Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: afford to escape rising sea levels and the accompanying floods will flock to high ground, forcing out those who can no longer afford to stay. 3 This is known as "climate gentrification," where those escaping the sea gentrify inland areas and displace long-term residents, usually minorities or members of impoverished communities.4 This comment discusses three types of policies commonly implemented by municipalities to combat climate change and rising sea levels-protection, accommodation, and retreat policies-and explores how they will contribute to climate gentrification.In reviewing these policies, this comment offers solutions to combat the displacement of residents on the mainland as more coastal residents flee the rising sea levels.At this time, only studies in Miami and its surrounding area have covered the concept of climate gentrification.5 This comment, however, focuses on climate gentrification as a national phenomenon, and considers general policy proposals to illustrate how those policies affect this concept.Part II of this comment provides a brief history of climate change and sea level rise, introduces climate gentrification, and explains how these two concepts are related.Part III explores the three types of climate change mitigation policies, their effectiveness in protecting property owners by the sea, and how those policies could affect gentrification inland.Part IV proposes a pragmatic solution that keeps the interests of both the coastal property owners and mainland dwellers in mind.This comment only targets the legal implications of "climate gentrification," how to best combat those effects to prevent displacement, and how property owners on both the coasts and dry land can conceptualize its potential effects in the near future as the law adapts to climate change.Gentrification arguments, for or against, are beyond the scope of this comment. II. THE STORM IS BREWING: THE BEGINNINGS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND CLIMATE GENTRIFICATIONA. An Increase in Climate Change Patterns Hurricane Michael in 2018, equipped with "unprecedented strength," took sixteen lives, destroyed hundreds of homes, erased utilities for weeks, and brought with it a toxic algal bloom in the Florida Panhandle.6
Author: Rakiah N. Bonjour
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3008035716