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\begin{document}

\title{Whose Knowledge counts in Climate Change? A Procedural Justice
perspective on Flooding in East Harlem~~~~~~}



\author[1]{Veronica Olivotto}%
\affil[1]{Milano School of Policy, Management and the Environment, The New School}%


\vspace{-1em}



  
  \date{May 25, 2024}


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\section*{~1. Introduction}

{\label{106952}}

At the summit organized by the New York Panel on Climate Change (NYPCC)
in March 2019, during the Q\&A, a woman stood from the audience and told
to a panel made of predominantly city officers, that she was using the
online Flood Hazard Mapper to identify an area in Manhattan where she
and her husband could move to from Princeton. She was interested in
understanding whether buying a property located within a 100-year
floodplain was a good decision and, if so, she asked authorities to add
information about where the location of evacuation zones in the Flood
Hazard Mapper, so she could be sure that in a flooding event, the
evacuation centers were within reach. Whether or not this was a real
question or a provocation, I immediately made a connection with the
slowly growing literature linking coastal flood risk and environmental
justice, specifically the debates around living in a floodplain by
choice, which the woman was an example of, or because of historical
planning decisions that placed some homes and people in areas more at
risk than others.

The issue of social justice in relation climate change induced flooding
is not new and research on the topic has been growing in many directions
where justice dilemmas emerge. In this paper I briefly review the long
history of Environmental Justice (EJ) movement in the US, including its
meanings, scope and relationship to nature with the aim of
contextualizing how, more recently, the movement expanded to concerns
related to climate change. Then, I review how questions of
distributional and procedural justice are used in EJ literature as well
as climate change, specifically in relationship to coastal flooding. I
tease out the concepts of procedural justice that can complement a
distributional justice understanding of coastal flooding and I apply
those in the context of East Harlem, in Northwestern Manhattan, a
community district where issues of climate change and gentrification act
like a double edge sword towards it's already burdened share of
low-income black and brown communities.

\par\null

\subsection*{1. 1 The Evolving Environmental Justice Movement in the
United
States}

{\label{925141}}

Since the environmental reforms of the 1970s, according to Faber and
McCarthy (2001), the environmental justice movement in the U.S. has not
been effective because it has been dominated by single issue approaches,
affecting the quality of environmental laws that were approved (for
instance privileging control of pollution rather than prevention). The
authors attribute this crisis largely to, on the one hand, environmental
organizations of the time being composed of white, middle-class
professionals who were unable to draw linkages between racism, abuse and
economic inequality. On the other, in an effort to draft legislation and
make environmentally friendly initiatives, the movement had become
increasingly detached to those it was supposed to serve. The movement
was not oriented towards public participation but established
corporate-like organizational models that inhibited citizen involvement.
From the mid-eighties, however, a subaltern movement grew emphasizing
the need to re-establish a connection with constituents who were
predominantly black and brown communities of color victim of toxic
pollution in cities, connecting them across a variety of issues and
allowing for their own voices to emerge. According to Faber and
McCarthy, key moments in the subaltern movement were the African
American protests against PCBs in North Carolina in 1982, building on
other protests such as the Love Canal Homeowners Association in 1978 who
were able to successfully relocate 900 families away from the toxic dump
on which their homes were built in Niagara (NY).

From the late-nineties, following the First National People of Color
Environmental Leadership Summit of 1991, we see the emergence of
regional and national campaigning networks striving to create stronger
institutional linkages between the local groups that emerged in earlier
years. By the late nineties local groups began to connect environmental
issues of exposure to and impacts of pollutants, to broader issues (e.g.
gun violence, occupational health and safety, immigration rights, human
rights, anti-globalization, indigenous rights to land and community
empowerment), moving from single-issue reforms to addressing the
systemic causes of injustice by bringing together a diverse group of
impacted communities (Faber and McCarthy, 2001). A landmark moment was
when in 1994 when the networks pressured the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to issue the Executive Order 12898 titled ``Federal Action
to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income
Populations'' prohibiting discriminatory practices in federal programs
and the creation of the \selectlanguage{english}National Environmental Justice Advisory
Committee (NEJAC) to provide independent advice to the EPA and integrate
EJ within its programs (Bullard, 2001).

The crisis of the U.S. environmental movement in the 70s and the
emergence of a counter movement in the 1980-1990 is underscored by a
fundamentally different ontology of the environment between these two
periods. For Di Chirico (1995) the meaning of the environment for the
historically white, predominately male, and middle-class movement,
imbued with Euro-American colonist thinking, was largely associated with
the preservation of an uncontaminated wilderness, outside of society and
human culture. On the contrary, the definition of environment by EJ
activists relates to where one works, plays and lives. This definition
fits the urban dimension of EJ activism, where the victims of industrial
pollution reside, but it also accounts for the presence of people which
was taken for granted in previous understandings. Since many prominent
EJ activists see themselves emerging from the social movements of the
sixties, it makes sense to see activists as civil society rights
activists pursuing forms of grassroots political organization.

The EJ movement is fundamentally urban and it became quickly embedded
into struggles over gentrification and affordable housing as American
cities were growing increasingly unequal. A 2015 survey of Registered
Environmental Justice Organization (REJOs) revealed that organizations
have become more diverse in mission and focus, including land use
planning, climate and food justice, energy poverty into their
priorities, and calling for intersectional approaches between geography,
sociology, medicine and health. They are also seeking further
connections between environmental health, reproductive health and
environmental exposure and linking these with concerns of economic
policy (Larsen \emph{et al.} , 2015).

In summary today's EJ movement in the U.S. may be seen as the result of
the organizing of local black and brown communities of color fighting
for dignified living conditions in the presence of legacies of
environmental racism, at first, linking race to the location of
commercial hazard facilities and health outcomes. From the late nineties
onwards, as the national presence of localized networks pressured
national agencies to prohibit discriminatory actions on the basis of
race, the movement expanded their agenda, advocacy and on the ground
action to other issues, such as climate change. For decades the
environmental justice literature has studied the connection between
race/ethnicity and proximity to toxic facilities in cities, and the work
is now being leveraged to understand how justice and flood risk combine
in coastal areas.

\par\null

\subsection*{1.2 From Traditional Flood Risk Assessments to a Flood
Justice
Framing}

{\label{718636}}

As people across a variety of cities experience the increasing effects
of climate change, researchers' interests in understanding the
multi-dimensional nature of coastal areas - simultaneously attractive,
biophysically dynamic, while subject to political decision making - has
increased. In comparison to research from other environmental hazards,
the literature regarding EJ implications of flood hazards is smaller and
more recent. A whole issue of Regional Environmental Change was recently
dedicated to research that takes inspiration from findings within the EJ
literature, extending the field to find applicability to Flood Risk
Management (FRM) (Thaler \emph{et al.} , 2018).

The research collected in the volume borrows notions of distributive and
procedural justice and applies it to urban flood risk in both the U.S
and European cities. Although notions of sensitivity and vulnerability
have gained growing consideration in traditional FRM (Cutter \emph{et
al.} , 2009), as well as the notion that vulnerability to flooding may
be only one of the issues among many others faced by low-income
communities (Lopez-Marrero and Tschakert, 2011), assessments are often
only able to convey an abstract snapshot with significant assumptions
and uncertainties about risks and possible mitigation measures,
simplified into variables easily measurable through cost-benefit
analysis (Bos and Zwaneveld, 2017). Flood risk assessments and maps are
frequently updated by authorities, as they incorporate new knowledge
from modeling, however these alternations tend to take place closed
doors and in largely opaque manner so that what was previously
considered `safe' under one model, now becomes `at risk' with little
opportunity for discussion with those who will be affected by this
change (O'Hare and White, 2018).

An example of both the opaqueness of maps and models is the ongoing
debate between the City of New York, FEMA's flood zones and their
ongoing update. In PLANYC, Bloomberg's 2007 vision for New York,
authorities recognized that FEMA's flood maps were severely outdated
(the last revisions were carried out in 1983) and warned ``in areas
where insurers feel the risk is too great, or their ability to raise
premiums is hampered by political or regulatory limitations, the risk
burden will be shifted to the public as well as to banks and investors''
(p.139). The stakes are so high that when in 2015, the federal
government issued a preliminary draft of its updated 100-year flood
maps, which greatly expanded New York City's flood zones, the city
rejected the maps. An additional 35,000 buildings, for a total of 72,000
buildings and 400,000 New York City residents were now in the 100-year
floodplain, according to the update, which meant thousands of additional
residents now had to purchase flood insurance (The New York Times,
2013). The city appealed by saying that as a result of technical errors,
FEMA overestimated the size of the floodplain, with a resulting huge
cost burden for homeowners and more so for low-income renters in public
housing units built on the waterfront. FEMA agreed there were errors and
that the maps should be revised, but for some planners, the fact that
FEMA maps are often subject to such dispute is a cause for concern.
Citizens are left in a limbo. Even though new maps allow property owners
to check their address to determine whether they are in a flood zone,
and how severe the flooding could be, there are considerable
uncertainties around whether a home falling into a floodplain map will
actually be affected by the next big storm.

The distributive dimensions of injustice, like costs and benefits of
measures to adapt to flooding through insurance, are influenced by
broader, often intangible, process-based inequities. Vulnerability
research shows that people living in poverty and/or socially
marginalized have reduced capacity for self-protection in terms of
mitigating flood hazards at home pre-event, evacuating in response to
flooding, or returning home or to employment in the aftermath of a
flooding event, accessing social protection such as flood insurance,
hazard mitigation infrastructure, emergency response information and
assistance~(Green, Bates and Smyth, 2007; Collins, Grineski and
Chakraborty, 2018). The distribution of emergency response may also be
unequal. Based on physical damage calculations after superstorm Sandy,
populations living in some NYCHA towers suffered disproportionately from
delays in emergency response, living with no running water, heat or lack
of repair work until long after the storm (Sellers, 2017).

In conclusion flood risk researchers realized that the abstract and
aggregate information of FRM need richer accounts provided by a justice
framing in order ``to capture fine-grained differences between affected
populations, particularly those that are rooted in more complex societal
disadvantage stemming from outside the flood risk arena'' (O'Hare and
White, 2018:385).

\par\null

\section*{2. Distributional and Procedural Justice in the context of
Coastal Flooding and
Resilience}

{\label{966188}}\par\null

\subsection*{2.1. Distributional Justice Studies of Flooding
Vulnerability}

{\label{747745}}

EJ scholars recognized that the early waves of EJ literature largely
focused on spatial proximity, as a variable of distributional justice,
seeking evidence of disproportionate bias of location of particular
types of infrastructure to minority groups. The bias is more often
confirmed that not. For instance, Pastor, Sadd and Hipp (2001), using
multi-variate analysis found that in Los Angeles County, toxic
facilities are disproportionately more sited in minority communities,
debunking the belief that low-income minorities may move in after the
siting as land values drop. The EJ field has shifted from studying
purely spatial proximity to toxics, to incorporate more nuanced
understandings of injustice. Recent studies claimed the importance of
undertaking cumulative assessments of risk in order to understand how
social and environmental stressors can work in combination to produce
health disparities (Morello-Frosch \emph{et al.}, 2011; Sadd \emph{et
al.}, 2011).

Examples of the application of distributional justice in coastal
flooding, instead, have focused on investigating the distribution of
water-based amenities and the way they structure patterns of settlements
adjacent to the coast (Collins, Grineski and Chakraborty, 2018), the
spatial and social inequities between coastal and inland flooding
(Montgomery and Chakraborty, 2015), as well as the differences in
distribution of costs and benefits of FRM (Kaufmann, Priest and Leroy,
2018).

These studies begin to unravel a landscape of uneven risk between
residents living on the waterfront of U.S. and E.U cities. This
unevenness is brought about by a combination of factors such as: the
historical patterns of coastal urbanization driving what is built on the
coast; the institutional mediation of risks through a variety of
structural (flood control structures) and non-structural (flood
insurance) measures that privilege areas with higher amounts of
water-based amenities and property values exposed; the social
disparities and intra-ethnic diversity between people living inland and
on the coast; ~and different understandings of distributional equity in
the distribution of pre-flood defense measures and post-flood recovery.
This brief overview points to the important ways in which scholars of
distributional justice of flood risk are starting to move passed
understandings of spatial proximity to hazards, which was a key aspect
of early EJ scholarly work. Flooding, Walker (2009a) claims, shares
similar contextual complexity as green space and pollution. Green space
is more than just an issue of `availability': there can be important
cultural, gender and other differences in how particular forms of green
space are viewed and the functions and services that these perform
(Walker, 2009b; Wolch, Byrne and Newell, 2014; Anguelovski \emph{et
al.}, 2018). Pollution is also socially contextualized, intersecting
with life courses, class and poverty so that impacts of ``equal doses''
are not equally experienced or coped with---an observation that extends
to the unevenness of the psycho-social as well as the physiological
impacts of living with sources of risk.

To this end, EJ theorists like Walker and Bullard, also advocated that
meaningful stakeholder involvement in decision making, in the
development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws,
regulations and policies is key for realizing justice. Notions of
society decides to regulate and governs spaces, resources, and processes
of stakeholder involvement happen in the context of politics. Indeed,
the way in which climate change responses are deployed, re-organizes
materials and spaces in the pursuit of alternative urban futures (Cast\selectlanguage{ngerman}án
Broto, 2017). The exposure to, prevention of and recovery from climate
change impacts are defined and implemented in the context of politics,
or what I refer to `resilience politics'.

Responses to climate change impacts, like flooding, are generally framed
as wanting to achieve urban resilience -- resilience as end goal -- or
more broadly take resilience as an ongoing process (Davoudi \emph{et
al.}, 2012). Urban Resilience as an end goal is often associated with
the `short term' aim of (re) building a more robust, resistant city to
increasing rates of climate change induced disasters. The broader
perspective, transcends recovery by embracing change, self-organization,
and eventually transformation of the possible configurations of its
socio, political economic and ecological features (Chelleri, 2012). I
define resilience politics by using the formulation by Holland (2017),
as the \selectlanguage{english}relations and interactions shaping decisions about how
particular communities will adapt to climate change, such as decisions
to retreat because of climate change, to develop local adaptation plans,
or to develop particular strategies and actions that implement those
plans.

\selectlanguage{english}Like the arrival of unwanted land uses (Swyngedouw, Moulaert and
Arantxa, 2002), climate resilience, requires that vulnerable communities
respond to an imminent threat over which they have little or no control.
Because climate resilience interventions will alter people's
relationships to the natural environment, scholars called for giving
communities some control over their destinies, identities, and responses
to real or imminent changes to the environments in which they live
(Adger \emph{et al.}, 2011). It will not suffice for governments to do a
better re-distribution of environmental bads, in the context of
resilience politics, a procedural justice approach to flooding is
required.

\par\null

\subsection*{2.2 What is Procedural Environmental Justice~ and how can it
inform Climate Resilience
Politics}

{\label{803831}}

Procedural justice is interested in the context and the processes that
brings about distributional justice disparities. In general, research
interested in procedural justice moves beyond traditional understandings
of where and who is exposed to flooding to broader and layered factors
of why and how certain segments of society are more exposed or show
different abilities to recover from disasters (O'Hare and White, 2018).
In order to do so, studies of procedural justice in the EJ literature
largely focus on qualitative methods, drawing from ethnography and
anthropology in order to capture the fairness of the institutional
processes through which decisions are made. Studies looked at how
residents and activists are organized and what their counter-claims are
and how they mobilize against industrial contamination (Maantay, 2002;
Checker, 2007; Sze \emph{et al.}, 2009) and more recently, public health
risks exacerbated by climate change in Special Maritime and Industrial
Areas (Bautista, Osorio and Dwyer, 2015) or groups capabilities to forge
alliances with powerful actors in the climate resilience arena (Allen,
2007; Holland, 2017).

Procedural justice scholars have suggested studying different aspects of
procedural justice, including \textbf{recognition} as the `\selectlanguage{english}processes of
disrespect, insult and degradation that devalue some people and some
place identities in comparison to others' (Walker, 2009:615) or, in
other words the lack of recognition about group difference in a society
where some groups are privileged while others are oppressed (Schlosberg,
2003). Recognition or lack thereof, is embedded in cultural norms and in
discourses that frame the ways in which problems and their solutions are
conceived by both groups in power and those who are less so.

How does the embedding of misrecognition in cultural norm occur? In her
research across the U.S., Pulido (2017) theorized the linkage between
capitalism and race, where differential value has been reproduced in
struggles over appropriation and access to land as well as labor system,
and capital when, for instance, industry and manufactures create sinks,
places where pollution can be disposed of, in the form of air, water and
land but also racially devaluating bodies, as well as the neighborhoods
where they reside. Place stigmatization arises from such
institutionalized understandings of misrecognition, where ``marked
people in marked places become expected to live with incivilities and
blamed for not looking after their environment'' (Walker, 2009:627).
Importantly, when disasters strike, these sites can become entangled
with ongoing processes of organized abandonment in already racialized or
marginal sites (Allen, 2007).

\textbf{Participation and procedure} are also seen as integral
components of how injustice is produced, they are the tools for
addressing injustices because they relate to how people are allowed to
take part in processes of decision making. Schlosberg, quoting Gould,
says that taking differences in public life seriously means a radical
increase in opportunity for participation, for individuals to have an
equal right in determining their own actions. This is a central demand
in EJ movements, but it is also very much linked with both recognition
and distribution, for as Schlosberg says ``one must have recognition in
order to have real participation; one must have participation in order
to have real equity; further equity would make more participation
possible, which would bring more recognition, and so on'' (96).

Justice as procedure is about enabling access to spaces, and flows
between spaces, that have previously been restricted (Barnett and Low,
2004 in Walker, 2009). ~This means for communities to have access to
accurate information and unbiased hearing of claims in material terms,
where time and space constraints of everyday life limit abilities to be
present in participatory spaces, from local meetings at community boards
and EJ groups led public deliberations. I refer to public deliberation
as ``meetings where citizens collectively discuss local problems and
possible solutions'' (Fagotto and Archon, 2014:7) about coastal flooding
exposure and resilience and connected concerns around housing, health
and planning more broadly. Again, we see the circularity of the
relationship between participation and recognition. Access to spaces
where the claims of groups affected by environmental decisions can be
voiced, requires bringing people who are mis-recognized into a political
process with people that treat them as full partners in social life --
as worthy of equal respect and esteem in decision processes and
procedures. Recognizing the experience of lay-people as valid as those
of experts who are informed by science is a contentious point that
unites both EJ and Society Technology Studies (STS).

\selectlanguage{english}Just like the politics of EJ is fraught with expert lay-people
conflicts that often pit communities exposed to environmental harms
against well-funded government or industry experts, so are the politics
of resilience, where there is often a notable lack of consensus about
the meaning and priority of competing claims over what climate
resilience plans should look like at the local level (Allen, 2007;
Bulkeley, Edwards and Fuller, 2014; Eriksen, Nightingale and Eakin,
2015). This can be compounded by the use of standard comparison
techniques or techniques to determine loss and damage, that miss out on
important differences between black and white populations, or low-income
residents. In the EJ literature, Checker (2007) studied the biases that
shaped an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) risk assessment report
on the level of contamination of air, soil and groundwater contamination
around a declining urban area in Augusta (Georgia), showing that the way
in which risks are problematized serve science but not environmental
justice necessarily. Bryant (1995) posited, that issues of certainty and
causality, or lack thereof, can be used to justify inaction or
misrepresent the complexity of the communities that agencies like EPA,
are supposed to help.

Issues of uncertainty in exposure to environmental harm can, quite
literarily, split communities in two, between those who believe in the
accuracy of the scientific establishment and those who don't. In line
with this, Ottinger, Barandiar\selectlanguage{ngerman}án and Kimura (2017) recently argued for
\textbf{epistemic justice} as a separate category of justice, along with
distributional and procedural. With this term the authors identify
``people's right to be respected in their capacities as knowers''
(2017:1032) which means that, in demanding for their experience to be
weighted as much as that of vetted experts, EJ activists are also
demanding recognition for their cultural identities as well as their
identity as knowers. One of the ways in which different knowledge claims
find their expression is through community-based environmental justice
research and planning to \selectlanguage{english}help remediate particular environmental and
pollution threats in communities of color and generate new knowledge
about the relationship of race, poverty, health, and the urban
environment (Sze, 2007) and, more recently, climate change induced
flooding and energy poverty (see section 1.1).

In the pursuit of alternative forms of community research and planning,
EJ groups ask different questions, looking for ways to represent ongoing
systematic hazards rather than assessing regulatory compliance. For
instance, Sze (2007) documented how since the mid-nineties, WeAct and
other environmental justice groups active in Brooklyn and Manhattan
(NYC) \selectlanguage{english}have transformed their activism around environmental justice and
clean air issues into research programs that emphasize community
empowerment in study design and data collection. Using the principle of
``speaking for ourselves'', WeAct \selectlanguage{english}developed the position that
communities of color ``are not objects of study but rather must be
active collaborators with researchers and institutions to assess and
eliminate the causes of poor health'' (157). ~Community-based planning
often allows the expression of alternative ideas to mainstream planning
for the use of open spaces, especially along politicized spaces such as
NYC's waterfronts.

~

\subsection*{2.3. Research~Questions}

{\label{334656}}

Recognition, participation and epistemic dimensions of justice are a
crucial component of understanding what is normally glossed over in
official resilience and adaptation policy documents and is not captured
by distributional studies of flooding: the why and how specific social
groups may be more or less affected by coastal flooding. This pilot
study advances a set of research questions aimed at capturing procedural
dimensions as they unfold on the ground and in alternative community
planning documents in East Harlem, New York City. The overall study
question is:

\begin{itemize}
\tightlist
\item
  How can public deliberation around coastal flooding in East Harlem be
  conceived of from a procedural justice perspective?
\end{itemize}

In order to answer this question I ask:

\begin{itemize}
\tightlist
\item
  How are local conceptions of environmental justice tied to coastal
  flooding in the way community groups describe vulnerability and
  resilience responses?
\item
  What are the instruments of policy deliberation in place around issues
  of coastal flooding?
\item
  What are community groups' perceived hindrances in accessing these
  instruments?
\item
  What types of knowledges are produced, used and shared around coastal
  flooding among community groups?
\end{itemize}

\section*{3. Methods and Analysis}

{\label{methods-and-analysis}}

In line with the tradition of procedural justice studies, I utilized
qualitative methods in this research. Qualitative research is often used
when one seeks to understand a given problem from the perspective of the
local population it involves. It is especially useful in collecting
values, opinions, behaviors and the social contexts of particular
populations (Cataldo, Kielmann and Seeley, 2011). This approach suits
the aim of this pilot study that is to understand from community groups
themselves how they address the relationship between flooding and
environmental justice, what they think about the public opportunities
available to deliberate about issues of flooding and finally whether and
how they produce, use, share knowledge and information about flooding.

\subsubsection*{}

{\label{914365}}

\subsection*{\texorpdfstring{\textsuperscript{Interviews}}{Interviews}}

{\label{381621}}

In terms of methods I decided to use an open-ended format, which unlike
close-ended ones (surveys, questionnaires), allows the interviewees to
speak at length about how they perceive coastal flooding in East Harlem
and understand the variation in their understandings. Semi-structured
interviews were conducted to capture the following:

\begin{enumerate}
\tightlist
\item
  General overview of the interviewee and the community group
  interviewees work for
\item
  How coastal flooding is understood/described, whether it is a major
  issue in the district
\item
  How inland flooding is understood/described, whether it is a major
  issue in the district
\item
  How sensitivity to coastal flooding is understood/described in terms
  of characteristics of groups and areas affected
\item
  How climate resiliency is understood/described and whether city
  efforts address the sensitivities previously discussed in point 5
\item
  Climate-induced flooding knowledge production, access and sharing
\end{enumerate}

The initial target was set for nine interviews across a variety of
groups working in East Harlem. The purposive sampling was based on the
broad criteria that the community groups needed to be sensitive to
flooding, meaning that flooding needed to be a concern in the work they
carried out. I needed help identify such groups so I asked to Hope Inc.
and Ascendant, two community development corporations of East Harlem
with whom I was working with at the time of this study. The list
included housing association, schools, EJ and advocacy groups, the
community board, NGOs, emergency preparedness groups. But, despite
repeated follow up emails, only three were secured, largely due to the
amount of time I had (1 month) and the busy schedules of the EJ groups
such as WeAct, who were out in the field for campaigning month. I
include the whole list below with those I actually interviewed
highlighted in yellow below. The names of the interviewees were deleted
to ensure privacy.\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{longtable}[]{@{}llll@{}}
\toprule
\textbf{ORGANIZATION NAME} & \textbf{TYPOLOGY (NGO, VOLUNTEERING, ETC)}
& \textbf{WEBSITE} & \textbf{RATIONALE FOR INCLUSION}\tabularnewline
\midrule
\endhead
{WeACT} & NGO & https://www.weact.org/whoweare/ & Community Organizer \&
Outreach Coordinator in the Upper West Side\tabularnewline
{Civitas} & NGO & http://civitasnyc.org/live/east-harlem-rezoning/ &
Policy/Advocacy/Planning in Carnegie Hill\tabularnewline
{East Harlem CERT} & NGO & & Emergency preparedness /
response\tabularnewline
{East Harlem CB 11} & community board & https://www.cb11m.org/5479-2/ &
CB 11 District Leader\tabularnewline
{George Washington Houses} & tenant association &
http://www.east-harlem.com/index.php/Organizations/oview/washington\_houses\_nycha/
& NYCHA housing at risk in Spanish Harlem\tabularnewline
{DREAM School} & charter school &
https://www.wearedream.org/mission-impact/ & Climate Resiliency
Leadership Lab leader in Spanish Harlem\tabularnewline
{Friends of the East River Esplanade} & community org &
https://www.esplanadefriends.org/about-us & Advocates for the
expeditious repair of the Esplanade's infrastructure from 60th to 120th
Streets in East Harlem\tabularnewline
\bottomrule
\end{longtable}

All interviews were recorded with the consent of the interviewee and
were transcribed on a word document. Considering the small number of
interviews, no analysis software was use but themes were identified
through keyword search.

\subsubsection*{}

{\label{on-the-use-of-quotes-in-the-analysis}}

\subsubsection*{On the use of quotes in the
analysis}

{\label{on-the-use-of-quotes-in-the-analysis}}

The use of quotes or verbatim from participants is a typical and
necessary component to any qualitative research report. It is by
revealing participants' exact language that the researcher helps the
user of the research to understand the key takeaways by clarifying
through illustration the essential points of the researcher's
interpretations. The idea is not to display an extensive list of what
people said but rather provide quotes that have been carefully selected
for being the most descriptive or explanatory of the researcher's
conceptual interpretation of the data. By embedding carefully chosen
extracts from participants' words in the final document, the researcher
uniquely gives participants a voice in the outcomes while contributing
to the credibility --~\emph{and transparency} -- of the research
(Morrow, 2005).

\subsubsection*{}

{\label{observations-at-public-meetings}}

\subsubsection*{Observations at Public
Meetings}

{\label{observations-at-public-meetings}}

To make up for the interviews that I was not able to attend I increased
the number of public meetings I observed, from two to four. These
community group meetings were called around a variety of issues directly
or indirectly connected to coastal and inland flooding and specifically.
The first meeting was organized by Hope Inc. and in this occasion, I
presented the findings from a coastal flooding mapping project I carried
out as part of my GIS course at the New School. The project was a
cooperation with Hope and Ascendant. The conversation that ensued
between the two managers at Hope and Ascendant revealed some important
aspects and concerns of matters CDCs when it comes to flooding. During
this and the other 3 meetings I attended I took notes in a notebook
about the themes naturally addressed by the meetings' organizers and
those brought up by attendees. The meetings attended with topics and
attendees are listed below. The choice about what to attend was driven
by the topic addressed in the meeting, I didn't have a lot of choice
given the short amount of time I had for field work; it had to be an
issue that was directly -- climate resilience - or indirectly connected
to flooding -- such as land use and planning. The full list of meetings
I attended is shown below with date of attendance, topic and number of
attendees.

\begin{enumerate}
\tightlist
\item
  Meeting topic: exposure to coastal flooding in publicly funded,
  privately owned housing. HOPE Inc HQs (March 29, 2019) \textgreater{}
  number of attendees: 6
\item
  Meeting topic: land use and planning. Community Board 11 (April 3,
  2019) \textgreater{} number of attendees: 10 community board members:
  8 people in audience
\item
  Meeting topic: full Community Board 11 meeting (April 16, 2019)
  \textgreater{} number of attendees: 10 community board members; 30
  people in audience
\item
  Meeting topic: climate change resilience working group. WeAct HQs
  (April 24, 2019) \textgreater{} number of attendees: 3 WeAct members;
  15 people in the audience
\end{enumerate}

I practiced participant observations during both one-to-one interviews
and meetings. They helped me to collect information on naturally
occurring behaviors in their usual contexts, such as how interviewees
addressed other staff members in my presence, but also their working
spaces and the room set up at community meeting.

\par\null

\subsubsection*{Secondary content
Analysis}

{\label{secondary-content-analysis}}

Finally, I reviewed official policy documents about East Harlem,
focusing on the recently published Rezoning Plan (2017) for the district
and two community-based plans. One produced in 2015 called the Northern
Manhattan Climate Change Action Plan (NMCA) led by WeAct and the East
Harlem Neighborhood Plan, the 2016 plan that was brought to life by
community groups at the news of a possible rezoning of the district. In
each document I searched for keywords related to exposure and
interventions, such as: climate change, vulnerability, resilience,
adaptation, flooding, storm surge, extreme events, elevation, building
design, berm, sea-wall, green infrastructure.

\section*{}

{\label{east-harlem-outlook}}

\section*{4. East Harlem Outlook}

{\label{east-harlem-outlook}}

\subsection*{}

{\label{section}}

\subsection*{4.1 East Harlem's Exposure to Extreme
Events}

{\label{east-harlems-exposure-to-extreme-events}}

In this study flood risk is conceived of exposure and social
vulnerability. Exposure is referred to as the susceptibility of people,
properties and systems to being affected by environmental related
hazards (Ka\selectlanguage{polish}ź\selectlanguage{english}mierczak and Cavan, 2011). East Harlem offers an interesting
set of flood risk characteristics in that 92\% of the housing units are
rentals and NYCHA owns the largest number of public housing apartments
in any of the City's 59 community districts (DiNapoli and Bleiwas,
2017). According to the 2010 Census, 40,000 people lived within the
neighborhood's 10-foot floodplain. East Harlem is made up of two zip
codes 10029 and 10035. Both zip codes rank second out of all Manhattan
zip codes for the number of homes that will be exposed to a
six-foot-flood, according to statistics extrapolated from Climate
Central's Surging Seas Risk Finder platform (2019). Together the two zip
codes total 637 buildings exposed to a six-foot-flood with a total
property value of \$ 169 Million (Ibid). This includes also 89 public
schools (66 the Manhattan media; U.S. 2010 Census Data), 139 NYCHA
buildings (21 the Manhattan median; U.S. 2010 Census Data) and 54
between hospital and clinics (25 the Manhattan median; U.S. 2010 Census
Data) (Ibid). The entire East Harlem floodplain currently contains
\$2.14 billion in physical assets (Ibid)., this is without considering
the expansion of the Second Avenue subway that will extend the Q line
till 125th St, adding 16 new stations and approximately 300,000 daily
riders (MTA, 2019). East Harlem's elevation is also, on average, the
second lowest in Manhattan, with 17 feet (DCP, 2018).

\par\null

\subsection*{4.2. East Harlem's Sensitivity to Extreme
Events}

{\label{east-harlems-sensitivity-to-extreme-events}}

Social vulnerability explicitly focuses on those demographic and
socioeconomic factors that increase or attenuate the impacts of hazard
events on local populations (Cutter~\emph{et al.} , 2009). There are 147
people with medium social vulnerability and 862 people with high social
vulnerability in 10035 and 10029 respectively (Ibid), with ''high'' and
''low'' indicating the 20\% most and least vulnerable in coastal areas
of each U.S. state. A recent study (Albetski~\emph{et al.} , 2017)
categorized East Harlem's vulnerability in three dimensions:
socioeconomic status, household composition and disability, minority
status and language, housing and transportation access.

In terms of socioeconomic status, \selectlanguage{english}although the median household income
in East Harlem increased by 23\% since the end of the recession in 2009
to \$34,400 in 2016, it was the seventh-lowest among the 55
Census-defined neighborhoods in New York City and much lower than the
citywide median (\$58,900) (DiNapoli and Bleiwas, 2017). In order to
afford current median market rents one would need to earn at least
\$85,000 for a one person household and \$100,000 for a three-person
household (NYC DHP\&D, 2018). \selectlanguage{english}In 2016, 43\% of area households devoted
30\% or more of their income on rent and nearly 18\% faced severe health
burden dedicating at least half of their income to rent (Ibid.).

From a household composition and disability standpoint, of all seniors,
40\% are living alone of which 32\% have difficulty with their mobility
(Mark-Viverito \emph{et al.}, 2016). Research show that people living in
poverty and who are socially marginalized have reduced capacity for
self-protection in terms of mitigating flood hazards or extreme heat at
home pre-event, evacuating~in response to flooding, or returning home or
to employment in the aftermath of a flooding event, accessing social
protection such as flood insurance, hazard mitigation infrastructure,
emergency response information and assistance (Watts \emph{et al.} ,
2015; Maldonado, Collins and Grineski, 2016).

Also, certain vulnerable age groups are rising faster in East Harlem.
For example, the population under the age of 18 grew by 21\% between
2010 and 2016, which is 10 times faster than the citywide rate. The
population over the age of 55 rose twice as fast (27\%) as the citywide
growth. Children and elderly have special needs in preparation for and
in response to a disaster. Education levels are on the rise, but largely
due to the educational attainment of new people arriving to the
neighborhood. Of the long-term residents who lived in the area for at
least 10 years, 18\% earned a bachelor degree, whereas 56\% of the
residents who had moved in within the past four years had earned at
least a bachelor's degree (DiNapoli and Bleiwas, 2017).

In terms of minority and language status East Harlem's ethnic make up
has always been eclectic and historically more culturally segregated
than it is today (Goldstein, 2017). Today this ethnic diversity
continues. According to recent statistics East Harlem is 44\% Puerto
Rican, 30\% African American, both populations have decreased over time,
while \selectlanguage{english}the white population increased by 172\% to 21,300 residents,
representing 16\% of the population. The Asian population grew sevenfold
to 11,100 residents, making up 8\% of the total. Other types of
vulnerability include undocumented populations, non-English speaking
people and formerly incarcerated people, all of whom are frequently
excluded from political decision making, and hence also less control
over the distribution of resources after a disaster event (Green, Bates
and Smyth, 2007; Watkins, 2013).

From a housing perspective, East Harlem is a community of renters, with
rent-regulated apartments totaling \selectlanguage{english}17,450 units, or 40\% of all rental
units. The East Harlem Rezoning Plan approved by the New York City
Council in 2017, is expected to result in a net increase of
approximately 3,500 dwelling units, a substantial proportion of which
are expected to be affordable. The Community Board 11, initially voted
against the rezoning, and since has been negotiating that between 20\%
of the housing remain available for households making less than \$25,770
for a family of three and 30\% for families making between \$25,770 and
\$103,080 (The New York Times, 2019). But there is reason to believe
that the East Harlem Rezoning may hand over more of the affordable
housing stock into the hands of property developers, reframing what
affordability means by potentially increasing the density of market rate
housing or changing the ways in which local people can afford the
amenities in their neighborhood. This is troubling for, over the past
decade or so, New York city housing has been shifting in favor of more
middle and high priced rentals, in a glaring erosion to the inventory of
rent regulated housing (Stringer, 2018). This situation compounds future
climate-related crisis in that, when housing is destroyed or damaged
people in neighborhoods with high percentages of poverty and rent
burden, it is financially very difficult to recover, especially if they
have to relocate. One of the interviewees also pointed out something
that may be quite well known to organizations working on the ground in
East Harlem but not so much to city officials:

\par\null

``{[}..{]} \emph{Those folks cannot go to their summer house or friends'
apartments or go across town and rent a hotel. Similarly to seniors,
there are some who would live with a fire, they would deal with the
smoke. If you're lower income where do you go? The evacuation center is
your only shot. You also need to have the confidence to leave your
place, you may ask yourself whether someone is going to break into your
place while you're gone. you have to protect your stuff, that's the
other thing people won't budge. people are going to weigh it. I know I
can replace my record collection if I lose it, right, I don't know if I
can replace it and identify so strongly with that, I'm not budging.
Because I know once I leave (my apartment) then knucklehead over here
will start breaking down doors and taking stuff. It's not something that
people in other areas have at the front of their mind. if you don't have
you identify with what you have.} '' (Interviewee, 1)

\par\null

Following from this argument, is not only that people do not have
anywhere else to go to in case of an emergency, they may not want to
leave all together because of the fear of loathing and attachment to the
little that is possessed. This can be the source of potential conflict
and put people more at risk in the context of evacuations but it also
means that issues of recognition, such as long-term institutional
abandonment and disenfranchisement are easy to be tied with the
differential vulnerability experienced by some sections of the East
Harlem population in aftermath of climate disasters (more on this in par
5.3).

\subsection*{}

{\label{821274}}

\subsection*{4.3 Community Group's Understandings of Coastal and Inland
Flooding Exposure and
Vulnerability}

{\label{community-groups-understandings-of-coastal-and-inland-flooding-exposure-and-vulnerability}}

The perceptions of the current saliency of coastal flooding among those
interviewed and from the discussions at public meetings ranges from very
important to not so important, for several reasons: 1) the time since
Sandy makes respondents perceive flooding as an issue of secondary
importance today; 2) citizens may not necessarily complain about
flooding events with the organizations I spoke to; 3) only one of the
three organizations I spoke to was more directly involved in resilience
advocacy or planning; 4) EJ groups were busy campaigning on other
issues, such as heat; and 4) there are many more important issues that
NGOs, housing associations and EJ groups deal with on a day to day basis
in a neighborhood like East Harlem. I will briefly expand upon these
reasons below but will also refer to the perceptions of flooding that
did arise during the interviews and meetings.

Firstly, Sandy was a 1 in a 100-year event that happened six years ago,
but since then coastal flooding events of even lesser magnitude have
seemingly not occurred. For the Community Board (CB) the issue is not a
priority topic at the moment nor it was in the past years, but, as it
typically happens, it was much more talked about in the aftermath of
Sandy. But prior to Sandy, resilience or climate change were also not
topics of discussion at the CB. Since the storm conversations about the
climate and flooding ``came to us'' the interviewee said, and by that he
referred to the engagement that the Parks Department and the Mayor's
Office of Resilience had with the East Harlem's CB and other local
groups in the making of the East Harlem Resiliency Study, due out this
Spring.

Secondly, even when asked about inland flooding, it's clear that
citizens make use of the CB for issues that are not related to flooding
because they probably believe that fire department may be a more
appropriate call. That citizens are not resorting to the CB makes sense,
after all its primary objectives are different. CBs were set up by the
New York City Charter in 1963 as advisory boards to the city planning
commission. In 1976 the \selectlanguage{english}Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) was
adopted, mandating that community boards review and vote on all land use
applications affecting the community (Sze \emph{et al.} , 2009), but
later CBs began to play a role also in the municipal budgeting process
and be responsible for service delivery in the district. CBs oversee how
agencies are addressing the needs of constituents and how requests
submitted by constituents are being addressed by agencies. CBs, for
instance, approve motions to extend or grant new liquor licenses,
changes in property ownership of commercial establishments and changes
to opening and closing hours. ULURP, however, is only an advisory
process, so the city can ignore the board's vote.

Thirdly, only one of the three organizations that I was able to
interview in this pilot study is directly connected to climate
resilience and flooding prevention agendas. CIVITAS, a small NGO
initiated by citizens fighting to preserve the character of Carnegie
Hill from oversized developments, is largely dedicated to space
improvements such as ``\emph{new developments that are degrading the
quality of spaces, the proportion, the character of the
streets}{[}\ldots{}{]} we care for~\emph{how the neighborhood is going
to change and how it is going to retain previous generations} .''
(Interviewee 2). But their remit has enlarged from neighborhood
presentations and land use planning to the advocating for resilient
designs, such as living shorelines on the waterfront's edge. ``\emph{We
were the ones that created the master plan that was the implemented
alone the East River Esplanade. At least portions of it. While FERE are
often focused on the maintenance, we plan, do community participation,
we put together ideas/solutions but we don't usually implement them.
That's private money of the parks department. we're usually the ones
that study it first and find out what can be done} '' (Interviewee 2).

Fourthly, the timing of my interview or observations at meetings may
have also played a role. As the summer is approaching, WeAct, for
instance, has been campaigning all month long on issues related to heat
and heat related impacts in their focus neighborhoods. Flooding is not a
top priority in East Harlem at the moment, yet the meeting I attended at
the WeAct headquarters was called upon by the Department of City
Planning (DCP), currently working on the new Comprehensive Waterfront
Development Plan, issued every 10 years. The plan is required by
legislation (by a 2008 Law concerned with the loss of the Maritime
Industry, especially in Brooklyn districts like Red Hook, Greenpoint,
Sunset Park) but does not hold legal weight in and of itself. It was in
the last plan issued in 2011 (called Vision 2020), the DCP officer
explained, that climate change and resilience concerns along the
waterfront became an important consideration along with existing
concerns, such as the need for waterfront properties to provide
waterfront public access as part of their developments. Although the
plan has no legal weight it, Vision 2020 had a strong influence on the
strategies for recovery and resiliency after Hurricane Sandy. During
this meeting attendees raised a host of problems throughout waterfront
areas of Manhattan, one of the most important ones was related to how
the development of waterfront amenities, which may include green
infrastructure, can lead to further gentrification.

Finally, with the community outlook I detailed in 5.1 and 5.2, coastal
flooding in East Harlem is perceived as one issue among many, some of
which are much more persistent in the lives of, especially, its poor and
poorest inhabitants (those living below income levels of \$30,000 per
year). In the words of the director of the NGO: ``\emph{We have a hard
time talking to people in a lot of these neighborhoods about flooding,
about the environment, about even health and wellbeing, transit and bike
lanes. They don't even have heating in their apartments or have led
paint that's peeling on the walls, or mice running around the counter
tops. how can we be worried about a park or a flood, we don't even own
the house, we are living day to day\ldots{}so they're living a life of
survival, not a life of quality} '' (Interviewee 2). These issues will
be expanded upon in 5.3.

Nevertheless, it was possible to discern perceptions of exposure and
sensitivity to coastal flooding by what interviewees recalled about
Hurricane Sandy. Some referred to the extent of the flooding as a
monitor of exposure \emph{``flooding came all the way back to the
viaduct at Park Avenue. You are not talking about only a block or two}
''. (Interviewee 2). Civitas also recognized the biophysical exposure
that specific areas right below 110th St. have, due to the natural
ecosystem and topography of Central Park and the rivers that used to
flow out to the East River. This becomes obvious when one compares a map
of Northern Manhattan in 1600 Century, with FEMA 2015 flood projections
(Figure 1), where the flooding extent in the FEMA map follows a similar
inland path as the one of the river just below where 110th St is today
on the 1600 map.\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/image1/image1}
\caption{{Couldn't find a caption, edit here to supply one.
{\label{div-471744}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

Staff at Washington Houses, instead, which is facing Second Avenue and
is partially affected by the 2015 FEMA floodplain, connected Sandy and
sensitivity to the high level of emergency (un)preparedness they
experienced, as they initially did not know where to go in the aftermath
of Sandy, since there continues to be no evacuation shelter in East
Harlem (the only one is PS 92 on 222 W 134 Street, in Central Harlem).
The East Harlem Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) instructed
Washington Houses Tenants, to go to the Dream Charter School, formerly
Harlem RBI, which was rebuilt in 2008 on NYCHA property, just next to
Washington Houses. Washington Houses was largely spared by Sandy, but
narrowly. Yet there are 22,000 people living in this development, some
of which have lived all their lives in these units, many with mobility
problems and unable to use smart phones. Poor emergency preparedness is
tied to a culture of neglect that unfortunately NYCHA is famous for. The
interviewee referred to a ``\emph{lack of sense of belonging} '' and to
NYCHA inhabitants as having a ``\emph{culture of disenfranchisement} ''
which is both influenced by the physical degradation of the properties
-- some of the basements at Washington Houses have been closed off
because of the amounts of rats in them -- the severe unreliability of
services like heating in winter, the unavailability of NYCHA staff --
which deal with complaints through a phone app that many elderly are not
trained to use. Faced with issues of such magnitude coastal flooding
just fades in the background. Yet mistrust in institutions,
stigmatization may all play a detrimental role in the event of a
flooding as people prefer to hanker down rather than leaving the
premises.

The stigmatizing of NYCHA renters versus homeowners by some NYC
authorities is well documented in the study by Graham (2018). Graham
attended local community board meetings and other Sandy recovery
planning meetings interviewing 50 local residents. Graham talks of there
being `an invisible divide' between the homeowners and the public
housing tenants, the latter being stigmatized as black people of color,
an `inferior status' which rationalized their unequal treatment. One of
the reasons for the alienation felt by tenants is clearly of an
institutional nature and it here that we observe how issues of
recognition are tied with institutional practices: the U.S. Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) has its own resident councils, which lead
tenants to focus their efforts on HUD only rather than on community-wide
efforts that interest NYCHA tenants. Moreover NYCHA's
``para-governmental'' status, allows it to operate with very little
managerial and budgetary oversight at the state and local level.

Both coastal and inland flooding exposure are seen as important issues
by Community Development Corporations (CDCs), where CDC managers and
some of their young staff play a key role in raising the need for
evidence of exposure and damages but also for actions to be better
prepared for the next big storm and rainfall. CDCs like Hope Inc. and
Ascendant, perceived their properties to be vulnerable to `blue sky
flooding'. This is the type of flooding occurring without stormy weather
and influenced by high tides at seas, high ground water table and
surface elevation. There is anecdotal evidence that this type of
flooding affects basements of properties owned by Hope Inc, which are
recurrently flooded, but for which Hope has very little funding for left
over after what goes towards regular building maintenance. Moreover,
coastal flooding will increasingly become and issues, as a recent study
showed that 84\% of Hope properties and 35\% of Ascendants' may be
affected by coastal flooding by 2050 (Olivotto and Almonte, 2019).

Hope has been receiving a number of~violations from ConEd -- NYC's
energy company - because as flooding affects basements, officers cannot
access gas and water readings~stored there. Because of these violations,
Hope has been unable to close housing retrofitting deals with
for-profit-banks they partner with. Yet there is no way to prove that a
violation was issued as the result of flooding in the basement. For both
Hope and Ascendant collecting and systematizing evidence -- even if
anecdotal -- of flooding in basements, is an important step towards
trying to address even greater issues facing affordable housing in the
context of flooding. Hope, for instance, voiced concerns at the new
developments built since Sandy in the Hurricane Flood Zone. Although
these are going up with new mitigation measures, would their foundations
affect the flow of underground water aquifers, causing worse flooding
elsewhere, perhaps in CDC homes?

In summary, although the pilot relies on a handful of interviews,
perceptions of exposure and sensitivity to coastal and inland flooding
in East Harlem vary due to some of the factors I explained above.
Coastal flooding exposure was understood in terms of extent of water
reach in the aftermath of Sandy, as a legacy of the natural biophysical
properties of the land, while inland flooding exposure was connected to
rainfall and high-water tables, leading to `blue sky flooding', or as
the consequence of newly built developments which may shift aquifer
waters elsewhere and worsen flooding when it happens. Some interviewees
did not seem to be aware of the jargon `inland flooding' but called
flooding anything that had to do with high levels of water affecting
people's ability to carry out their daily lives.

Vulnerability was understood as poor emergency preparedness, aggravated
by the existing living conditions of the poor and poorest public housing
dwellers. This condition is systemic because it largely results from the
under funding of and lack of oversight over NYCHA but is also the result
of past planning decisions that in 1957 built these properties in the
only place where cheap land was still available, the floodplain, at a
time when flooding issues were not on the table. CDCs, instead,
understood vulnerability as basement flooding in CDC apartments.
Perceptions of vulnerability also varied according to location and
perceived area affluence. For instance, interviewee 1 referred to
``pockets'' of vulnerability in El Barrio, Riverton and on the public
housing developments on the shore, but less so are in areas around 5th
Avenue, Riverbend to the North, and other housing cooperatives where
``economically stable and politically active people'' especially in the
latter, reside (Interviewee 1).

\par\null

\subsection*{4.4 Perceptions of Climate Resilience Interventions and of
City
Efforts}

{\label{perceptions-of-climate-resilience-interventions-and-of-city-efforts}}

Climate resilience against flooding was perceived as: 1) an issue of
land use and building design; 2) an opportunity for ecological designs;
3) a need for better emergency preparedness and emergency funds; 4) an
issue of building materials; 5) an opportunity for tax credits and more
comprehensive assessment of housing retrofitting costs; 6) as `the
impossibility' of relocating lower income households that are most at
risk'. All points are discussed in more detail below.

The issue of land use and building design was brought up by both the
Community Board and the CDCs. As part of its land use review duties, the
Community Board has had discussions with DCP during the review of the
Zoning Quality and Affordability Overview, where mitigation measures for
new buildings were being drafted, such as giving floor area back if the
building was built higher or designating only certain uses on the ground
floors (e.g. commercial, rather than residential). Since then, the CB
has added specific check marks on a list it keeps to remind CB members
what are the most recurrent questions they should be asking to all
developers seeking the Boards' approval, illustrated by this quote
``\emph{there is a new project that we are considering issuing
recommendations for and because of its proximity to the river, on 120th
St, it's going to have to consider what do you with the first couple of
floors, what are you putting there, is it going to be a parking space or
commercial space or something else. So, this is a dialogue we have at
the land use committee''.}

Both organizations felt that dealing largely with new building designs
wasn't enough. Although there's now a requirement for existing buildings
to remove boilers from basements and ground floors, the costs of this
and other mitigation measures are entirely, for instance, on CDCs
property owners, who perceive the necessity of a long-term commitment
with the government. For instance, one CDC expressed the need for
``underwriting a deal where low income housing are given tax credits to
be able to do the necessary mitigation measures''. Another CDC manager
mentioned the need for ``district wide assessment of the costs of
retrofitting existing buildings, as it doesn't make financial sense that
each development does its own''. Housing materials that are more
resistant to mold, like sheet rock, were also discussed, but so far
neither CDC began any rehabilitation process. Neither CDCs had given
significant thought about vacating the ground floor from residential
units, there seemed to be too many impossible logistics: ``where would
people go? What to do with the vacant units? Why would HPD eliminate
affordable housing units, when there's actually more need for them?''

The CB interviewee acknowledged the issue as well: ``\emph{we had
informal conversations about new buildings on a NYCHA Estate as it
relates to infill development. If you're going to have a new building on
a NYCHA Estate, the new people living there will be benefiting about the
new way of thinking about possible flooding, versus people that are
right next to it who won't. Do you start thinking about well if I have
10 empty apartments in a building do I fix those apartments, move
everyone from the ground/first floor into these apartments and then just
stop using the first floor for residential, and make a community space
or a commercial space''.} This is a crucial issue that a procedural
justice can daylight, which relates to the potential for unequal
distribution of resilience benefits between new and existing
developments. NYCHA should be replicating good practices in new
buildings also in old ones, but executing works in old buildings is
perceived as a problem: \emph{``we'll make a formal recommendation (to
the land use committee) at some point but it's a huge ask because it's a
lot of developments, the executing may be a difficult part} ''
(Interviewee 1).

Both the CDC and Washington Houses expressed the need for better
emergency preparedness, specifically in terms of needing a new
evacuation shelter that is outside the floodplain and closer to the
hearth of East Harlem. Discussions on this have happened within the
frame of the Rezoning Plan but no final decision had been made. Yet
shelters are not the only need when housing tenants have mobility
issues, something more is needed. The Washington Houses and Dream
Charter School teachers cooperated in 2018 to design and distribute an
emergency preparedness survey that was answered by 35 households to
understand how vulnerable their tenants were: ``we discovered that 70\%
of the respondents had one person with disabilities in their homes''
(Interviewee 3). Even though a booklet with the survey results was
distributed in different languages with information on what to do in
case of evacuation, there still remains a logistical issue to move
people with disabilities outside and have sufficient support on the way
to the shelter.

Finally, CIVITAS sees flooding as an opportunity to re-think the
waterfront, lawns, drainage systems and the whole emergency apparatus.
This view, on one hand, stands in contrast to the hard infrastructure,
like sea walls, proposed in the Rezoning Plan (Planning, 2016), but is
quite aligned with the ongoing Resilience Study by the Parks Dept. (NYC
Parks and NYC Planning, 2018) CIVITAS has been doing preliminary
background work, with the DEC at State level, to implement the idea of
living shorelines in a comprehensive fashion. Living shorelines are a
softer solution than bulkheads, preferring natural materials that slow
down wave motion or absorb water while providing ecological benefits.
The Resilience Study by the Parks Dept, quoted by CIVITAS, highlighted
many potential areas, including lawns in front of or within many public
housing, that represent ``largely unused space and could be repurposed
for bios-wales to slow down and absorb storm water''. The interviewee's
experience working as a planner in Miami, played an important role in
shaping ideas around what should be done in New York City, where for
instance, he maintains that all buildings containing first emergency
vehicles should be elevated about floodplain level, at least the
garages, so that as soon as flood waters recede, vehicles can reach
those in need.

In an earlier email exchange with CIVITAS, I also understand something
more fundamental about resilience or that there is a perception that the
city acknowledges the need for alternative designs/solutions on paper
but the reality is far from it. The Parks department is going to spend
over \$100 million in East Harlem to connect 125th St and 132nd St.
along the Harlem River, where currently there is a wall. CIVITAS has
been advocating for a living shoreline instead of bulkheads. This would
entail authorities to `lose' 5-10 feet of land but Parks and the
administration have refused the idea to lose land, they will not ask for
permits for a living shoreline\emph{``because it may slow down the
project''} . This decision is at odds with state regulatory agencies,
who instead believe that this can be done. The frustration was clear:
``\emph{We could be building environmental resiliency and ecological
benefits into this new project, but the ''value'' of an extra 5-10 feet
of grass or benches is determined by Parks to be more valuable than the
environment, even though, if you ask the Mayor, Parks, anyone if they
support climate change, sea level rise adaptation, the environment,
improving water quality, or adding more oysters that would filter more
pollutants, they will all answer yes, we are in favor of environmental
justice, environmental adaptation\ldots{} The actions do not support the
policies, laws, or public views.''}

WeAct, adds an important justice perspective to the considerations
above. DEP has spent over \$40 million to-date on wetlands restoration
and other coastal protections but what remains to be seen if the extent
to which developments will encompass community-based plans or be
leveraged to gentrify waterfront areas (Santiago \emph{et al.} , 2015).
In my brief conversation with a WeAct community organizer, I found out
that none of the ideas proposed in the Northern Manhattan Climate Action
Plan, which included, wetland restoration amongst a host of other
resiliency objectives, had been seriously taken in consideration by the
city.

\par\null

\subsection*{4.5 Climate Knowledge Production, Access, Use and
Sharing}

{\label{climate-knowledge-production-access-use-and-sharing}}

In this part of the study the focus was to collect information about how
community groups engage with information about the location and timing
of future flooding, what do they use it for, how it is accessed and
shared. In general findings suggest that organizations rely on the
weather forecast, online websites and tv or on the information given by
sister agencies, such as DEP and Parks. This after all makes sense, in
big cities the tendency may be to rely on lesser sources of information
already packaged for you by organizations that have the means to produce
knowledge on climate. This is accompanied by less formal or standardized
effort to gather knowledge, such as using weather apps on smart phones
but not as far as asking a neighbor on the street, or just knowing the
direction the wind is blowing or other natural clues. In some sense
knowledge is coming from multiple sites and may be produced quite far
away from people's homes. Yet these knowledge sites come from largely
centralized sources, begging the question of whether areas in the
`countryside' upstate may rely on less modern forms, or whether cultural
differences among New Yorkers may lead to culturally different ways to
understand when a hurricane is about to strike.

The information is used to make practical emergency management decisions
about the days ahead, illustrated in this statement ``I do the same as
in a big snow storm: are you going to come into the office, then maybe
you check what the Mayor is saying, stay off the streets, or schools ae
closed. Same thing applies to a hurricane''. (Interviewee 2) The CB
plays a more complex role, one that is more integrated with the web of
agencies that provided services to New Yorkers, while at the same time
being `closer' to the citizen. When asked what they would do in the
event someone would call the CB alerting about a flood, they would seek
to understand whether other people are having the same problem, by
making phone calls, and if there's a pattern and depending on its
gravity they would either call the police or fire fighters. If the
problem seems not life threatening they would convene a public hearing,
communicate what they learned about the issue and what other authorities
can do to help them: ``do we have to talk to the property owner? or
multiple property owners? is it a matter of local, federal or state
policy?'' (Interviewee 1). The atmosphere experienced at the few CB
meetings I attended speaks to these words. It's a space of dialogue,
where nobody is turned down but also where board members have answers to
your questions, or even if they don't, they will help you to find it out
on your own. At the same time the CB is not so informed as to where
should citizens go in case of a hurricane, they rely entirely on COAD's
or CERT's information and expressed the need for ``information to be
available to constituents directly, so that they know without needing to
contact us. those properties that are in flood zones should have numbers
to call to help people deal with the situation presented'' (Interviewee
1).

In terms of access to events where knowledge about flooding may be made
available three out of four organizations, including WeAct, host events
related to climate resilience. CIVITAS organizes hands-on events along
the East River Esplanade that engage citizens in waterfront wetland
restoration and clean ups. These events indirectly touch upon issues of
stormwater drainage and the benefits of living shorelines. WeAct hosts
monthly public meetings as well as going out in the community to do
advocacy on issues connected to both flooding, energy efficiency and
broad environmental and neighborhood justice. Although they largely
operate on the Upper West Side, they have engaged with East Harlem's
Rezoning Plan process, for instance, by drafting a map of different land
uses and public services with overlaid hurricane zones and the incoming
subway line. This view puts the city rezoning map into a different
light, it makes one question whether all these vital public facilities
should be there since they are within Hurricane Zones 2 and 3. The city
rezoning map carefully omits the hurricane zone overlay (Figure 2)\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/image5/image5}
\caption{{Couldn't find a caption, edit here to supply one.
{\label{div-661973}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/image6/image6}
\caption{{Couldn't find a caption, edit here to supply one.
{\label{div-612919}}%
}}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

Figure WeAct East Harlem Climate Map (to the left) and new East Harlem
Rezoning Map (to the right)

Since its early days, WeAct used participatory techniques \selectlanguage{english}in an attempt
to quantify and use methodologically sound techniques in making policy
claims. For instance, they had a long standing alliance with Columbia
University's School of Public Health in providing research support on
air pollution and its impact on child health (Sze, 2007). This
engagement is 30 years in the making and builds on extensive
community-based planning techniques that consider ``\selectlanguage{english}communities of
color not as objects of study but rather active collaborators with
researchers and institutions'' (185). They consider climate change as an
issue that will exacerbate existing inequalities in planning and
development, therefore they spend years crafting alternative visions for
neighborhoods scheduled to undergo change by the city council. Since
2017, for instance, they engaged residents and associations living and
working on what is perceived to become `the ground zero'' (Velaverde and
Gandhi, 2019) of East Harlem's redevelopment plan, that is \selectlanguage{english}the area
enclosed between East 124th Street to the South and East 126th Street to
the North, and Madison Avenue and Second Avenue on the West and East.
The plan was drafted after an extensive visioning process, where
charrettes were produced detailing concerns and desires of citizens and
associations around transportation, connectivity and access,
neighborhood amenities and streetscape. The result are 4 goals, 8
strategies and a host of actions, addressing economic and cultural
needs, health and safety and environmental resilience including
stormwater management, trees for shading and solar powered LED lighting
on East 125 St.

\par\null

\subsection*{5. Spaces of Deliberation in East Harlem: What
Futures?}

{\label{spaces-of-deliberation-in-east-harlem-what-futures}}

As seen above, along with event organized by some community groups, the
Rezoning of East Harlem led to opportunities to discuss flood
vulnerability that may not be available otherwise. Yet the issue of
turnout at events planned by the organizations I interviewed is big.
Getting the word out to communities that may be the most impacted by
changes in zoning and by flooding is perceived as challenge due to the
scarce resources that the organizations have to, for instance, leave
flyers, when at times this is one way to reach low income groups.
Organizations largely rely on word of mouth by their existing network,
including official authorities like Parks and Council members, and
mailing lists. Participation is influenced by whether individuals have
the time `to be political' even if they have multiple jobs or none at
all.

Elsewhere other planners and civic groups, expressed the feeling that
deliberation processes organized by official authorities are not
transparent and are driven by interests of powerful lobbies. In a recent
Op-Ed for the Gotham Gazette, long term urban designer and city planner
John West (2019), detailed his concerns for transparency and
responsiveness to citizens in the process of forging a future
Comprehensive Plan for New York City. In a follow up email directed to
all affiliated neighborhood organizations, he lamented that city
authorities and the Mayor engage ``\emph{in disingenuous political
theater''} and then act disregarding the negative impact on neighborhood
residents and small businesses\emph{.} The current approach towards
citizens ``\emph{is neither transparent or resident driven rather it is
developer and lobbyist driven'',} going as far as declaring that
the\emph{``Residents are treated to misleading presentations by staffers
who are either not in the know or are ordered to obfuscate and
misdirect''.} West is also against the use of ``legislative language''
at public hearings which is often undergoes significant changes by
lobbyists and developers that make it ``\emph{unrecognizable or
unintelligible''} to lay publics. West advocates for a wide spread
distribution of the exact scope and detail of any such plan and the
exact language that will be used to put a plan into law, requiring full
disclosure of the political ties with interest groups that any public
official or staff member may have with developers, land owners or their
trade associations or lobbyists but also of campaign contributions or
contributions to officially favored non-profits.

While very desirable for a `democracy' like New York City, this seems
far from achievable under the current political leadership. The
implications of such a statement for issues of coastal flooding is that,
at minimum, the rezoning maps of the city should reflect the actual risk
that people and properties may be exposed to, at best a whole new way of
deliberating around the climate would see groups like WeAct, closely
work to produce evidence-based research with universities and CBs who
have a trusted base of citizens and a large network of agencies to tap
into. A new deliberation process may also ask: which powers and
decisions about climate change and urban development might be delegated
to elected neighborhood councils? For example, we might give
neighborhoods and CBs more power over the sustainable management of
public spaces --- sidewalks, street parking, stoplights, the placement
of crossing guards, the organization of trash pickup, street trees,
stormwater, bike racks, parks, public-private plazas. We could also give
residents power to veto egregiously out-of-context buildings, the right
to say no to buildings that require spot rezoning and the right to veto
air-rights transfers that result in an excessive breach of contextual
height limits or veto more developments in the floodplain that may cause
stormwater or coastal surges to flood areas that have benefited from
less resilience measures.

\par\null

\subsection*{5.1 Concluding Reflections}

{\label{concluding-reflections}}

In this pilot study the focus was on understanding how community groups
describe the exposure and vulnerability to coastal flooding from their
perspective and as representatives of the constituents they work with or
for in East Harlem. East Harlem is a neighborhood like many others in
New York City, with a long history of urban change, migration, community
action (Goldstein, 2017) and now increasing rates climate change
vulnerability. The study was particularly interested in showing how
distributional analyses of who is exposed to coastal flooding and where,
need to be complemented with a procedural justice lens to actually
understand how changes in exposure and impacts of flooding are rooted in
past and present decisions, the procedures put in place by institutions
and the ability of counter-narratives or understandings to emerge, be
heard and influence mainstream planning.

Based on the literature review in section 2, I chose to focus on the
three dimensions of procedural justice, namely: recognition,
participation/procedure, and epistemic justice. Recognition is the
`\selectlanguage{english}processes of disrespect, insult and degradation that devalue some
people and some place identities in comparison to others' (Walker,
2009:615) or, in other words the lack of recognition about group
difference in a society where some groups are privileged while others
are oppressed (Schlosberg, 2003). It is possible to say that the culture
of disenfranchisement and institutional abandonment in the NYCHA
development that took part in this study, is a case of mis-recognition.
The interviewee often referred to a lack of motivation, self-esteem and
degradation among largely tenants of color at Washington Houses,
perpetrated by the many bureaucratic layers and lack of oversight that
NYCHA developed since its defunding began in the 2000s. This
mis-recognition has implications for climate change vulnerability in
that many tenants, already burdened by persisting poverty, physical
mobility issues, inconsistent services provision, may be less active in
attending meetings about issues like flooding, perceived as low in their
ladder of priorities; they may refuse to evacuate for fear of loathing
or enter in conflict with authorities towards whom they lost trust; and
losing their affordable home in the process. At the same time, there are
sustained efforts by leaders, who are tenants themselves, to raise
moral, advocate for tenants' needs and make alliances with organization
such as the DREAM School, in order to plan for better emergency
preparedness. The kind of survey that led to a better, albeit not
comprehensive, understanding of physical mobility is an example of
localized knowledge production that certainly NYCHA authorities would
not be able to orchestrate or disseminate for better decision making on
the ground (that is if they have up to date information on their
tenants' physical status). These and more complex forms of localized
knowledge production on climate vulnerability should be sustained in
time and maybe used as a platform to build an autonomous understanding
and political power to demand for larger changes in NYCHA's structure
and accountability, which in turn, could lead to better services
provision, better housing quality and less disenfranchisement.

As noted in the review, recognition is tied to participation and
procedure, whereas more recognition leads to more participation. A
procedural lens allowed to understand that there is a diversity of
instruments for deliberation around climate change as part of larger
issues of concern for the neighborhood. From public hearings and board
meetings organized by the CB, to hands-on days organized by CIVITAS on
coastal protection to opportunities for community-based planning as part
of the momentum brought by the Rezoning Plan. The turnout in smaller
events is perceived as a problem, however, where either constituents do
not use the CB as much as they could, or there are bigger concerns that
people deal with in their daily lives. This is reflected in the most
talked about topics brought by officers in public meetings: homeless,
drugs, education, affordable housing. Not so much climate change. This
is not to say that speakers disagree or do not believe in it, it is to
say that in a public meeting where you have 5-10 minutes you talk about
priorities! Indeed, flooding of any kind seems to become the priority
only when a disaster occurs.

The CB could be invested with new powers, beyond only advisory, because
they are in a jurisdictional position that allows for a closer
engagement with citizens, while weighing in on larger processes that
affect the district and city at large. Groups like WeAct already possess
the know-how and skills to produce a good level of evidence-based
research and visual maps to render visible what the city chooses to
exclude from public view. It's true that FEMA maps and hurricane risk
zones are publicly available, but as WeAct showed, there are more
politically charged ways to show how the rezoning map not only leaves
key facilities in the floodplain but also builds new ones. An aware
citizen is a citizen that has seen a map like that and has reflected on
its implications when the next hurricane strikes.

The study also daylighted a variety of perceptions and ways of knowing
flood exposure, vulnerability and climate resilience. Coastal flooding
exposure was understood in terms of extent of water reach in the
aftermath of Sandy, as a legacy of the natural biophysical properties of
the land, while inland flooding exposure was connected to rainfall and
high-water tables, leading to `blue sky flooding', or as the consequence
of newly built developments which may shift aquifer waters elsewhere and
worsen flooding when it happens.

Climate change resilience was seen under an even larger amount of
viewpoints: 1) an issue of land use and building design; 2) an
opportunity for ecological designs; 3) a need for better emergency
preparedness and emergency funds; 4) an issue of building materials; 5)
an opportunity for tax credits and more comprehensive assessment of
housing retrofitting costs; 6) as `the impossibility' of relocating
lower income households that are most at risk'.

All these views have implications for the politics of resilience in New
York City. On the one hand, they demand that all these disarticulated
perceptions of what climate resilience may look like, to be made visible
as well as its contrast and overlaps with City led agendas. While the
Rezoning Plan contemplated issues of new building designs, it did very
little to address ground floors in existing properties -- aside from
mandating that boilers and other mechanical equipment be raised. CDCs
are desiring other solutions around building materials but also more
comprehensive and sustained solutions such as a long-term commitment
with the government, underwriting a deal where low income housing are
given tax credits to be able to do the necessary mitigation measures. A
district-wide assessment of the costs of retrofitting is also needed and
could drive cost-efficiency if the costs are shared across the whole of
Northern Manhattan. The Rezoning also mentions hard infrastructure
measures, such a sea wall, along portions of the East River Esplanade.
Yet elsewhere in the city, in areas like Jamaica Bay and Fishkill in
Staten Island, that are also less urbanized, the State has promoted
ecological work to restore wetlands. Although groups like CIVITAS, are
producing plans and advocating at the State level for the same to happen
on the East River Esplanade, the city seems to be more concerned with
maintaining the promenades due to the time it would take to obtain
permits.

Another reflection on the politics of resilience is connected to
emergency management and how organizations access information about
flooding. Although the sample of organizations was very small and more
should be done to understand this issue further, it is clear that a
dependency on knowledge produced by weather forecasts, online and on tv,
or to check what the Mayor is saying to do, are what organizations rely
on to understand when and where it may flood. The only more informal way
was to use weather apps. May this dependency on centralized knowledge
become detrimental during power shutdowns in the even to catastrophic
flooding? Finally, emergency preparedness seems to be the purview of
COAD and CERT, while other organizations like the CB are not as informed
on where to go and what to do, and yet it their role as represents East
Harlemites in the face of constant change seems crucial.

A procedural justice lens makes knowledge about flood vulnerability rich
and thick by adopting value-heavy concepts (Hulme, 2018) like justice,
fairness, recognition to daylight how and why different people may be
affected by flooding. In its ability to highlight institutional
practices that misrecognize vulnerable citizens, we see a close
connection between seemingly disparate issues such as housing
affordability and tenants neglect and flood emergency preparedness and
recovery. Nevertheless, a thorough study of participation in
deliberation processes about climate change is difficult, because the
topic, when it's not in the aftermath of an event, is just one among
many, at time more pressing issues in East Harlem's public hearings.
Epistemic justice in the form of understanding citizens as knowers in
their own right is also complex. Multiple and conflicting knowledges can
be daylighted but this is only part of what epistemic justice means to
my understanding. Here climate knowledge should be produced by and for
citizens, in processes like community research and planning. Further
studies may research the practices, discourses, knowledge produced, used
and shared across alternative forms of climate change counter-planning
currently ongoing in the city. \selectlanguage{english}Reasoning together in public to make
actionable knowledge must allow for the expression of contrasting value
commitments, however inconvenient this may be. What are the knowledge
practices that allow asymmetric understandings to emerge? How can they
be nurtured? Once the contrasting value commitments are on the table, is
it enough that they be acknowledged to change the course of action for
climate resilience?

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