Insightful pieces on Hurricane Harvey's Devastation of Houston

As we return to our college classrooms here in Texas, we, as university faculty, might do well to frame Harvey within larger, global debates and contexts that these four very insightful pieces help illuminate.  They dig into the politics, priorities, and policies that help explain why Houston was so terribly devastated by Hurricane Harvey. The short of it is that neoliberal policies coupled with climate change left this great city where my family and I once lived for many years and where my children were born, extremely vulnerable.  

We also need to advise our students to consider conducting critical research that critiques neoliberalism and addresses our needs and interests as a polity.  I see a lot of policy briefs, research projects, masters theses, and doctoral dissertations here—work that is not only potentially life saving, but paradigm shifting.

Angela Valenzuela

I.  Houston Was Left to Drown by Seth Uzman, Jacobin Magazine, August 31, 2017.

II. Boomtown, Flood Town (Full Text)  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.by  by Neena Satija of The Texas Tribune and Reveal and Kiah Collier of The Texas Tribune.

III. Houston’s Human Catastrophe Started Long Before the Storm.
 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.by Wen Stephenson, The Nation, August 29, 2017

IV. We Can't Be Silent on Climate Change or the Unsustainability of the Capitalist System by George Monbiot, Democracy Now