Throughout this semester, we have been learning about the “developments” of New York City and how the greed for New York City to become a greater, more successful city have come at the cost of its people, namely the working-class and minority populations. The developments have also come at the cost of the city’s survival as well.

Firstly, it is important to discuss the tangible evidence of climate change as an issue that is inevitably become more and more serious. In 1983, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency” claimed that there is “a 1% risk of a flood in any given year” (Steinberg 1). It was not updated until after Hurricane Sandy (which is 29 years later), which revealed that there had been a 45% increase of a flood and that around 400,000 New Yorkers lived on the floodplain. (However, there are also “businesses employing 270,000 workers” (Murphy 3). The number of casualties due to the flood has increased at such a rate that the number of people directly affected by the flood in New York City is higher than that of any other U.S. city. By 2050, this number is expected to double. This is due to the fact that New York City, as it expands, relies on underwater land and wetlands to create room for its landfills, roads and more. The construction in New York City does not include elevated buildings either (like those in Florida). That being said, there are apparently building codes that NYC must follow that address this, but neither Ted Steinberg nor Jarrett Murphy goes into detail about said codes in the readings. Finally, in March 2018, there were 4 nor’easters (Gonen and Musumeci).

Regardless, given all these statements, it is clearly imperative that New York City takes strides towards environmental reform. New York City must create plans, policies, and structures that are dedicated to supporting the people that become (or already are) “poor and dispossessed” (Steinberg 2). Two of the main solutions discussed by Ted Steinberg and Jarrett Murphy in their respective texts are storm-surge barriers and a managed retreat.

Storm-surge barriers are currently used in European cities and U.S. cities like Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island. So far, they have been successful in protecting the cities from flooding. However, NYC is reluctant to take the same approach due to:

• the financial costs, especially because it would have to be funded by federal taxpayers who do not want to take NYC’s burden when they do not benefit directly

• the barriers may worsen the pollution problem is Jamaica Bay because it would interfere with the effluent treatment plants from sewage, which convert wastewater so that it can be returned to the water cycle

• would not protect everyone, only certain areas

• the fact a national study group rejected the Rockaway Inlet barrier plan because they believed hurricanes in New York City rarely happened, even though the risk of a hurricane was high and increasing as the city’s density increased

• could lead to even more development in low-lying areas because of the overdependence on the barrier to be able to protect them completely.

Steinberg, who explored this approach, did not mention whether other cities that have implemented the storm-surge barriers deal with similar pollution problem like NYC, which would have helped determine whether NYC could get around that obstacle. As for the projected increased development in low-lying areas, that is already happening even without the protection of the barriers. As noted by Murphy, there are already luxury condos being made near the coastline and overall increase in construction due to NYC’s increasing population. Instead, can’t the city create regulations that prohibit such intense construction near the barriers?

An alternative approach that I am more for, but also fear the obstacles of, is a managed retreat; “[t]hat means creating a plan now for pulling back from the water when the times comes, including where and how to move people, and dealing with the inevitable tensions over equity, who gets to stay and who has to go” (Murphy 2). This is where I become anxious about who gets to stay and go because given New York City’s history… it is always the working-class and minority communities that are forced to go. The affordability crisis mentioned in the reading are already driving us out as it is. Furthermore, the continued developments on the coastline are leading to higher insurance rates, which put the working-class at the waterfront at an even bigger disadvantage, on top of being more vulnerable to flooding. Is it time that New York City took advantage of Robert Moses vision of letting people leave New York? Should we stop trying to keep people in and let them move–encourage them to? This would be so that those who do not the options to move out, like poor, working-class and minority communities, can stay in areas less affected by the flood zone. After all, there are projections that within the next century, parts of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens will become unlivable. This approach would also mean that the city buys people out of properties that are in too deep in the flood zone, destroying them, and letting nature take its course. Furthermore, it would mean destroying single-family homes in non-flood-zone areas and creating larger, taller buildings so that they can house more people. However, the people on the floodplains or flood zone are usually poor, minority communities who receive public housing in these flood zone areas. Are they going to be forced to be displaced again? But if they aren’t, will we let climate change wipe out these communities? Another concern I have with this is that the proportion of those displaced is not equal to the proportion of people that would be rehoused, much less able to afford to live in the new buildings. According to NYC Commissioner Banks, the city already had an 18+% in rent (with only 5% increase in income) between 2005-2015, which led to 115% increase in homelessness. How can we create effective solutions that do not aggravate our pre-existing issues in NYC?

Winter nor’easters are also more common in New York City. The problem with these storms becoming a more common occurrence is that I fear the city (government) will become desensitized and expect the city to continue to function as normal. This March, schools, colleges, and workplaces were closed, allowing people to prioritize their safety and health (Gonen and Musumeci). But given the growth-AKA-businesslike nature of NYC, how long will that last?

Overall, I cannot help but think about the link between free-market capitalism and NYC’s (lack of) environmental reform. Much of the obstacles that prevent NYC from taking these solutions are in some way due to free-market capitalism, or how it works in the scale of the U.S. and/or NYC. The rise in homelessness and affordability crisis is thanks to gentrification and the tools used to make it happen. Minorities have been pushed out further into flood zones to make room for more “valuable” constituents like corporations, businesses, and the middle/upper class. Even the very notion of expanding NYC so that it could, in turn, bring more people, more money, and more capital is rooted in capitalism, which started our entire dilemma in the first place. Elizabeth Kolbert of New York Review of Books agrees when she explains:

Our economy has been built on the promise of endless growth. But endless growth is incompatible with radically reduced emissions; it’s only at times when the global economy has gone into free fall that emissions have declined by more than marginal amounts. What’s needed… is “managed degrowth.” Individuals are going to have to consume less, corporate profits are going to have to be reduced (in some cases down to zero), and governments are going to have to engage in the kind of long-term planning that’s anathema to free marketeers.

I am not here to argue for the reform of capitalism or entire systemic change, but it is difficult to dispute the links between these two issues.

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Works Cited

Banks, Steven (2018). “Turning the Tide on Homeless.” Speech. Queens College, New York, NY.

Gonen, Yoav, and Natalie Musumeci. “Fourth Nor’easter in 3 Weeks Pummels NYC.” New York Post, New York Post, 21 Mar. 2018, nypost.com/2018/03/21/fourth-noreaster-in-3-weeks-pummels-nyc/.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. “Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism?” The New York Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, 4 Dec. 2014, www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/12/04/can-climate-change-cure-capitalism/.

Murphy, Jarrett. “The Flood Next Time.” The Nation, 2 Nov 2015.

Steinberg, Ted. “Can New York City Survive the Sea?” Dissent Magazine, 2014