Miami Forever?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to The Heat Beat, a newsletter about climate change, politics, and taking action, written by a non-expert for non-experts. If your friend forwarded you this and you’d like to subscribe, smash this here button.
This edition of The Heat Beat was originally published on 4/17/2019.
TOPLINE
Climate change threatens Miami’s existence today
Extreme income inequality + low elevations = "climate gentrification"
$400M Miami Forever program to build resiliency—can it be equitable?
Action: Consider donating to Catalyst Miami, an org. pushing equity in Miami Forever
In Miami’s predominantly black and low-income Little Haiti neighborhood, real estate developers have buying up property “quietly and silently for years.” North of downtown and west of South Beach’s spectacular wealth and glittering hotels, the neighborhood is plagued by crime, poverty, and drugs, but climate change is fueling its real estate boom.
Little Haiti’s elevation (~7’) doesn’t sound like much until you hear that a lot of Miami is less than 5’ from the water. So even as opulent new high-rises are built on the Miami’s waterfront, the city’s poorest residents are being displaced by investors who figure that once the rich abandon the shoreline, they’ll move to higher ground.
The Situation In South Florida
Miami is ground zero for observing the consequences of global warming and sea-level rise. Today, Miami experiences ~20 days of “sunny day” flooding, which, as you probably guessed, happens on cloudless days when water flows into the streets (either through the city’s sewers, or its porous limestone bedrock, or both.) By 2030, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that figure will be 50 days a year; by 2045, 250 days a year. After that, who knows—but it won't be good.
Economically, rising seas threaten more assets in Miami than almost any other city in the world. (It’s 2nd on that list behind only Guangzhou, China.) A lot of that is real estate. A 2016 report from Miami-Dade county’s appraiser pegged the total property value at $250 billion.
But despite the iconic skyscrapers and shiny shirts, most of Miami is very poor. The top 1% of Miamians earn 55x the bottom 99%. Its income inequality is among the highest in the country. Its median annual household income is $34,000; to own a home, you’d need to make about $80,000. Around 26% of Miamians live below the poverty line (national average is ~15%.)
Climate Gentrification
Taken together, these factors can make for some truly ridiculous real estate outcomes in neighborhoods like Little Haiti and Liberty City (a low-income community ~15’ above the waterline that is nearly 95% black.)
When neglected slums become hot property due to elevation, stability, and affordability, it’s known as “climate gentrification.” It’s just one part of the growing study of environmental justice, which examines how poor people and people of color disproportionately suffer the consequences of climate change.
This is happening in real time in Miami's poorest, blackest neighborhoods. The chart above represents a Little Haiti house that sold for $27,000 in 2010. It's now on the market for $517,000. Another sold for $66,000 in 2008, in the heat of the mortgage crisis, is listed for $850,000. Liberty City’s property values have increased nearly 220% in value in the past five years. To describe its newfound appeal amongst the city’s wealthy, one activist likened the neighborhood’s high ground to “caviar.”
"Oh, Miami Beach is going under, the sea level is coming up… so now the rich people have to find a place to live,” said another Liberty City native in 2017.
Cognitive Dissonance On The Coast
Not that everyone is pulling up stakes from Miami Beach just yet. The ultra-wealthy barrier island enclave due east of Little Haiti across Biscayne Bay is still highly desirable, despite some estimates that it’ll be underwater before the end of the century.
Miami Beach is a beautiful place to live, and rich people love it there. So the government has spent millions of dollars physically raising the streets and installing a network of pumps to clear flooding more rapidly. “The scientists, economists, and environmentalists that are saying this stuff, they don’t realize what a wealthy area this is,” a Miami Beach realtor reassured one reporter, who posed undercover as a potential buyer to “see the cognitive dissonance up close.” Mission accomplished!
Schisms, and Bonds
Of course, the idea that you can spend your way out of climate change, however flawed it may be from an engineering standpoint, only holds water (jokes!) if you have money. The poorest areas in Shorecrest, a mixed-income community in Miami, sit just 3’ above sea level and flood constantly. The city says it can’t afford to fight for every inch of dry land; residents in poor and low-lying neighborhoods say it’s not doing enough to help them.
Because it can't fall ass-backwards into Scrooge-McDuck levels of municipal wealth, Miami has tried a different tack to fight climate change. In 2017, Miamians voted to tax themselves to allocate the $400 million Miami Forever Bond. The project to “build a stronger, more resilient future for Miami” was met with skepticism by some community organizations, who were wary that the investment program would exclude the city’s poor.
Happily, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Activists celebrated “significant wins” in the 2018-2019 budget. Now, they’re lobbying city officials working on the first $15 million in affordable-housing projects to make sure they’re income-based and built in neighborhoods like Little Haiti and Liberty City to combat the effects of climate gentrification.
ACTION: Consider donating to Catalyst Miami, an organization pushing equity in Miami Forever
And if for some reason you haven't been listening to the best song Will Smith ever made while reading this issue, go ahead—get jiggy with it.