Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

16 make way for more desirable groups of people. Certainly, in some cases that is the case. In a 2006 report on Katrina to the Russell Sage Foundation, environmental justice scholars Manuel Pastor, Robert Bullard, James Boyce, Alice Fothergill, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Beverly Wright call the rebuilding phase of Katrina the "second disaster" for the low-income residents of the Ninth Ward. These residents, Bullard and Wright state, "are convinced that federal, state and local officials will not prioritize their communities for clean-up and re-building." In particular, "They worry that their neighborhoods are slated for redevelopment that does not include them." 4 Like New Orleans, many lower-income residents of Lower Manhattan are "Acutely self-aware" that their situations is "tenuous, and fear that any improvements will accelerate gentrification and lead to displacement." 5 However, let's assume that, in fact, New Yorkers treasure social and economic diversity in those places most affected by Sandy—Lower Manhattan and Staten Island—and that they want to maintain the cultural character of neighborhoods rather than turn the area into an endless row of luxury apartment towers. In fact, New York City currently has a mayor committed to keeping New York City affordable. In his second State of the City Address, Mayor de Blasio argued that, "if we fail to be a city for everyone, we risk losing what makes New York, New York." 6 Even so, the Summit on Resilience II presentations at Pace University last October indicated that the financial forces around rebuilding and recovery are stacked against those who had less to begin with and will push toward projects that are capital-intensive, gentrifying and, in fact, will make Lower Manhattan less "New York." Yet, if rebuilding follows these trends, like the development of East New Orleans after Betsy, it could make New Yorkers more vulnerable to the next Big Storm. Of course, the increasing expense of living in the city, rising more than 20% in the last five years, 7 make some question whether de Blasio's goal is possible. Some might wonder if efforts to preserve the nature of lower-income neighborhoods and housing in Manhattan, particularly lower Manhattan, will stem the tide of luxury housing any more effectively than the levees held back the ocean tide in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Instead, much planning and public money might be expended to simply slow an inevitable force, something that would happen even without disasters. Why not simply give in to the inevitable? The reason to push against the inevitable is more than just a charitable sympathy for those with less, or a desire to maintain the character and uniqueness of New York neighborhoods. Going along with the inevitable could promote ever-riskier forms of land-redevelopment that are doomed to failure and flood. This will make everyone more vulnerable, from the broker to the grocer, the student to the developer. To explain why this is the case, I need to bring in another player: nature. Coastal cities planning resilience strategies to deal with climate change storms, flooding and sea-level rise are faced with two options: to bring in nature or to try to keep it out, to restore wetlands that can receive the floodwaters or storm surges, buffering cities, or to build large-scale barrier walls against future flooding and storms. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's "Rebuild by Design" competition, co-sponsored with The Rockefeller Foundation, provided funds for one option, The Big U Project. This plan involves building wetland berms out into the river in a way that also incorporates new public recreation areas and greenspaces. 8 This type of resilience project makes new spaces open to all for both protection against storm surges and for new urban amenities, a project that would create, to paraphrase urbanist Henri Lefebvre, "The Right to the Resilient City." 9

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