administration has never cared much for cities, and by extension, the people who live in them," says Gottdiener, a professor of sociology.  "We've written off urban areas. They are not even given what they need to function properly.

"This catastrophe resulted from the coming together of many elements, but one of them certainly is the Bush administration's failure to meet the needs of urban areas and to support agencies that respond to such crises." 

According to Gottdiener, the federal government's urban priorities and response to the Katrina disaster have bordered on criminal neglect.

  "Despite multiple warnings that the levees couldn't withstand a hurricane of Katrina's magnitude; despite this administration's assurances that the federal government is capable of handling a crisis of this magnitude; despite the drum beating over the efficacy of Homeland Security; and despite Bush's assurances that things are under somehow under control down there, thousands of American citizens are without food and water, homeless, sick or dying in place, with no help in sight," Gottdiener says.

"In short, there's been colossal lack of preparedness and leadership."

The Katrina disaster has shattered the assumptions of Americans who believe they are protected by our government," Gottdiener says.

 "Today it's a hurricane. Tomorrow it could be a bioterrorist attack or poisoning of a city's water supply," he says. "We are not safe."

Mark Gottdiener, Ph.D
Professor of Sociology
University at Buffalo
716-645-2417 ext. 403
mgott@buffalo.edu