Building collapse in Haiti

The building collapse of a school in Haiti this month is a further reminder of the problems facing many third world countries in which political and social norms are not serving their people well.

Extralegal capital in the form of shanty towns, squatter developments and illegal buildings is a large part of economies of some countries. An earlier article in this blog site cites the following characteristics of some of these economies:

• Houses built on land with inadequately recorded ownership
• Lack of property rights
• Lack of enforceable transactions on property rights
• Unincorporated business with undefined liability
• Non-compliance of building with building codes
• Illegal buildings
• Corruption at national and local government levels

Haiti appears to have these characteristics. Irrational adherence to outdated traditions, a disregard for any building codes that may exist, and dense populations of people all trying to compete for limited resources and opportunities, are just some of the reasons for the problem.

Haiti is a relatively small land-mass attempting to support about nine million people. A plundering of resources by deforestation is one characteristic of this society. It is typical of many countries where too many people are trying to eke out a living on impoverished land where there are increasingly diminishing resources.

As with many other poor countries, the resource base is simply inadequate to fulfil the needs of most people and this leads to building structures for shelter (or in this case in Haiti, a school) using the most rudimentary methods and with minimal use of materials.

The pressure on the planet is well understood to be leading to increasing shortages of food and water. While building technology and construction knowledge using rational engineering principles should be accessible to people anywhere in the world, perpetual poverty in some countries and diminishing access to appropriate building materials is going to lead to many more building failures and loss of life in the future.

As New Zealand has experienced with leaky buildings, even having what was considered a world-leading building code is not sufficient if there are not the appropriate social and political norms in a society.