Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Disaster Entrpreneurs in New Orleans

More on the globalization of urban destruction and reconstruction: “When I landed at the airport, I overheard two people talking who saw the hurricane as an opportunity. They were disaster entrepreneurs,” says Aguilar. “Then I get to the city, and it’s crazy.” In these Times has an article on the tensions emerging in New Orleans between "disaster entrepreneurs" and undocumented day labourers. Many of the latter are from Mexico and Central America, and it is they who are doing the dirty work of destruction and reconstruction, while camping out under bridges and in exhorbitantly priced tent parks. Are these tensions not merely a more extreme example of the kind of class tensions that Sassen associates with the globalized economy?

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