Environmentally destructive megaprojects, which substantially shift the topography and hydrology of the ecosystems in which they are embedded in ways that potentially exacerbate preexisting disaster risks, are created through a combination of lobbying by municipal growth machines and applications of higher level state authority, resources, and control. New Orleans’ manufactured hurricane storm surge risk provides a crucial case study of this dynamic. After Hurricane Katrina, forensic engineers found that the proximate cause of the New Orleans flood was the levee and floodwall failures along the city’s shipping and drainage canals, but this disaster cannot be fully understood without an examination of the city’s mid-twentieth century political economy, particular regarding the power of the local shipping industry and its up-links to entities in the federal government. During this time period, local New Orleans elites were able to take advantage of the two world wars and postwar economic expansion to dramatically enlarge the city’s shipping canal system with massive funding and expertise from the Maritime Commission and the Corps of Engineers, massively amplifying the city’s flood risk in ways that ultimately led to the Katrina catastrophe.

中文翻译：

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二十世纪中叶新奥尔良的增长机器上行链路与洪水风险的产生

破坏环境的大型项目通过市政游说机构的游说以及更高级别的国家权威，资源和应用的结合，创建了具有破坏性的大型项目，这些项目以可能加剧先前存在的灾害风险的方式极大地改变了生态系统的地形和水文状况。控制。新奥尔良制造的飓风风暴潮风险提供了这种动态的关键案例研究。在卡特里娜飓风过后，法医工程师发现，新奥尔良洪水的直接起因是该市航运和排水渠沿岸的堤防和防洪墙破坏，但如果不仔细研究该市20世纪中叶的政治经济，就无法完全理解这场灾难，特别是关于当地航运业的力量及其与联邦政府实体之间的联系。在此期间，新奥尔良当地精英阶层利用两次世界大战和战后经济扩张的优势，借助海事委员会和工程兵团的大量资金和专业知识，极大地扩大了该市的航运系统，极大地放大了该市的洪水风险最终导致卡特里娜飓风灾难。