Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and rekindled public discussion about the human influence over “natural” disasters and the ways these events reflect larger problems of social inequality. Fires are examples of small-scale disasters that impact the urban landscape on a daily basis and also reflect larger inequities in the society. We know that household fires in the United States, in particular, are disproportionately distributed among low-income neighborhoods. While this situation is frequently blamed on ecological factors such as housing density and building materials, arson is a key reason for the inequity of urban fires. In this paper we will show that urban household fires are much more than fortuitous events, but are instead predicted by the phenomenon of urban arson, and particularly arson-for-profit. We argue that urban fires and arson are associated with the exploitive nature of the low-income housing market and the speculative nature of urban redevelopment. Our research will be focused largely on classic studies on arson done during the 1970s and 1980s, with an eye towards updating this work with recent governmental reports, policy documents and other archival information. We conclude that urban arson needs to be viewed as a white collar crime phenomenon that victimizes low-income urban populations.