18
recoveries and rebuilding show, these protections may be fleeting. When will financial
institutions and insurance agencies decide that the risk is too high?
Is there a middle ground between these two scenarios, where wetland-park
development, preserving unique neighborhoods and profitable housing investments
go hand-in-hand? This is the challenge New York City faces. How it will play out may
take the next storm, but we can be assured that next storm is not far away.
The answer to the question will lie in how the projects on the table for Lower
Manhattan to "harden" itself against the next storm surge actually get built. The
question of what will be built on those stormwater berms—public access or high-end
development—is clear—the answer is both. The real question is how much public
space and affordable housing will be left after the bills are paid.
Footnotes
1
Janos, Nik. 2012. "Cities of Nature: Socio-natural Crisis and the Production of Space
in New Orleans and Seattle." Dissertation, Department of Sociology, UC Santa
Cruz; Janos also describes the lessons of Betsy for Sandy in an article, "Blinded by
Science: The Lure of the Technological Fix after Hurricane Sandy."
2
Gotham, Kevin Fox and Miriam Greenberg. 2014. Crisis Cities: Disaster and Re-
development in New York and New Orleans. (New York: Oxford).
3
"The Big U: Rebuild by Design: Promoting Resilience Post Sandy Through Innovative
Planning, Design and Programming." Briefing Document, 2014.
4
Pastor, Manuel, et. al. 2009. In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster, and
Race After Katrina (Russell Sage Foundation); Bullard, Robert and Beverly Wright.
Race, "Forward" in Robert Bullard and Beverly Wright (eds.), Race, Place and
Environmental Justice after Hurricane Katrina. (Westview Press, 2009)
5
Big U Rebuild by Design Briefing Document, 2014, pg. 51.
6
State of the City, February 3, 2015.
7
Signore, John del. "Cost of Living Rose more than 20% in Five Years." Gothamist
March 4, 2015. Accessed 4/5/2015 http://gothamist.com/2015/03/04/no_shit.php.
8
http://www.rebuildbydesign.org
9
See Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City. Guilford Press.
10
Kaysen, Rhonda. 2014. "Back to the Jersey Shore." The New York Times, April 14.
Accessed 3/10/15: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/realestate/back-to-the-
jersey-shore.html?_r=0
