Anatomy of a Buyout Program: New York Post-Sandy (original) (raw)
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Home Buyouts: One Adaptation Approach to Rising Sea Levels
On October 29th, 2012, Superstorm Sandy severely damaged residential and commercial buildings on Staten Island, along with other communities in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. This event triggered residents in the Oakwood Beach Neighborhood of Staten Island to organize and seek funding to relocate through home buyouts. This study examines Oakwood Beach to understand how the current practices of buyout programs enable residents in coastal communities to relocate from flood prone areas. Features of buyout programs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are explored. Oakwood Beach is an important example of “bottoms up” advocacy for post-inundation buyouts. Policy recommendations include: 1) evaluating the impact of potential buyouts using benefit cost analysis 2) incorporating buyouts into pre-disaster planning and climate change planning 3) increasing public engagement preemptively 4) incorporating relocation support services in buyout program designs to increase homeowner participation rates.
A common refrain in New Orleans is that water flows away from money. From the Crescent City down to the bayou, the communities most vulnerable to floodwaters suffer not simply because of geography and topography, but because of multiple social vulnerabilities. As policymakers in Louisiana and throughout the Gulf Coast region grapple with climate change adaptation, they must do so in a way that deliberately and effectively engages vulnerable communities in the planning process. This paper explores a number of community-level strategies for adaptation, with a special focus on ensuring the individuals and communities they are meant to protect have a say in their design and implementation. It identifies best practices for engaging individuals and their communities in initiatives like elevating structures, revising zoning laws, flood-proofing homes, and pre-disaster planning, to ensure policymakers understand and account for their needs. Co-authors Carmen Gonzalez, A common refrain in New Orleans is that water flows away from money. From the Crescent City down to the bayou, the communities most vulnerable to floodwaters suffer not simply because of geography and topography, but because of multiple social vulnerabilities. As policymakers in Louisiana and throughout the Gulf Coast region grapple with climate change adaptation, they must do so in a way that deliberately and effectively engages vulnerable communities in the planning process. This paper explores a number of community-level strategies for adaptation, with a special focus on ensuring the individuals and communities they are meant to protect have a say in their design and implementation. It identifies best practices for engaging individuals and their communities in initiatives like elevating structures, revising zoning laws, flood-proofing homes, and pre-disaster planning, to ensure policymakers understand and account for their needs. Co-authors Carmen Gonzalez, Alice Kaswan, Robert Verchick, Yee Huang, Shawn Bowen, and Nowal Jamhour explain that empowering communities, particularly ones that are already vulnerable for social and economic reasons, will ensure both environmental and social resilience.explain that empowering communities, particularly ones that are already vulnerable for social and economic reasons, will ensure both environmental and social resilience.
Implementing floodplain land acquisition programs in urban localities
2004
recognizing the need to make time to allow residents to voice their opinions. In each city, getting accurate information out to residents quickly was a critical factor in the ultimate success of their buyout program, but it was a challenging task given the scope of disaster they faced.
Implementing Floodplain Land Acquisition Programs in Urban Localities
2003
recognizing the need to make time to allow residents to voice their opinions. In each city, getting accurate information out to residents quickly was a critical factor in the ultimate success of their buyout program, but it was a challenging task given the scope of disaster they faced.
As the Seas Rise Managing retreat along New York City's coasts
The New Republic
Seen from the air, the five streets that make up Oakwood Beach, New York look out of place —they are nothing more than a few spindly fingers of soil surrounded by flat estuarine wetlands. Three miles inland is Todt Hill, which, at 410 feet above sea level, is the highest point on the eastern seaboard south of Maine. Twenty-two thousand years ago, when the massive Wisconsin Ice Sheet—that covered much of New England and all New York City in mile-thick ice—retreated, it left behind certain identifiable characteristics: a long ridge of high land, known as a terminal moraine, that stretches from the southern end of Staten Island, through Brooklyn and Queens, and out the length of Long Island. But just as glaciers can build mountains so too can they level them. As the ice sheet pulled back, much of the land close to the water subsided, creating hundreds of miles of marshes and swamps like those that surround Oakwood Beach. In other words: The slow withdrawal of the most recent ice age left much of the United States' eastern seaboard vulnerable to sea level rise. The United States is eleventh on the list of the countries most at risk to sea level rise, finishing just behind the canal-riddled Netherlands, deltaic Bangladesh, and the island nation of the Philippines. We are going to have to figure out what to do with our densely populated coasts, and soon, because by century's end many of our low-lying communities
In 1999 Hurricane Floyd pummeled the eastern portion of North Carolina (NC, U.S.A.), and in its wake many localities participated in federal home acquisition-relocation programs in flood-prone areas, with shared and devolved governance. This article reports on one such program that was conducted in the City of Kinston, where a historical African-American neighborhood called Lincoln City was badly flooded by water containing raw sewage from a compromised wastewater treatment plant upstream. Afterwards, some of the acquired homes were relocated to an adjacent area populated by middle-class, African-American families. The article explores to what extent political devolution of flood mitigation disempowered residents to deal with this crisis in their waterscape. Combining a framework from medical anthropology regarding the logics of choice and care with historical political ecology, it illustrates how devolved government policy led to a continuation of the waterscape's discriminatory history after the buyout program, with no recourse for local citizens as the program worked through a logic of choice that demarcated responsibilities. Understanding this case requires a historically informed assessment of social impact, in which the chosen flood mitigation measures are critically assessed using tools from historically-informed political ecology, leading to a longer-term logic of care where needed. En 1999, l'ouragan Floyd a battu la partie orientale de la Caroline du Nord (NC, États-Unis) et, dans son essor, de nombreuses localités ont participé à des programmes fédéraux d'acquisition et de réinstallation de maisons dans des zones sujettes aux inondations, avec une gouvernance partagée et dévouée. Cet article rapporte un tel programme qui a été mené dans la ville de Kinston, où un quartier historique afro-américain appelé Lincoln City a été relocalisé. Par la suite, certaines des maisons acquises, inondées d'eaux usées brutes provenant d'une usine de traitement des eaux usées compromise en amont, ont été transférées dans une zone adjacente peuplée par des familles afro-américaines de classe moyenne. L'article explore dans quelle mesure la déconcentration politique en réalité (dis) a permis aux résidents de faire face à cette crise dans leur paysage aquatique. En combinant un cadre anthropologique médical concernant les logiques de choix et de soins avec l'écologie politique historique, il illustre comment la politique gouvernementale décentralisée a conduit à la poursuite de l'histoire discriminatoire de l'eau au-delà du programme de rachat. Les citoyens locaux manquaient de pouvoir alors que le programme fonctionnait avec une logique de choix que les responsabilités délimitées. La compréhension de ce cas nécessite une évaluation d'impact social historiquement informée, dans laquelle les mesures d'atténuation des inondations choisies sont évaluées de manière critique à l'aide d'outils d'écologie politique historiquement informée, conduisant à une logique de soins à plus long terme. En 1999, el huracán Floyd golpeó la parte este de Carolina del Norte (NC, U.S.A.), y para su recuperación varias poblaciones participaron en los programas federales de adquisición y reubicación que dependen de formas compartidas de gobierno delegado. Este artículo reporta uno de estos programas llevado a cabo en la ciudad de Kinston, donde un vecindario histórico Afro-Americano llamado Lincoln City fue adquirido. Posteriormente, algunas de estas casas que se inundaron con aguas residuales provenientes de una planta de tratamiento río arriba, fueron reubicadas en un área adyacente poblada por familias Afro-Americanas de clase media. Con el apoyo de un marco antropológico médico sobre las lógicas de elección y cuidados, y con ecología política histórica, este artículo explora hasta qué punto la descentralización política (des)empoderó a los residentes para negociar la crisis en su zona acuática. Este artículo ilustra cómo la descentralización de una política gubernamental dió continuidad a la historia de discriminación en esta zona acuática más allá del programa de adquisición, y sin oportunidad de otro recurso para los ciudadanos locales, ya que el programa funcionó con una lógica de selección que demarcaba la responsabilidades. Este artículo propone una evaluación histórica e informada del impacto social, en que la lógica para mitigar la selección es críticamente evaluada con herramientas de ecología política históricamente informada, y es intercambiada por cuidados de largo plazo en situaciones donde esta necesidad pueda ser evidenciada.
Public Culture, 2016
Retreat, or relocating people and unbuilding land in places vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise, remains on the fringes of conversations about climate change adaptation. Yet already people throughout the world are moving away from the water en masse. Many more want to move but lack the resources to do so. Residents working to organize their own retreat are engaged in a struggle for recognition and support from, paradoxically, the very governments and institutions responsible for planning, implementing, and managing retreat once it becomes necessary. In this article, I contrast dominant official representations of retreat as marginal, unpopular, and infeasible with existing cases of collective movement away from rising waters that demonstrate just the opposite. I argue that the word retreat is a valuable and necessary addition to the language of climate change adaptation, serving to distinguish community-organized relocation from forced relocation and climate-induced displacement. Understanding community-organized relocation efforts as forms of retreat unifies this emerging practice with other social movements and political projects that seek more sustainable ways of settling on earth.