In 1811 and 1812 Three Large Earthquakes Magnitude 7

question 59

Essay

In 1811 and 1812 three large earthquakes Magnitude 7.7, 7.5, 7.7. hit the New Madrid area near what is now St. Louis, Mo and Memphis, TN. If those cities had their current population and infrastructure when those earthquakes occurred, hundreds of thousands of people might have been killed or injured. Should that region have essentially the same types of building codes and rules that exist in California and Japan today despite the fact that there have not been any large earthquakes in the area since 1812 and it is not located near a plate boundary?

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Definitions:

Price Elasticity

A metric that shows the responsiveness of the quantity of a product demanded when its price changes.

Quantity Demanded

The amount of a good or service that consumers are willing and able to purchase at a given price.

Price Elasticity

An indicator of how the amount of a product that is bought or provided reacts to variations in its cost.

Quantity Demanded

The total amount of a good or service that consumers are willing and able to purchase at a given price in a particular period.