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Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
On Thursday, July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index, which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body, would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over. Meteorologists had been warning residents about a two-day heat wave, but these temperatures did not end that soon. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; the records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. And by July 20, over seven hundred people had perished-more than twice the number that died in the Chicago Fire of 1871, twenty times the number of those struck by Hurricane Andrew in 1992—in the great Chicago heat wave, one of the deadliest in American history.
Heat waves in the United States kill more people during a typical year than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city's vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a "social autopsy," examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been.
Starting with the question of why so many people died at home alone, Klinenberg investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how the city government responded to the crisis, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported on and explained these events. Through a combination of years of fieldwork, extensive interviews, and archival research, Klinenberg uncovers how a number of surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown—including the literal and social isolation of seniors, the institutional abandonment of poor neighborhoods, and the retrenchment of public assistance programs—contributed to the high fatality rates. The human catastrophe, he argues, cannot simply be blamed on the failures of any particular individuals or organizations. For when hundreds of people die behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies, everyone is implicated in their demise.
As Klinenberg demonstrates in this incisive and gripping account of the contemporary urban condition, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities that the 1995 Chicago heat wave made visible have by no means subsided as the temperatures returned to normal. The forces that affected Chicago so disastrously remain in play in America's cities, and we ignore them at our peril.
Heat waves in the United States kill more people during a typical year than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city's vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a "social autopsy," examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been.
Starting with the question of why so many people died at home alone, Klinenberg investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how the city government responded to the crisis, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported on and explained these events. Through a combination of years of fieldwork, extensive interviews, and archival research, Klinenberg uncovers how a number of surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown—including the literal and social isolation of seniors, the institutional abandonment of poor neighborhoods, and the retrenchment of public assistance programs—contributed to the high fatality rates. The human catastrophe, he argues, cannot simply be blamed on the failures of any particular individuals or organizations. For when hundreds of people die behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies, everyone is implicated in their demise.
As Klinenberg demonstrates in this incisive and gripping account of the contemporary urban condition, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities that the 1995 Chicago heat wave made visible have by no means subsided as the temperatures returned to normal. The forces that affected Chicago so disastrously remain in play in America's cities, and we ignore them at our peril.
328 pages, Paperback
First published July 12, 2002
142 people are currently reading
2672 people want to read
About the author
Eric Klinenberg
18 books255 followersEric M. Klinenberg is an American sociologist and a scholar of urban studies, culture, and media. He is currently Helen Gould Shepard Professor in Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. Klinenberg is best known for his contributions as a public sociologist.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 122 reviews
December 18, 2016
The story of the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave is fascinating enough, but don't expect Eric Klinenberg's book to be a popularly-accessible page-turner. Klinenberg's book was written as a dissertation in sociology, so its methodology and supporting evidence are sound, but it seems to have been revised only minimally (if at all) for a lay audience.
The upshot of Klinenberg's analysis of what led to so many deaths in Chicago in July, 1995 is that living alone leads to dying alone, as getting out of sweltering tenement apartments and single-occupancy rooms--the kind of accommodations peopled by the urban poor and elderly--is essential for survival in a heat wave. In order to get out of their rooms and apartments, however, both the poor and elderly need to have welcoming (and cool) places to go, they need to feel safe walking their neighborhood streets and sidewalks, and they need to feel connected with (or at least trusting of) their neighbors and surrounding communities.
Klinenberg's book is illustrated with indelible images of the disaster, including photos of emergency workers removing victims in body bags from locked, air-tight apartments: visual proof that its not the heat nor the humidity that kills in a heat wave; it's the social isolation.
The upshot of Klinenberg's analysis of what led to so many deaths in Chicago in July, 1995 is that living alone leads to dying alone, as getting out of sweltering tenement apartments and single-occupancy rooms--the kind of accommodations peopled by the urban poor and elderly--is essential for survival in a heat wave. In order to get out of their rooms and apartments, however, both the poor and elderly need to have welcoming (and cool) places to go, they need to feel safe walking their neighborhood streets and sidewalks, and they need to feel connected with (or at least trusting of) their neighbors and surrounding communities.
Klinenberg's book is illustrated with indelible images of the disaster, including photos of emergency workers removing victims in body bags from locked, air-tight apartments: visual proof that its not the heat nor the humidity that kills in a heat wave; it's the social isolation.
April 16, 2024
I knew nothing about this heatwave, but unfortunately the conclusions were of no surprise to me.
As Global Warming continues to bite, conditions will worsen, and the usual people in society will suffer.
As Global Warming continues to bite, conditions will worsen, and the usual people in society will suffer.
August 26, 2024
As a kid, I lived through the Chicago heatwave that killed over 700 people in July 1995 and honestly have no recollection of it, and apparently I'm not the only one. I have vivid memories of the blizzard of January 1999 in Chicago, but my only childhood recollections of summer weather events in Chicago are listening to former Mayor Daley exhorting Chicagoans to check up on elderly family and neighbors to make sure they were OK, and cooling down by running around in the water spray feature in my local Chicago park .
Sociologist Eric Klinenberg's book Heat Wave is an interesting exploration of why this severe heatwave has been glossed over by so many. He spent several years researching the events of the heat wave, the victims, the neighborhoods that had the highest fatality rates compared to nearby neighborhoods with lower fatality rates (and social factors contributing to this, both positive and negative), the choppy, inconsistent news coverage of the incident as it unfolded, the complicated reasons why first responders took so long to respond to calls, the political underpinnings of the city's response to the heat wave, and, in the 2015 edition which I listened to, a retrospective analysis on how climate change may have precipitated the event. While some areas where more conjecture than others, I appreciated this interdisciplinary look.
This is definitely a Chicago tragedy that's fallen through the cracks, similar to the sinking of the Eastland which killed over 800 people in 1915, which as a native Chicagoan I'd never heard of until a few years ago.
My statistics:
Book 188 for 2024
Book 1791 cumulatively
Sociologist Eric Klinenberg's book Heat Wave is an interesting exploration of why this severe heatwave has been glossed over by so many. He spent several years researching the events of the heat wave, the victims, the neighborhoods that had the highest fatality rates compared to nearby neighborhoods with lower fatality rates (and social factors contributing to this, both positive and negative), the choppy, inconsistent news coverage of the incident as it unfolded, the complicated reasons why first responders took so long to respond to calls, the political underpinnings of the city's response to the heat wave, and, in the 2015 edition which I listened to, a retrospective analysis on how climate change may have precipitated the event. While some areas where more conjecture than others, I appreciated this interdisciplinary look.
This is definitely a Chicago tragedy that's fallen through the cracks, similar to the sinking of the Eastland which killed over 800 people in 1915, which as a native Chicagoan I'd never heard of until a few years ago.
My statistics:
Book 188 for 2024
Book 1791 cumulatively
Read
March 6, 2021 read for environment & health class
this was an interesting topic and definitely well researched (i recommend an ebook that allows u to click on footnotes and references)
this was very dense so i dont recommend it as a leisurely read rather as smtg to use as reference in a dissertation for ex.
this was an interesting topic and definitely well researched (i recommend an ebook that allows u to click on footnotes and references)
this was very dense so i dont recommend it as a leisurely read rather as smtg to use as reference in a dissertation for ex.
February 6, 2024
The author strikes a difficult balance between „entertainment“ and reporting research. That is not easy. However, thanks to all of the stories and personal notes, the book was both informative and engaging.
September 17, 2013
Of course, I have an obligatory heat wave story- I was 9 and spent the worst of it in my dad's North Side apartment without power or AC. We took turns taking cold baths. I was too hot to even read. That's how you know it's bad.
Despite the fact that I was there, I never realized what a public health disaster this heat wave (and other previous and subsequent ones) was for Chicago until this book was assigned to me in grad school. A quick survey of Chicagoan friends and family found that not a single one knew of the huge death toll, although they certainly remembered the heat wave. Given the global trends toward creation of larger cities and overall warming climate for many temperate North American cities, this is a very relevant warning.
Despite the fact that I was there, I never realized what a public health disaster this heat wave (and other previous and subsequent ones) was for Chicago until this book was assigned to me in grad school. A quick survey of Chicagoan friends and family found that not a single one knew of the huge death toll, although they certainly remembered the heat wave. Given the global trends toward creation of larger cities and overall warming climate for many temperate North American cities, this is a very relevant warning.
May 6, 2025
This book reminded me of essays I wrote for high school classes, where you had to reach a minimum word count so you would just repeat your points in as many slight variations as possible. Except in the case of this book, it was all very scholarly, unlike my essays. If you lived through this event, or even if you live/lived in Chicago at all, you would probably find this way more interesting. For me, there were bits of interesting information, but they were hidden between huge blocks of repetitive statements. There's no way I would have finished this if I hadn't been listening to it.
September 14, 2024
This book makes me want to revise my ratings. Considering other books I’ve rated five stars, this is actually a six. Originally a doctoral dissertation in urban sociology, read by me as mandatory reading in a qualitative methods class, it captivates me with its comprehensive analysis as well as rich storytelling, where the author’s engagement shines through - and draws the reader into it - in a way not too common in academic writing.
April 25, 2019
Interesting, but as others have pointed out, not very accessible to the lay reader as it is essentially a sociology dissertation. Helped tremedously by the copious photos of this little-known disaster in Chicago that killed over 700 people in a very short period of time.
November 6, 2016
The first half of this book, detailing the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave that killed 739 people, is actually quite fascinating. The majority of the deaths were isolated elderly people who lived in poverty-ridden areas, and Klinenberg does an excellent job detailing the social causes for their deaths. The elderly poor victims often had no surviving family members in the area to check on them and were socially isolated, often due to high crime in their neighborhoods. Living on meager social security checks, they could not afford air conditioners or the cost of running them, and did not open their windows for fear their homes would be invaded. Living check to check means that they could not afford to lose any possessions because they would not be able to replace them, so they would not take the risk. Instead, they overheated and died in their prison-like apartments.
One contrast that I found especially interesting was between my own neighborhood of Little Village on the West Side of Chicago, and the neighborhood immediately adjacent- North Lawndale. Little Village, a Mexican neighborhood, had a very low rate of heat-related illness, whereas North Lawndale, an African-American neighborhood, had many deaths. The social explanation for this discrepancy related to the Mexican cultural emphasis on family and looking out for the elderly, which resulted in providing care that was not provided in North Lawndale.
However, after the first third or so of the book, I found it very dull - much like reading a thesis paper, with few real life examples and many generalizations about the political structure of Chicago and the media presentation of the disaster. Some people might find that stuff interesting, but I ended up skimming the last half of the book. Overall, though, it's a worthwhile read - as well as a warning of tragedies that may await many cities in America in our warmer future.
One contrast that I found especially interesting was between my own neighborhood of Little Village on the West Side of Chicago, and the neighborhood immediately adjacent- North Lawndale. Little Village, a Mexican neighborhood, had a very low rate of heat-related illness, whereas North Lawndale, an African-American neighborhood, had many deaths. The social explanation for this discrepancy related to the Mexican cultural emphasis on family and looking out for the elderly, which resulted in providing care that was not provided in North Lawndale.
However, after the first third or so of the book, I found it very dull - much like reading a thesis paper, with few real life examples and many generalizations about the political structure of Chicago and the media presentation of the disaster. Some people might find that stuff interesting, but I ended up skimming the last half of the book. Overall, though, it's a worthwhile read - as well as a warning of tragedies that may await many cities in America in our warmer future.
December 27, 2015
A damning indictment of all the dramatis personae who share the blame for what went wrong during the Chicago heat wave of 1995, resulting in a death toll exceeding 800. This well-presented scholarly analysis examines the factors affecting the city's social structure that contributed to the high mortality rate & the role that the municipal government, public aid agencies, utilities, & media played in this urban tragedy. The worrisome lesson asserted in the book's concluding chapter: a disaster of this magnitude could happen again.
June 12, 2015
Great, but tragic, social autopsy of the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Unfortunately, the social isolation, neoliberalist policies, and growing inequality that Klinenberg documents in the 90s remains true 20 years later.
November 1, 2022
It's July of 1995 and Chicago residents have been warned that the heat dome which had already impacted the Great Plains would drive the temperatures and humidity into the high 90's to even over 100°. As July's end neared, it was moving east and over 700 elderly and poor residents had died from the heat-related illnesses.
Klinenberg provides a detailed dissection of a city government that failed it's residents. Many services already privatized in order to save money. Cutting methods and failing to coordinate services - that's if the services were still being financed. The written emergency plan was stated in such a way that administrations had to approve any requests for additional assistance or to even activate the policy. Most did not believe their people or were on vacation with no way to get in touch with them or no substitute coverage.
Elderly and poor who were unable to afford the cost of air conditioning - if they had an air conditioner as many of the windows were either unable to be opened or the resident was afraid to open it due to nearby crime as well as the fact that the generators/grid of the local utility, Consolidated Edison, repeatedly failed. It was the same fear that kept the victims in their apartments when they could availed themselves to city cooling centers - if they could find transportation to them.
Even media failed them as journalists were more concerned with maintaining their connections with government contacts rather than actually report the blunt and stark truth of what was occurring. Photos of trailers full of bodies as well as photos of police removing bodies from their patrol cars at the ME's morgue helped portray the disaster in action but so did the children running through the spray of open hydrants (which didn't help the availability of water). Stories in the suburban editions shifted away from the poor, the elderly, the Black and Hispanic of the inner city and focused more on local interests.
City government blamed ConEd for the power losses as well as the deceased themselves for their own behavior deficiencies. Blamed the families for not checking on their relatives. Religious and local communities for not checking on their neighbors and parishioners. Blamed the County Medical Examiner for exaggerating the deaths - who was eventually supported by other regional ME's and the CDC itself declaring that the heat caused excessive deaths. And of course, the heat itself while patting themselves on the back for their crisis performance (which actually failed abysmally). Even the report that evaluated the response was released but the title Mayor's Commission on Extreme Weather Conditions made most people ignore it.
The book sadly ends with the burial of the 68 victims still unclaimed on August 25th. A mass grave is their final resting place and besides the pastor who said a few words, a local historian and granddaughter, there were fifteen journalists hoping for a ending to the story.
Overall, the tale is rather dry but even more depressing is the fact that - for the most part - very little has changed overall. Services to the poor and elderly are still among the first program cut when the city needs to save money. Those that do provide assistance are usually overworked and the elderly/poor are dying alone, abandoned and invisible until something drastic and horrifying happens.
An excellent resource for those working in providing services to the elderly and the poor especially with extreme weather conditions on the increase.
2022-238
Klinenberg provides a detailed dissection of a city government that failed it's residents. Many services already privatized in order to save money. Cutting methods and failing to coordinate services - that's if the services were still being financed. The written emergency plan was stated in such a way that administrations had to approve any requests for additional assistance or to even activate the policy. Most did not believe their people or were on vacation with no way to get in touch with them or no substitute coverage.
Elderly and poor who were unable to afford the cost of air conditioning - if they had an air conditioner as many of the windows were either unable to be opened or the resident was afraid to open it due to nearby crime as well as the fact that the generators/grid of the local utility, Consolidated Edison, repeatedly failed. It was the same fear that kept the victims in their apartments when they could availed themselves to city cooling centers - if they could find transportation to them.
Even media failed them as journalists were more concerned with maintaining their connections with government contacts rather than actually report the blunt and stark truth of what was occurring. Photos of trailers full of bodies as well as photos of police removing bodies from their patrol cars at the ME's morgue helped portray the disaster in action but so did the children running through the spray of open hydrants (which didn't help the availability of water). Stories in the suburban editions shifted away from the poor, the elderly, the Black and Hispanic of the inner city and focused more on local interests.
City government blamed ConEd for the power losses as well as the deceased themselves for their own behavior deficiencies. Blamed the families for not checking on their relatives. Religious and local communities for not checking on their neighbors and parishioners. Blamed the County Medical Examiner for exaggerating the deaths - who was eventually supported by other regional ME's and the CDC itself declaring that the heat caused excessive deaths. And of course, the heat itself while patting themselves on the back for their crisis performance (which actually failed abysmally). Even the report that evaluated the response was released but the title Mayor's Commission on Extreme Weather Conditions made most people ignore it.
The book sadly ends with the burial of the 68 victims still unclaimed on August 25th. A mass grave is their final resting place and besides the pastor who said a few words, a local historian and granddaughter, there were fifteen journalists hoping for a ending to the story.
Overall, the tale is rather dry but even more depressing is the fact that - for the most part - very little has changed overall. Services to the poor and elderly are still among the first program cut when the city needs to save money. Those that do provide assistance are usually overworked and the elderly/poor are dying alone, abandoned and invisible until something drastic and horrifying happens.
An excellent resource for those working in providing services to the elderly and the poor especially with extreme weather conditions on the increase.
2022-238
August 1, 2021
This book is as relevant today as when it was first published. Hear waves are more frequent and intense. Social isolation is exacerbated by pandemic precautions, and safety nets are vanishing. This well researched book points to the failures that led to high death tolls during the 1990s in Chicago. The lesson is simple. Love your neighbors, or at least care about them and check in on them. It could mean the difference between surviving extreme heat or dying alone.
July 15, 2019
Important to understand why social disasters happened in the past and how future tragedies can be prevented, particularly in climate crises and with policy implementation. Noted that the emergency heat plans did not get activated because upper management never saw the heat wave as an important crisis and did not check on frontline communities such as the elderly or isolated.
November 1, 2022
Read this book for Disasters in Public Health. It was hard to read this book from the perspective of someone who lived through a heat wave and didn’t consider the public health effects. Now with the perspective of this class, the framework has completely shifted. Extreme heat events are an interest of mine in environmental health and this book offered an interesting view/explanation of the disaster and all the excess deaths. I’d recommend reading up on the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995 but maybe not this book unless you’re highly interested in public/environmental health.
April 6, 2017
Missed the boat on climate change but an important look at environmental disaster and the role the media, government, culture, and the built environment facilitate (or detract from) life and death.
July 21, 2024
Am important book for public policy
December 11, 2019
Everybody is at fault. Eric Klinenberg is one of those nobodies that needs to feel special by exploiting the suffering of others.
May 16, 2014
Klinenberg meticulously documents the travesty that was the Chicago heat wave of 1995. The heat wave exposed the significant weaknesses of the service delivery methods of the Chicago municipal government. Heat Wave exposes the systematic breakdown of local government at multiple levels in Chicago. Mid-level bureaucrats failed to communicate across departments. The mayor and his administration refused to even acknowledge the rising death toll. Indeed, the city failed to even implement its own emergency management plan for the disaster.
Even worse, both the fire and police commissioner claimed that their departments were not overwhelmed, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. Instead, they deflected blame onto the victims themselves; essentially saying they were not "smart consumers" of the city's services. "We're talking about people who die because they neglect themselves," the police superintendent told the press (p.172). These actions were part of a concerted effort to govern and manage media coverage through public relations tactics.
Mayor Daley was similarly guilty of managing the city through public relations denial techniques. Daley questioned the medical examiner's death totals, wondering publicly if the numbers were "really real". Further, the mayor's office attempted to silence public employees, denying responsibility and renaming the event from a man-made social disaster to a meteorological one. Finally, the mayor created a commission that exonerated his administration of any wrongdoing or negligence. Instead, they claimed that "government alone cannot do it all".
Klinenberg's assertion is two-fold. First, he argues that the city did not take the threat of the heat wave seriously, failed to implement their own plan, and massively bungled the aftermath. Second, and more importantly, neoliberalism, through privatization, contracting out of services, and government/business divestment of poor neighborhoods, made the conditions possible for the disaster to happen in the first place.
On the first point, the seven hundred plus death toll is testament to the failure. This likely underestimates the number of deaths due to the fact that only those that died in the city were counted rather than those that might have been transported to a suburban hospital. The deaths were preventable. The city government and media failed to properly warn residents, instead using cutesy, even condescending language about the vulnerable.
The city (and federal government) also failed on a number of other measures. There was not a concerted effort in place to reach out to elderly residents. A lack of energy assistance, the result of federal budget cuts, meant that fixed-income residents were unable to afford air-conditioning on a regular basis. Transportation to cooling centers was insufficient and unreliable. Emergency vehicles failed to respond in a timely manner; some victims had to wait over 30 minutes for an ambulance. Those that did respond often found that hospitals were refusing patients. Twenty-three of forty-five local hospitals in Chicago were on "bypass status".
Klinenberg portrays neoliberalism as the more nefarious of the two causes. High crime areas devoid of investment from any level of government -- essentially abandoned sections of the city -- housed an elderly population that was fearful to go outside. These neighborhoods were described as "bombed out" and "warzones" by their own residents. On top of the lack of jobs, businesses, and services, the ecology of the environment was severely degraded, making it difficult for frail residents to physically travel around.
During the 1999 heat wave, which was longer-lasting than 1995, Chicago mobilized a "Heat Command Center" to check on seniors and provide assistance over the phone. The city added ambulances, contracted with local cab companies to transport city residents to cooling centers, and paid outreach workers to go door to door in neighborhoods with high concentrations of seniors. While the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board decried these actions as "wasteful," only one hundred and ten people died in all of Cook County versus that seven hundred thirty-nine in 1995. It's clear from the 1999 heat wave that these best practices minimized death in the city -- to a still unacceptable, but substantially improved level -- even without addressing the underlying social impacts of failed neoliberal policies.
Even worse, both the fire and police commissioner claimed that their departments were not overwhelmed, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. Instead, they deflected blame onto the victims themselves; essentially saying they were not "smart consumers" of the city's services. "We're talking about people who die because they neglect themselves," the police superintendent told the press (p.172). These actions were part of a concerted effort to govern and manage media coverage through public relations tactics.
Mayor Daley was similarly guilty of managing the city through public relations denial techniques. Daley questioned the medical examiner's death totals, wondering publicly if the numbers were "really real". Further, the mayor's office attempted to silence public employees, denying responsibility and renaming the event from a man-made social disaster to a meteorological one. Finally, the mayor created a commission that exonerated his administration of any wrongdoing or negligence. Instead, they claimed that "government alone cannot do it all".
Klinenberg's assertion is two-fold. First, he argues that the city did not take the threat of the heat wave seriously, failed to implement their own plan, and massively bungled the aftermath. Second, and more importantly, neoliberalism, through privatization, contracting out of services, and government/business divestment of poor neighborhoods, made the conditions possible for the disaster to happen in the first place.
On the first point, the seven hundred plus death toll is testament to the failure. This likely underestimates the number of deaths due to the fact that only those that died in the city were counted rather than those that might have been transported to a suburban hospital. The deaths were preventable. The city government and media failed to properly warn residents, instead using cutesy, even condescending language about the vulnerable.
The city (and federal government) also failed on a number of other measures. There was not a concerted effort in place to reach out to elderly residents. A lack of energy assistance, the result of federal budget cuts, meant that fixed-income residents were unable to afford air-conditioning on a regular basis. Transportation to cooling centers was insufficient and unreliable. Emergency vehicles failed to respond in a timely manner; some victims had to wait over 30 minutes for an ambulance. Those that did respond often found that hospitals were refusing patients. Twenty-three of forty-five local hospitals in Chicago were on "bypass status".
Klinenberg portrays neoliberalism as the more nefarious of the two causes. High crime areas devoid of investment from any level of government -- essentially abandoned sections of the city -- housed an elderly population that was fearful to go outside. These neighborhoods were described as "bombed out" and "warzones" by their own residents. On top of the lack of jobs, businesses, and services, the ecology of the environment was severely degraded, making it difficult for frail residents to physically travel around.
During the 1999 heat wave, which was longer-lasting than 1995, Chicago mobilized a "Heat Command Center" to check on seniors and provide assistance over the phone. The city added ambulances, contracted with local cab companies to transport city residents to cooling centers, and paid outreach workers to go door to door in neighborhoods with high concentrations of seniors. While the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board decried these actions as "wasteful," only one hundred and ten people died in all of Cook County versus that seven hundred thirty-nine in 1995. It's clear from the 1999 heat wave that these best practices minimized death in the city -- to a still unacceptable, but substantially improved level -- even without addressing the underlying social impacts of failed neoliberal policies.
February 22, 2009
Klinenberg has some incredibly smart stuff to say about heat waves - natural disasters that generally cost more lives than any other kind (tsunamis aside, I presume), and yet which are routinely ignored when people think about the challenge of responding to such a public health crisis. There are reasons - not of them especially good - why people don't think of heatwaves in the same way they think of earthquakes or tornadoes: they don't leave carnage behind; there are no dramatic pictures to accompany the news; and the deaths that result from heat waves often point to weaknesses in social infrastructures that most people (especially politicians) would rather ignore.
Yet, Klinenberg argues, it's precisely because heat waves point to those structural weaknesses that they are worth study - and not just in terms of raw data (who died and when; what amenities did they lack), but in terms of how there is an ecology of survival, how physical landscapes can make or unmake an individual's response to life-threatening circumstances, and how the ramifications of all these things are shouldered overwhelmingly by the poor.
I'm 100% persuaded by his argument. That said, he sums everything up in the first chapter and every chapter after that simply repeats. His statistics are impressive, but ultimately they don't add up to a compelling story, and while I think he has great things to offer the way we think about urban environments, I felt he could have said it in about half the time. I get the impression, however, that he's writing very much for an audience of other sociologists, and that the dictates of his discipline explain much of his style. In that case, I'm faulting him for not writing like a historian - not fair of me, but he still only gets two stars as a result.
Yet, Klinenberg argues, it's precisely because heat waves point to those structural weaknesses that they are worth study - and not just in terms of raw data (who died and when; what amenities did they lack), but in terms of how there is an ecology of survival, how physical landscapes can make or unmake an individual's response to life-threatening circumstances, and how the ramifications of all these things are shouldered overwhelmingly by the poor.
I'm 100% persuaded by his argument. That said, he sums everything up in the first chapter and every chapter after that simply repeats. His statistics are impressive, but ultimately they don't add up to a compelling story, and while I think he has great things to offer the way we think about urban environments, I felt he could have said it in about half the time. I get the impression, however, that he's writing very much for an audience of other sociologists, and that the dictates of his discipline explain much of his style. In that case, I'm faulting him for not writing like a historian - not fair of me, but he still only gets two stars as a result.
January 5, 2017
Klinenberg's "Heat Wave" is an engaging, interesting example of public sociology. The aim of the investigation is the 1995 heatwave in the city, which lasted roughly three days and killed several hundred people. Those who perished were disproportionately vulnerable and senior, without the support of family or friends to ensure their survival during the >100F spell.
The book is accessibly written, with each chapter investigating a different facet of the disaster. The book focuses on four phenomenon: those without social supports, the gulf between rich and marginalized, the city's attempts to PR the crisis away, and the various coverage produced by different media outlets.
All told, the volume provides interesting insight into how different communities thought about the disaster. It does little to separate epistemic from institutional from political influences, but that's largely the point: a crisis such as this emerges because of the way all of these different influences are stacked together.
Would recommend if you have an interest in public sociology, heat disasters, or social justice and disasters.
The book is accessibly written, with each chapter investigating a different facet of the disaster. The book focuses on four phenomenon: those without social supports, the gulf between rich and marginalized, the city's attempts to PR the crisis away, and the various coverage produced by different media outlets.
All told, the volume provides interesting insight into how different communities thought about the disaster. It does little to separate epistemic from institutional from political influences, but that's largely the point: a crisis such as this emerges because of the way all of these different influences are stacked together.
Would recommend if you have an interest in public sociology, heat disasters, or social justice and disasters.
Read
July 24, 2011I'll concede that the content has value; it was interesting and eye-opening and appropriately infuriating. I sincerely respect the author's years of effort and the comprehensive research invested into this book. Klinenberg's dedication to the subject is obvious, and I admire it.
However, his writing style was horrific: he was perpetually long-winded and unbelievably prone to redundancy, not qualities I'm searching for in nonfiction. He has no notion of conciseness—he could have conveyed all of the same information in a third of the page count. Also, the extremely academic style made it difficult for me to connect with the content more than superficially, which defeated a lot of the book's purpose, in my opinion. It's definitely not a book I would have either purchased or read were I not a bookish college freshman who dearly values my GPA.
There's been a play based off of the book, however; that I really might be interested in seeing.
However, his writing style was horrific: he was perpetually long-winded and unbelievably prone to redundancy, not qualities I'm searching for in nonfiction. He has no notion of conciseness—he could have conveyed all of the same information in a third of the page count. Also, the extremely academic style made it difficult for me to connect with the content more than superficially, which defeated a lot of the book's purpose, in my opinion. It's definitely not a book I would have either purchased or read were I not a bookish college freshman who dearly values my GPA.
There's been a play based off of the book, however; that I really might be interested in seeing.
January 23, 2016
I had to read this when I learned it was about a major disaster that took place less than 10 years ago, that I somehow never heard about -- and me only 4 hours away by car! While the subject is very interesting, the author tries much too hard to sound scholarly. The five-dollar words and windy sentences make for a very dry read. He also backtracks and repeats himself so much that the point he's trying to make finally gets lost. I have to say, though, the facts and figures he presents are pretty astounding. I had no idea how many people this kills every year, and I definitely had no idea how current-day America kills off its elderly by stranding them in lousy neighborhoods with nobody to look in on them, where they're so scared by the news stories that they barricade themselves into their tiny, airless apartments and don't dare open their windows even when it gets above a hundred degrees. We really are the stupidest people on earth.
March 1, 2023
Heat waves are a distinctive type of environmental disaster. Unlike blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, they are more or less invisible save for the many visible ways humans respond to them. And while heat waves in urban environments are frequently deadly, their victims are similarly invisible—typically poor, elderly, and socially isolated people of color who live alone on the margins of society. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg analyzes one especially deadly heat wave in the summer of 1995 in Chicago. Estimates vary, but credible accounts put the death toll at more than seven hundred people, which made the 1995 Chicago heat wave the deadliest heat disaster in the United States at that time. On any estimate, many more people died in the 1995 heat wave than in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, an event which, unlike the heat wave, is forever inscribed in the collective memory of the city. By contrast, Chicagoans have all but forgotten the 1995 heat wave and those invisible people whom it killed.
In Heat Wave, Klinenberg performs what he calls a “social autopsy” of the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Just as a medical autopsy opens the human body to determine the proximate causes of mortality, a social autopsy examines the social “body” of the city to identify the conditions that contributed, in this case, to heat-related deaths. By way of the social autopsy, Klinenberg aims to dispel the erroneous notion that the heat wave was, as it were, an “act of God”—an unforeseeable weather event with unfortunate consequences that could not have been avoided. More precisely, he strives to show how social conditions that “we have collectively created” are what “made it possible for so many Chicago residents to die in the summer of 1995” and, moreover, that these same conditions “make these deaths so easy to overlook and forget” (11). Yet the social autopsy also serves a different, albeit related function: on the Maussian and Durkheimian principle that extreme events allow us “to better perceive the facts than in those places where . . . they still remain small-scale and involuted,” Klinenberg’s analysis of the heat way discloses otherwise difficult-to-perceive social conditions that nevertheless structure life in the city each and every day (23). These conditions, like the heat wave, are in some sense invisible; the social autopsy unveils them and subjects them to close analysis and critical inquiry.
Klinenberg takes a kind of double-barrelled approach to his social autopsy. On the one hand, he focuses on systems, structures, and institutions to account for a wide variety of social, cultural, economic, and urban environmental factors that compounded the effects of the heat wave. On the other hand, he conducts hundreds of interviews with victims’ friends and families, elderly citizens who survived the heat wave, journalists, city officials, and other observers to understand the heat wave at the “face-to-face” level. Both aspects of this approach inform and complement one another: Klinenberg interviews elderly North Lawndale residents, for example, to understand their lived experience of under-resourced, abandoned communities victimized by historical injustices and violent crime. Their testimony, in turn, informs his analysis of social isolation—particularly in terms of how a “culture of fear” keeps elderly residents indoors, even to the point of death amidst a heat wave. The double-barrelled approach also means that Heat Wave never strays too far from the deeply visceral and “felt” consequences of the 1995 heat wave, even if Klinenberg rejects the “personal responsibility” thesis for why some residents died while others survived. He offers readers several windows onto the lives of both victims and survivors: early in the first chapter, we read of a conference room in the Office of the Cook County Public Administrator filled with boxes of victims’ property, never to be claimed by their friends or relatives. In the same chapter, we meet Pauline Jankowitz, an older woman who covered herself with cold washcloths to survive the heat wave.
Klinenberg complements his analysis of the social conditions that compounded the effects of the heat wave with an equally incisive analysis of “the symbolic construction of the heat wave as a public event and experience” (23). He claims that journalistic, scientific, and political institutions wielded their symbolic power to impose a normative set of interpretive standards to frame the heat wave as, for example, a “natural disaster,” and that this framework mediated citizens’ experience and interpretation of the event. This analysis is a testament to what one could call the “symbolic construction of reality,” to adopt a phrase from the philosopher Ernst Cassirer. Politicians and journalists’ symbolic construction of the heat wave offered various partial interpretations of the event that obfuscated the systemic factors that exacerbated its consequences. The Daley administration used its symbolic power to defend its response to the crisis, deny moral responsibility for its harmful effects, and blame the heat wave’s victims for their own deaths. Journalists, for their part, reported on the heat wave in conformance with institutional and professional norms that sensationalized the crisis and reinforced city officials’ distorted narrative. Then, once consumers’ appetite for the disaster abated, the “major story” of the heat wave fell out of the collective consciousness. In time, it was almost entirely forgotten.
Twenty-three years after its initial publication, Heat Wave is more relevant than ever. In our current era of climate crisis, heat waves are less rare and more potent than in 2000. Nevertheless, the social, cultural, economic, and urban environmental factors to which Klinenberg calls attention in Heat Wave persist and threaten to kill many more people in cities across the world, especially those that have not yet adapted to our current climate reality. Heat waves are, and will most likely continue to be, the United States’ “most lethal form of extreme weather. They remain silent and invisible killers of silent and invisible people” (xxi). To dismiss, trivialize, or sensationalize heat waves is a moral failure and an injustice to the poor, elderly, and socially isolated people of color most likely to suffer and die from their effects—and whose lives we can, in many instances, collectively protect.
In Heat Wave, Klinenberg performs what he calls a “social autopsy” of the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Just as a medical autopsy opens the human body to determine the proximate causes of mortality, a social autopsy examines the social “body” of the city to identify the conditions that contributed, in this case, to heat-related deaths. By way of the social autopsy, Klinenberg aims to dispel the erroneous notion that the heat wave was, as it were, an “act of God”—an unforeseeable weather event with unfortunate consequences that could not have been avoided. More precisely, he strives to show how social conditions that “we have collectively created” are what “made it possible for so many Chicago residents to die in the summer of 1995” and, moreover, that these same conditions “make these deaths so easy to overlook and forget” (11). Yet the social autopsy also serves a different, albeit related function: on the Maussian and Durkheimian principle that extreme events allow us “to better perceive the facts than in those places where . . . they still remain small-scale and involuted,” Klinenberg’s analysis of the heat way discloses otherwise difficult-to-perceive social conditions that nevertheless structure life in the city each and every day (23). These conditions, like the heat wave, are in some sense invisible; the social autopsy unveils them and subjects them to close analysis and critical inquiry.
Klinenberg takes a kind of double-barrelled approach to his social autopsy. On the one hand, he focuses on systems, structures, and institutions to account for a wide variety of social, cultural, economic, and urban environmental factors that compounded the effects of the heat wave. On the other hand, he conducts hundreds of interviews with victims’ friends and families, elderly citizens who survived the heat wave, journalists, city officials, and other observers to understand the heat wave at the “face-to-face” level. Both aspects of this approach inform and complement one another: Klinenberg interviews elderly North Lawndale residents, for example, to understand their lived experience of under-resourced, abandoned communities victimized by historical injustices and violent crime. Their testimony, in turn, informs his analysis of social isolation—particularly in terms of how a “culture of fear” keeps elderly residents indoors, even to the point of death amidst a heat wave. The double-barrelled approach also means that Heat Wave never strays too far from the deeply visceral and “felt” consequences of the 1995 heat wave, even if Klinenberg rejects the “personal responsibility” thesis for why some residents died while others survived. He offers readers several windows onto the lives of both victims and survivors: early in the first chapter, we read of a conference room in the Office of the Cook County Public Administrator filled with boxes of victims’ property, never to be claimed by their friends or relatives. In the same chapter, we meet Pauline Jankowitz, an older woman who covered herself with cold washcloths to survive the heat wave.
Klinenberg complements his analysis of the social conditions that compounded the effects of the heat wave with an equally incisive analysis of “the symbolic construction of the heat wave as a public event and experience” (23). He claims that journalistic, scientific, and political institutions wielded their symbolic power to impose a normative set of interpretive standards to frame the heat wave as, for example, a “natural disaster,” and that this framework mediated citizens’ experience and interpretation of the event. This analysis is a testament to what one could call the “symbolic construction of reality,” to adopt a phrase from the philosopher Ernst Cassirer. Politicians and journalists’ symbolic construction of the heat wave offered various partial interpretations of the event that obfuscated the systemic factors that exacerbated its consequences. The Daley administration used its symbolic power to defend its response to the crisis, deny moral responsibility for its harmful effects, and blame the heat wave’s victims for their own deaths. Journalists, for their part, reported on the heat wave in conformance with institutional and professional norms that sensationalized the crisis and reinforced city officials’ distorted narrative. Then, once consumers’ appetite for the disaster abated, the “major story” of the heat wave fell out of the collective consciousness. In time, it was almost entirely forgotten.
Twenty-three years after its initial publication, Heat Wave is more relevant than ever. In our current era of climate crisis, heat waves are less rare and more potent than in 2000. Nevertheless, the social, cultural, economic, and urban environmental factors to which Klinenberg calls attention in Heat Wave persist and threaten to kill many more people in cities across the world, especially those that have not yet adapted to our current climate reality. Heat waves are, and will most likely continue to be, the United States’ “most lethal form of extreme weather. They remain silent and invisible killers of silent and invisible people” (xxi). To dismiss, trivialize, or sensationalize heat waves is a moral failure and an injustice to the poor, elderly, and socially isolated people of color most likely to suffer and die from their effects—and whose lives we can, in many instances, collectively protect.
July 8, 2015
This book is a good companion to County. The missed opportunities, the blatant lies from City Hall and other main actors, the high death toll, it was too much at times and I wanted to throw the book and scream.
It is fascinating to read this 20 years after the Chicago heat wave of July 1995 that killed nearly 800 people. I am a social worker now, and I am aware of many changes that have happened in the "aging network" of people who work with marginalized older adults in the city (including people who are tasked with checking on known isolated persons in extreme heat or extreme cold).
However, I don't doubt that far too many old, isolated citizens would still perish if the same extreme weather event happened now.
It is fascinating to read this 20 years after the Chicago heat wave of July 1995 that killed nearly 800 people. I am a social worker now, and I am aware of many changes that have happened in the "aging network" of people who work with marginalized older adults in the city (including people who are tasked with checking on known isolated persons in extreme heat or extreme cold).
However, I don't doubt that far too many old, isolated citizens would still perish if the same extreme weather event happened now.
May 2, 2009
Interesting. Apparently methodologically controversial, at least where a couple people are concerned, though I have yet to read the articles. The examinations of death rates by age, race, socioeconomic status, and geographical location are extremely compelling, but when Eric gets political he gets a little ranty and I understand the POV of the people who claim he's working off certain biases. Still, good read. Recommended.
July 26, 2013
A mixture of sociology, epidemiology, and personal anecdotes of those who survived or died during a heat wave in a modern US city. Very moving, and does an excellent job of convincing the reader that social isolation and a lack of support for vulnerable populations (most particularly, the elderly poor) kill.
March 25, 2019
Ok, so I did not read the whole thing, but academic books are not meant to be read through, much the less this one, which moves so slowly and can be very dull at times. So, like everyone, I skimmed a lot of it. Yet, there is a lot of fascinating stuff in here, specially in the chapter on the neighboring areas with different mortality profiles.
Want to read
March 22, 2010I just saw Cooked, a documentary film running in the Environmental Film Fest that is based on this book. The film is still a work in progress so only about 20 minutes were screened but it's a fascinating topic.
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