The CIty Sponge is proud to be part of an ongoing public discussion series called “Affordability and Climate in NYC” - co-hosted by Rebuild By Design, Waterfront Alliance, with support from ConEdison.
Big Topic: Why We Chunk It Up
“Affordability and climate” is a whopper topic, and there are lots of sub-topics. We want to get into those with people who live it, from the frontlines across NYC. We gather them not to complain…but rather to look for where there might be alignment and some quick-wins.
Check out the people and the topics here (more coming):
1: How Do We Build Climate Strong Communities? (Feb)
A candid discussion from community leaders from Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island on what they have learned leading community-focussed climate projects: what works and what doesn’t.
2: NYC Is Expensive: Will Climate Exacerbate Costs? (March)
Hear from professors, insurance experts and advocates whose job it is to study how cities adapt, put costs on specific things, the gaps they see and solutions to fill them.
3: Small Business: Flood, Recover, Repeat (April)
Everyday small business owners juggle costs to “stay open.” Hear what they say about flooding, life on street level, and how to keep things affordable. Also what the NYC offers to try to help.
Why Do We Need This?
New York City was built along 520+ miles of coastline and has experienced its record setting rainfall in each year for the last 4 years.
Whatever label you care to use or theory you support, more water is coming: from the sea, from above, and even from below where groundwater tables lurk below the surface and are higher than they used to be.
With older city sewers built for a different time, and a lot of the natural “spongey” areas having been paved over, NYC and the people who live and work here will need to accelerate the work we do to manage more water, or…we get more flooding.
At the same time, we want an “affordable” city (or at least as affordable as possible). The costs of recovery from flooding is 6-13 times more than the cost of mitigation (US Chamber and Allstate report). Either way….it is still money that needs to be spent. Experts tell us: we pay less to mitigate or more (way more) to recover.
So how can we navigate both of those needs: rebuilding our city for the new climate realities while also keeping costs down for our people and our government? How do we balance affordability goals and the new “sub-tropical” climate in NYC?
Let’s Talk AND Do (“Spend Wisely”)
In the case of flooding, talk is NOT cheap. Doing nothing and hoping it doesn’t happen when flood risk is expanding, or just dealing with it in recovery, is a very expensive way to go.
But people need help to figure out what to do, where should funds come from, are there any incentives, how can the gov’t or private sector help?
That’s why we have these discussions. Join us!
