A City's Dementia Epidemic

During a special lecture hosted at the University of Buffalo, Dr. Phillip Berke, the Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina, presented his proposal “RAVON” or Resiliency and Vulnerability Observatory Network. Its mission is: “to provide the research community, policy makers, and society with the knowledge and predictive understanding necessary to reduce the vulnerability associated with natural hazards and enhance the resiliency of individuals and communities.” You can find out more about this project at: http://www.nehrp.gov/pdf/RAVON.pdf

Although I’d love to discuss all the information he covered during his presentation, this isn’t what I wanted to address precisely. What garnered my attention was that he claimed and proved that the current and projected trends of growth in urbanized areas are centralized around regions that are high risk areas for Natural Disasters and have limited resources. In essence, despite the growing knowledge about Natural Disasters, civilization continues to ignorantly not address this vital issue and flock toward high risk areas. A catastrophic disaster is imminent in these areas if Mother Nature exhorted her power. Yet, society doesn’t seem to understand this danger and continues on its path to destruction.  Why do we choose to ignore the obvious and put ourselves at risk when there are safer alternatives?

I contemplated this question for a decent portion of the presentation until I found the answer in Dr. Berke's comedic claim that he personally sees Buffalo’s snow as a disaster. Western New Yorkers view snowfall as a daily occurrence of our lives, not as disasters. We bundle up in winter gear, and duck our heads down and trudge through the blistering wind continuing on with our day; in essence we adapt to the elements, and to our surroundings. This same adaption occurs in every single city around the world except sometimes adapting isn’t the best answer to deal with the problem. In San Francisco, the building codes are implemented to strengthen its resiliency in the event of an earthquake. In New Orleans, the levies were designed to mitigate flooding. We simply apply short term solutions to problems that need long term foresight. The people of these cities perceive these disasters as something of their daily lives; they feel a tremor and simply clean up the broken glass, never thinking of the possibility that the next quake could take the whole damn house down. They adapt to the elements and their surroundings just as we do here in Western New York. However, earthquakes and hurricanes are not comparable to a Buffalo blizzard; you cannot prepare for these disasters with quick fix adaptive measures because the potential consequences in the occurrence of such an event are far more severe. Are you going to slap a band aid on a bullet wound or are you going to surgically remove it, stitch it up, and put on the antibacterial ointment to make sure it stays in good repair?  Until people realize that you must INITIATE CHANGE instead of ADAPTING to and ACCEPTING the potential devastation, the wrath of Mother Nature will never be truly mitigated.

This same type of thinking can be applied to Niagara Falls and its current state of dementia. The residents of this city have forgotten what this city once was and have succumbed to its present blunders. We have lost our vision, our passion, and our commitment for this city because we have adapted to and allowed ourselves to become a part of the problem in the Niagara Falls. Instead of standing up like Luis Gibbs in the 1970s, we have chosen to remain in the background while our city has gone to hell. While our friends joined the army of grassroots organizations who were fed up with this nightmare, we pulled the lever back on our recliners and continued watching the seven o clock news where more often than not Niagara Falls is being destructively showcased. Nothing will change until the hardened residents of this city partner with the budding youth and inject some passion and dedication into restoring Niagara Falls; only when this happens will the adrenaline of this city race again.