The history really defines the response and the vulnerability of Haiti to the earthquake. One of the most obvious ways it does that is the reason why the people got to the hillsides where they were most vulnerable to the earthquakes. They got there because they or their parents or grandparents were pushed out of Haiti’s countryside, where most Haitians used to live. And they were pushed out of there by policies thirty years ago, when it was decided by the international experts that Haiti’s economic salvation lay in assembly manufacture plants. And in order to advance that, it was decided that Haiti needed to have a captive labor force in the cities. So a whole bunch of aid policies, trade policies and political policies were implemented, designed to move people from the countryside to places like Martissant and the hills – hillsides that we’ve seen in earthquake photos. Full article.