For a hundred years, Chicago’s greatest disaster was the spectacular fire that burned half the city to the ground in 1871. The heat wave of 1995 killed twice as many people, more than 700, the great majority of whom were elderly, African-American, and alone. Terribly alone.
The mayor called the heat wave a natural disaster, the sort of meteorological freak that inevitably claims random lives. But sociologist Eric Klinenberg documents that there was nothing random about the patterns of poverty that left certain parts of the city to die. The urban planning failure that missed the vulnerability goes hand in hand with race and class and isolation. The Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, “Heat Wave,” and the deadly ripples of Human Nature.
Guests:
Eric Klinenberg, author of “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago”
Beryl Clemens, had a neighbor who died in the heat wave;Georgia Jackson, lives in the Ida B. Wells development on the South Side of Chicago.