How Hurricane Sandy helped gentrify Brooklyn

How race and identity are shaping politics, policy and power.

Oct 25, 2022 View in browser   By Gloria Gonzalez With help from Brakkton Booker, Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo, Mackenzie Wilkes, Rishika Dugyala, Jesús Rodríguez and Teresa Wiltz  A child stands astride his bicycle on flooded street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn after Hurricane Sandy caused extensive damage in the area on Oct. 30, 2012 in New York. | POLITICO illustration/Spencer Platt/Getty Images Hey folks! I am Gloria Gonzalez, deputy energy editor at POLITICO, subbing in for Brakkton today. On this day, Rishi Sunak becomes England's first prime minister of color, Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman face off tonight in what will be the one and only Pennsylvania Senate debate, plus American students' test scores plummet, according to the so-called Nation's Report Card. But first, we explore climate gentrification.  This week marks a decade since Superstorm Sandy struck much of the eastern seaboard of the United States — from Florida to Maine — causing $65 billion in damage. It is the largest Atlantic hurricane on record to hit the East Coast with powerful winds stretching an estimated diameter of 1,100 miles. Some of the storm's most extensive damage was concentrated along the shoreline of New Jersey and New York, caused by a surge producing waves as high as 32 feet , flooding critical infrastructure and drowning entire neighborhoods. Sandy displaced thousands, destroying 69,000 residential units in New York City. The recovery from Sandy has been particularly slow and painful for Black, brown and low-income residents, with the storm creating new challenges in an expensive city with a massive affordable housing deficit . A home sits in the middle of Harding Avenue in Ortley Beach, N.J., on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. | David Gard/The Star-Ledger, Pool Further south, the climate is blamed for rapidly accelerating the transformation of once-bustling cultural epicenters of enclaves such as Little Haiti, Liberty City and Little River in Miami-Dade, Florida's most populous county. "A lot of people have been pushed out and the county is dying," Fayola Nicaisse , chair of the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance and former chair of the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust, tells The Recast. A term was coined to describe this phenomenon: climate gentrification. It refers to the way a changing climate causes displacement of disadvantaged residents who are priced out of their neighborhoods due to rising property values, taxes, rents and other economic factors. A person walks on the sidewalk, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, in the business district of the Little Haiti area in Miami. | AP Such gentrification is seen as further harming communities of color and low-income communities, thanks to a legacy of redlining and racial segregation. "As the climate impacts happen … you see more and more of the Black and Brown people pushed out and more of the federal aid not going to those people," says Raya Salter , founder of the Energy Justice Law and Policy Center and a member of the New York State Climate Action Council. Private developers then move in "to take advantage of the situation" by building property "that in theory can be retrofitted to survive the next storm," Salter adds. Amber Whichard, 3, walks next to a line of people waiting to receives supplies donated to the victims of Superstorm Sandy at the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn, Nov. 12, 2012, two weeks after the storm. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo The Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn is a microcosm of the struggle. Parts of the neighborhood are being gentrified amid efforts to preserve public housing battered by Sandy — which impacted 80,000 public housing residents in more than 400 buildings in the city. While high-end construction is popping up all around public housing units, the residences themselves are "untouched and in shambles," says New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés, who represents Red Hook and other communities. "I believe in our community residents and the people. They have always managed to keep each other safe," she says. "But on a government and societal level, we are not prepared for another storm." The federal government is contributing to flood mitigation projects designed to protect neighborhoods like these in New York City from another Sandy-like surge. The Red Hook Coastal Resiliency project will spend $100 million in federal and city funds to reduce flood risks along Red Hook's waterfront. Manhattan is seen from the coast of Red Hook, Brooklyn, on Oct. 23, 2017, five years after Superstorm Sandy. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images The idea is to protect this historically Black, low-income community from the next Sandy. "But part of the problem is 10 years on, it's not the same community," says Donovan Finn, who teaches environmental design, policy, and planning at Stony Brook University. "Red Hook has become a more affluent place than it was 10 years ago." While climate gentrification can be event-specific, as some academic researchers believe happened in New York with Sandy, these effects also occur more gradually in other areas of the country. The Little Haiti and Liberty City neighborhoods in Miami are prime examples. Affluent, predominantly white residents fleeing rising waters in South Florida are moving into nearby, inland neighborhoods at higher, safer elevations that have historically been home to low-income residents or communities of color. Felton Pierre marches during a rally against the proposed Magic City Innovation District, Thursday, June 20, 2019, in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami. | Lynne Sladky/AP Photo Census data from 2020 points to the changing racial and income dynamics in these neighborhoods. In Little Haiti, the white alone population increased by a third over the course of the previous decade, with an even more significant rise in Liberty City. Both neighborhoods saw a jump in their median household income as well. Two of President Joe Biden 's biggest achievements have been partly geared toward addressing climate change. Last year's $550 billion plan for new infrastructure spending promises to spur transformative climate and equity programs nationwide while the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August, aims to expedite U.S. emission cuts with $369 billion in climate and energy spending. But these billions in new funding present a new challenge: how to ensure that these dollars don't accelerate gentrification. We'll of course be keeping tabs to see how this all plays out. All the best, The Recast Team   Power dynamics are changing. With The Recast, you'll get a twice-weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Subscribe to the newsletter here .   BRITAIN'S NEW PRIME MINISTER British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak waves from the steps after delivering a speech at 10 Downing Street in London, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. | Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo Rishi Sunak, the 42-year-old son of Indian immigrants and one-time treasury secretary, officially became Britain's first prime minister of color on Tuesday, a day after his Conservative Party formally elevated him to the top leadership post. He takes power as the country itself faces sustained economic and political tumult, as The Recast's Brakkton Booker notes. He secured the premiership the same day that Hindus like him celebrated Diwali , and after top rivals, Boris Jonson, the ex-prime minister who stepped down in July , and Penny Mordaunt, dropped their bids to succeed Liz Truss, who lasted just 44 days on the job. In his first address as prime minister, a somber Sunak vowed to bring compassion to the job as he leads Britain through a period of economic uncertainty, reports Emilio Casalicchio of POLITICO Europe . "Our country is facing a profound economic crisis," Sunak said. "I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government's agenda. This will mean difficult decisions to come." Thumbnail image via AP Photo Sunak's ascension to prime minister was celebrated across the world, including by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who seemed eager to forge a renewed partnership between the two nations. Sunak was born in southern England to East African parents of Indian descent who immigrated to the U.K. in the 1960s. He studied at both the University of Oxford in England and at Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar. He's also one of the nation's wealthiest people, according to Forbes , which estimates that the new prime minister is "more than a quarter billion dollars richer than the $500 million personal fortune of King Charles III." His meteoric rise through the Conservative Party wasn't without bumps in the road. Earlier this year, it emerged that his wife, Akshata Murthy, a millionaire in her own right, was avoiding taxes . Sunak has also been criticized for being out of touch ; videos have resurfaced of a young Sunak implying he doesn't have working-class friends . In a more recent video, he is seen boasting that he altered funding formulas to divert money from "deprived urban areas." In a now-deleted tweet, Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who is also of Indian descent, said Sunak's ascension "isn't a win for Asian representation." Sunak is, she tweeted, "a multi-millionaire who, as Chancellor, cut taxes on bank profits while overseeing the biggest drop in living standards since 1956."   THE NUMBERS GAME The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on a pair of cases that center around race-conscious college admissions next week. A recent POLITICO/Morning Consult survey asked registered voters their views on affirmative action. Overall, 39 percent of respondents said advantages outweigh the disadvantages of affirmative action, while 30 percent said the disadvantages outweigh its advantages. When broken down by race, the disparities between the responses grow. Black voters outpaced all other racial groups, with 62 percent of respondents saying the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, followed by Hispanics at 48 percent, people who identify as "other" at 40 percent and white voters at 35 percent. White voters almost tripled the percentage of Black voters who said there were more disadvantages to the programs: 34 percent to 12 percent respectively. Twenty-three percent of Hispanic voters surveyed agreed with that assessment. Over the years, research and data have shown that while affirmative action has helped people of color, white women have been its biggest beneficiaries .   TIME CAPSULE Later this week will mark 36 years since President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, a law that mandated a 5-year minimum sentence without parole for crimes involving 5 grams of crack cocaine — but the same sentence when 500 grams of powder cocaine were involved. The Recast's Jesse Naranjo has more. The legislation emerged amid a national debate about the increase in drug use, and the crack epidemic proved a potent target for lawmakers aiming to look tough on the issue. "The American people want their government to get tough and to go on the offensive," Reagan said during the signing of the bill , which was introduced by House Democrats and passed with bipartisan support just ahead of that year's midterm elections. "And that's exactly what we intend, with more ferocity than ever before." In the following years, the proportion of Black Americans in federal prisons increased by a factor of five, according to the anti-mass-incarceration group Equal Justice Initiative . Black Americans would go on to serve increasingly disproportionate sentence lengths and occupy a growing proportion of federally incarcerated people. By 2003, more than 80 percent of federal crack cocaine defendants were Black, despite studies showing a majority of the substance's users were white or Latino. The ACLU noted in 2006 that "African Americans now serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense at 58.7 months, as whites do for a violent offense at 61.7 months." It would take until 2010, when President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act , for the mandatory minimum for simple crack possession to be eliminated, and for the sentencing disparity to be reduced. It would halve the number of crack-related federal sentences — but did little to address the racial disparities in conviction rates.   ICYMI @ POLITICO Black Voter Concerns — POLITICO's Holly Otterbein and Elena Schneider report Democratic Party operatives and activists are worried turnout among Black voters could sag . Despite that potentially bleak outlook, Biden sounds an optimistic tone about the midterms. WATCH it here . Thumbnail image via AP Photo Show Me The Money — Fair Fight Action, the voting rights organization founded by Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, spent more than $25 million over two years on legal fees, mostly on a single case. But as POLITICO's Brittany Gibson reports, a large chunk of that money went to a boutique law firm run by the chair of the Abrams campaign. Not So Simple Math — American student test scores plummeted to historic lows during the coronavirus pandemic , according to POLITICO's Juan Perez Jr. Adidas' Newest Drop — Sportswear giant Adidas announced it would end its partnership with Ye, better known as Kanye West, including stopping production on the Yeezy line, because of the rapper's antisemitic remarks .   THE RECAST RECOMMENDS Taylor Swift's new " Midnights " album probes how millennial women have to reckon with relationships, motherhood and ambition , The New York Times writes. Don't miss this deep-dive conversation into identity, craft and self-doubt with Min Jin Lee, Sandra Oh, David Chang and Lee Isaac Chung. PBS' " Making Black America: Through the Grapevine " wraps today with an unmissable episode on Black political movements and the community spaces formed within them. And check out "The Hair Tales," a docu series which features Issa Rae, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), CHIKA, Marsai Martin, Chloe Bailey, Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey telling their intimate hair stories. Marsai Martin is pictured in a promotional still from the first season of the docu series "The Hair Tales," executive produced by Oprah Winfrey, Tracee Ellis Ross and Michaela Angela Davis. | Courtesy of Hulu Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who fled Iran after being hounded by authorities when an intimate video of the actress was leaked, takes the lead role in " Holy Spider ," out this week in the U.S. Spy the joint album reveal sandwiched in this new video by Drake and 21 Savage . Craving fall comfort eats? Look no further than "Great British Bake Off" star Ruby Tandoh's peanut-and-potato soup recipe , and discover the surprising history of the humble peanut in the process. Anderson .Paak is the king of the collab. This time around, he's reuniting with Knowledge as the duo, NxWorries. In their new single, "Where I Go," H.E.R. pops in for a cameo . TikToks of the Day: The Diwali edition (belatedly, Happy Diwali for those who celebrated). 1. A t VP's house 2. Anxious mom   Follow us on Twitter Brakkton Booker @brakktonbooker Rishika Dugyala @rishikadugyala Teresa Wiltz @teresawiltz Jesús Rodríguez @jesusrodriguezb Jesse Naranjo @jesselnaranjo   Follow us

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