Abstract
Sydney is the largest city in Oceania (the Australia — south Pacific region). During its existence of more than 200 years the city has suffered many emergencies and many psycho-social and media crises — but has escaped major disaster in the sense of deaths or economic loss. Does this indicate that disaster vulnerability has been managed well, or simply that Sydney has been fortunate?
The evidence suggests that the natural environment is relatively benign. With some important exceptions, such as flooding, management has rested largely on emergency response, and on handling the residual risk through increasingly sophisticated loss redistribution mechanisms. For the more obvious “natural” hazards this approach has worked so far. But the approach appears to be incapable of dealing with many of the more insidious slow-onset hazards such as environmental degradation and social inequality. Unfortunately these are among the constituent issues of sustainability.
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Handmer, J.W. Managing vulnerability in Sydney: Planning or providence?. GeoJournal 37, 355–368 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00814017
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00814017