Risk Compensation in Cities at Risk

Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research 33, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6184-1_3, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract Cities face many risks. This book focuses mainly on natural hazards. This chapter explores what perceptions of, and responses to, natural hazards have in common with society’s way of coping with risk more generally. It proffers four framing devices. First a categorisation of risk: is it directly perceptible, perceptible only with the help of scientific instruments and statistical surveys, or is it ‘virtual’ – perceptible only with the assistance of unquantifiable imagination? Second, the risk thermostat introduces the concept of risk compensation: this presents the idea that risk perceptions influence behaviour in predictable ways. Third, Cultural Theory introduces a framework for organizing the biases that one encounters when trying to understand diverse responses to what appear to be statistically similar risks. Finally, the significance of voluntary versus imposed risks: why are there such enormous differences in responses to statistically similar risks?