NFPA Journal - Winter 2022 - 8

Editor's Note by Scott Sutherland
Executive Editor, NFPA Journal
All Things Unequal
M
ike Davis died in October, at
76, of cancer. Davis, a lifelong
Californian, was a noted historian
and a brilliant observer
of the social forces that shape
the state-in particular Los Angeles-and
its institutions, especially those that
create and nurture (and depend upon) a
plethora of inequalities spanning race,
class, and resources.
Davis's passing prompted me to revisit " The
Case for Letting Malibu Burn, " an essay in his
1998 book Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and
the Imagination of Disaster. Wildfire had been
a frequent and integral part of the western
Santa Monica Mountains for eons, and Davis's
account of Malibu and the prevailing attitudes
toward wildland fire over the preceding century
is a rich chronicle of folly, delusion, and
tragedy. It also presages devastation to come,
as communities across the country expanded
heedlessly into districts recognized for their
historic wildfire threat-and paid the price.
Ultimately, the forces that resulted in a series
of development booms in wildfire-prone
Malibu were the same ones that prevented any
discussion of the most urgent question, which
was whether further development should
occur at all. " Two kinds of Californians will
continue to live with fire: those who can afford
(with indirect public subsidies) to rebuild
and those who can't afford to live anywhere
else, " Davis wrote in a 2018 postscript, following
the unprecedented devastation wrought
by the Camp Fire, including the near-total
destruction of the town of Paradise. Substitute
" Californians " with " Americans, " and you have
the basis of an even larger, thornier discussion-one
that also happens to be timely and
essential.
Inequality is also a key element of " Brave
New Systems-Based World, " Brian Meacham's
article in this issue that argues for a more
comprehensive, systems-based approach to
building safety and the regulatory structures
designed to provide that safety. It isn't just
vulnerable populations in low- and middleincome
countries that are at risk at home and
at work, he writes; at-risk populations exist
in wealthy nations like the United States,
including " millions of people who live in
underregulated buildings, the elderly (who
constitute a rapidly growing demographic),
people of varied abilities, and the homeless. "
The holistic vision for building safety that
Meacham advocates extends not just to occupants
but to the people who construct those
buildings. In countries around the world,
migrant workforces create an assortment of
impressive and beautiful buildings, at least
some of which rise at the cost of workers' lives.
Groups like the International Organization for
Migration (iom.int) have documented lax or
nonexistent regulation around worker safety,
a condition that leads to tens of thousands
of worker deaths annually, many of them in
the construction fields. By any measure, the
inequalities that could produce such a toll are
intolerable. It makes me wonder what Mike
Davis would have to say.
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8 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2022
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Scott Sutherland
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