BUILDING ON SHAKY GROUND: THE ETHICS OF BUILDING REGULATIONS IN EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND POLICY

Earthquakes cause tremendous damage when they threaten human habitation. Therefore, the appropriate design of urban environments to resist earthquakes will be of particular concern to policymakers. This paper examines one important element of urban design: building regulations. Since most people in urbanized areas will live, work and spend their leisure time in built structures, the design of these structures is of paramount concern to earthquake engineering. Many already-built structures will fail to meet reasonable safety standards—often because they were built before modern construction codes—and so will require retrofitting. So we need to answer the question of what a fair building code would look like. However, engineers, policymakers, architects, urban planners and affected citizens alike lack an understanding of the relevant ethical principles which should guide this important policy area. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature and so contribute to urban policymaking for major earthquakes.

The paper is structured as follows. First I fill in some empirical background concerning available strategies for earthquake risk reduction. Then I consider the implications of this context for my central question: How should we design building regulations to account for the risk of a major earthquake? Existing practice in the International Building Code generally specifies Life Safety as the minimally acceptable standard from an engineering point of view. Life Safety is highly permissive, allowing for severe and even irreparable structural damage to buildings. I argue that this standard is too minimal and undermines seismic resilience. An ethical construction code would aim for Immediate Occupancy, which would ensure that structures remain usable or inhabitable after a seismic event. I discuss the ramifications of my claim for who should pay the cost of seismic retrofitting. I discuss and respond to two objections: (1) that Life Safety represents an acceptable compromise between protecting lives and financial expense; (2) Immediate Occupancy is politically infeasible. The key conclusion—that Immediate Occupancy is ethically preferable to Life Safety—suggests a quite radical overhaul of existing practices in earthquake engineering and preparedness policy.