"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.
Monday, May 04, 2020
New legal brief outlines how America’s historic places are at risk from climate change | May is National Historic Preservation Month
This is a reprint of a press release (sent April 27th) from Environment America:
The amicus brief highlights risks created by climate change to four of our country’s most historic cities and national landmarks: Annapolis, Maryland; Charleston, South Carolina; Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in New York City, New York; and St. Augustine, Florida. These endangered places are not alone. Almost half of all Congressional districts are located in threatened coastal areas, which could also see similar historic losses. Beyond sea level rise, extreme weather from climate change can lead to increased flooding and fires as well. These natural disasters may also cause irreparable destruction to our national heritage in inland locations.
Water fills the east end of Thames Street in Fells Point after Monday morning’s storm. (Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun).
“Historic landmarks and communities throughout the United States are threatened by climate change, and these irreplaceable sites provide us with an essential understanding of who we are,” said Thompson M. Mayes, chief legal officer and general counsel of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, “This brief aims to express just how dangerous EPA’s weakened regulations on global warming could be to our shared sense of history.”
The brief argues that the Environmental Protection Agency drafted the Affordable Clean Energy Rule without adequately considering its impact to historic resources and communities. Already, seas are expected to rise as much as four feet by the end of this century, according to the National Climate Assessment. In addition, climate change’s impact on heightening the intensity of flooding, storms and fires will further exacerbate this problem.
Howard Rogers walks through a flooded street during the king tides of September 2015. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty)
Ultimately, every American should ask this question: Can we continue to ignore the climate crisis and risk a watery demise for our historic coastal communities, or will we give our most beloved cities and towns a fighting chance to stay above water?” McGimsey said.
Rain, rain go away: climate change, extreme weather events, and floodplains
One of my lines about policy by elected officials is sort of along the lines of the Churchill quote about the US:
You can always trust America to do the right thing. After she has exhausted all other possible alternatives.
Policy and practice is mostly about doing whatever you can to avoid the reality of economics (e.g., if you restrict housing supply, prices go up) or disaster (e.g., if you build in flood plains and buildings get flooded, but instead of saying don't build in flood plains, people rebuild and/or flood insurance helps pay to do so).
There are almost too many examples to count of problems resulting from flooding because of buildings in flood plains impacted by hurricanes, extreme rain, etc. And decided actions to try to avoid acknowledging and addressing the required changes.
A recent example is in Arlington County, where Four Mile Run was devastated by last week's extreme rain on Monday July 8th ("After years of talk — and flooding — Arlington residents demand fixes to storm drain system," Washington Post). People in the article are quoted about Arlington taking a long time on dealing with the need for more robust stormwater drainage systems.
Alexandra Lettow was near tears as she described the losses her family suffered in Monday’s flooding to neighbors and county officials gathered at a home in Arlington’s Waverly Hills neighborhood.
Destroyed this time were the family’s appliances, the heating and air-conditioning system, the hot water heater, a couch, her son’s Xbox, a television and more. It was at least the seventh time the neighborhood had flooded in 19 years.
“We took a home loan out last year to repair the basement from the last flood,” Lettow said. “We have no more money, and we have mold growing down there.”
Arlington officials on Saturday said initial reports put uninsured residential and business losses at more than $4 million.
Um, 7 floods over 19 years is an indicator of a structural problem.
But with rains more and more extreme, the amount of piping and water storage capacity necessary to capture the water to prevent flooding is almost immeasurable. It's certainly very costly to try to build a hard system (pipes and storage). DC's building both hard infrastructure and soft (water capture and diversion from drainage collection systems), but in extreme events it may not be enough. For example, the National Archives after terrible flooding in the past has emergency water barriers, which deployed last week ("The National Archives' floating flood wall helped dodge disaster," Post).
But at the same time, even though it's an extremely hard decision to make, buildings in known flood zones ought to be taken removed. The county and individuals can't keep trying to put things back together only for the problem to repeat. Remember, insurance policies don't typically cover this kind of water damage, especially in areas known for flooding risk.
The city frequently experienced floods on the Tulsa River, many of which resulted in death and property damage. In 1984, after flooding which resulted in 14 deaths, the city created a Department of Stormwater Management and developed a Citywide Flood and Stormwater Management Plan, which provides for specific improvements across the city.
The primary focus of the plan is removing buildings from the flood plain and converting these spaces to greenways and parks as a way to absorb flooding while minimizing damage. The plan has been frequently updated--another iteration is underway--and since 1990, no structure built before 1987 has been damaged by flooding.
Although more recently, they don't make the planning documents that easy to find. In other words, you'd think you could find them in a central place on the city website... nope.
3. USA Today reports, "Trump tax reform: Don't expect tax break on losses from severe storms," that recent changes to the tax laws make it harder to deduct unexpected losses from flooding. And that a federal disaster declaration is necessary to be eligible for tax loss deductions. That seems a bit extreme to me. State-sanctioned declarations ought to suffice.
There is a nice multimedia graphic showing how the basements of buildings are being rebuilt to accommodate flooding. ... although that means you can't use the basement for anything else.
The city chose to not build a levee system but to rely on water barriers and flood walls.
Conclusion. Like what Tulsa started doing 35 years ago, more places are going to have to make hard choices about dealing with pre-existing development in floodplains in river and stream watersheds, on riverfronts, and on coastal waterfronts.
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Frankly, we have a similar issue because while we don't live in a flood plain, it turns out our neighborhood includes at least one "buried creek" and there is a high water table. Now with more frequent and extreme rains, if the drain in our back porch gets covered in leaves and debris, water can build up (very quickly) and seep into the basement.
It's abetted by "bad perc" (percolation) in our backyard. The ground is very compacted and water pools during a hard and fast rain.
This is after we already put in a French drain system because of problems with the high water table and water coming into the basement from under the house through the seams in the concrete floor (hydrostatic pressure)-- but we only put it in on three sides (oops).
We lamented why didn't the previous owner put in the French drain system instead of us paying for it? But rain events probably weren't that extreme in the 50 years she lived here.
So another of the long posts I intend to do is lessons for cities from the impact of Superstorm Sandy on New York City in particular. It definitely makes me reconsider the appropriateness of waterfront redevelopment in areas potentially vulnerable to significant storm surges.
Prof. Klinenberg is known for his study of the infamous Chicago Heat Wave in 1995, which resulted in 485 deaths in one week (and 521 total). His main conclusion from that study, published in Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (see "The 1995 heat wave reflected Chicago's "geography of vulnerability"" from Chicago Now), is that communities with highly developed and maintained social networks and connections (the kinds of ties and use values of place discussed in Urban Fortunes: Towards a Political Economy of Placemaking), deaths were significantly reduced.
This kind of finding is related to the "community efficacy" thesis of Felton Earls. Frankly, I am not a big fan of this work as it relates to the economic revitalization of neighborhoods. See "Urban Health, Nasty Cities, Broken Windows and Community Efficacy."
I don't think that poor communities with high community efficacy necessarily end up better off economically. But that doesn't mean that community efficacy isn't important. Neighborhoods with high community efficacy end up better off socially and in terms of community building and in able to deal with hardship and certain kinds of catastrophe (but still, they can be overwhelmed depending on events, e.g. New Orleans).
Prof. Klinenberg's New Yorker article discusses at great length social capital approaches to dealing with disasters and physical adaptation or what in the past I have called accommodation (see the presentation from the Dutch Embassy ""New Paradigm - Living with Water") in recognizing that you can't eliminate negative impact from disaster.
2. Similarly this kind of recognition of reality is why Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie can't reflexively be anti-federal government, as he has greater recognition post-storm that federalism just doesn't mean states going their own way, especially when they are overwhelmed by weather-related disaster.
3. On Saturday, the Municipal Arts Society in New York City, one of the nation's leading local advocacy groups addressing urban design, had an all-day conference on lessons from Sandy. Sessions are online.
A damaged home is seen in the Lower Ninth Ward on 22 February 2006 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Nearly six months after New Orleans was drowned by breached levees, most black residents have not returned. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan)
From the Post story:
A federal advisory panel released a draft report Friday on how Americans can adapt to a changing climate, a more than 1,000 page tome that also sums up what has become increasingly apparent: The country is hotter than it used to be, rainfall is becoming both more intense and more erratic, and rising seas and storm surges threaten U.S. coasts. The draft of the third National Climate Assessment warns that with the current rate of global carbon emissions, these impacts will intensify in the coming decades. The report does not include policy recommendations, but it is designed to guide decision-makers on the federal, state and local level on how to prepare for a warmer world. ... Rick Piltz, who heads the group Climate Science Watch, said the report offers President Obama a rare opening. “He’s said he wants to lead a national conversation on climate change. He should start the national conversation,” Piltz said. But congressional Republicans are expected to oppose any such efforts. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who heads the Republican Study Committee, said in a statement that it is clear Americans will not tolerate any new climate policies: “Even President Obama acknowledged that our focus right now should be on putting folks back to work and growing the economy — not climate change.”
From the NVP story:
Virginia needs to get serious about rising sea levels and frequent flooding and take the lead in combatting the problems that threaten the allure of living and doing business on the coast, according to a report distributed this week to state lawmakers. The report is hardly the first time that scientists have laid out the enormous stakes of sea level rise - especially in low-lying regions such as Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore, which flood almost every time it rains. But the 135-page document is the first official statement on the politically charged problem as requested by the General Assembly and outlined by state scientific advisers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "It's a significant first step," said state Del. Lynwood Lewis, a Democrat who represents the Eastern Shore and a section of Norfolk. "It gets us moving. And, to me, the best news is that it shows we can do something about this." Lewis and others said the next logical step would be to study potential strategies for coping with rising waters and sinking lands, a one-two punch that makes Hampton Roads the second-most-vulnerable area to floods and storm surge in the nation behind New Orleans.
Just as in some states, Republicans can be leaders in smart growth policy, recognizing the economic waste arising from sprawl, maybe something similar will happen in climate policy, led by those states that are most vulnerable--although clearly not all Louisiana Congressmen remember the impact of the levee break in New Orleans.
Right: sandbags being distributed at the Takoma Community Center.
I'm leading the session on bike planning for a class at the New School School of Public Engagement in New York City. The class is titled the Insecure Metropolis: Modern City and when I was first introduced to the title of the course, I took the opportunity to consider the concept of insecurity pretty broadly from corruption to funding.
But weather-related insecurity is a "hard" concept as opposed to a more "soft" concern like corruption. You have to deal with it, plan for it, consider it, etc.
For example, earlier in the year I attended a regional planning conference and one of the presentations was by the Dutch Embassy and concerned their reaction to and lessons from Hurricane Katrina, that you can't always keep the water out, that you have to be able to accommodate water and minimize the negative effects.
Obviously, this is relevant to the Hurricane/Storm Sandy that's happening now. Like Hurricane Irene last year, the Washington, DC metropolitan area has avoided being significantly damaged, although yes there is a lot of rain, tree-related damage, power outages, etc. (Note that Hurricane Irene's impact in the Northeast was significant, with catastrophic damage to the transportation system and communities in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. See the AP story, "Hurricane Irene Did $65M Of Damage To NYC's Transportation Network" and "Irene railroads Metro-North, Port Jervis line suspended indefinitely" from the YNN blog)
In the part of the country where the eye of the storm made landfall--New Jersey--and then proceeded on land (New Jersey, Pennsylvania), with impact from the storm's center pummeling New York City, resulting in evacuation, flooding, closing of public transportation, etc., the impact is much greater.
So in hindsight, we could argue that in the DC metropolitan area, because this storm was merely some bad rains and winds, which has true, resulted in a lot of power outages and a few deaths and a lot of flooding in some areas, maybe certain services like trash pickup could have been suspended, but otherwise things were pretty normal, except for people in flood zones.
Saturday's line up for sandbags was pretty orderly, with the lane blocked off and monitored by DPW personnel. When I first saw the line it was probably 4.5 blocks long and it remained steady throughout the day.
On the other hand, catching hundreds of thousands of people not at home, in places where they can't be accommodated that well if there is a major storm or other type of disaster, makes dealing with disaster very difficult.
So we can argue that one form of accommodation is shutting some functions down in advance of the storm, so that we can preserve our capacity to recover, while providing necessary emergency services during the storm.
This acknowledges constraints and community capacity.
Probably the decision to close various local government agencies and school systems, the federal government, and the local transit system was a good decision, because the ability to recover, in an era where there are no longer much in the way of "slack resources" in the system (another way to think about this is in terms of logistics and the supply chain), is very difficult, especially in the short run.
Slack resources are recognised to be those spare capabilities and assets of the organisation that are variable reclaimable for re-deployment. They represent under utilised and hidden spare energies within a company that may be recaptured and employed for a variety of tasks. However their positive contribution to organisational success has been a contentious claim that has provoked the intuitive argument that slack resources are inefficiency and are to be eradicated. The counter argument has been that very efficient organisations are inflexible and therefore incapable of being responsive to an increasingly dynamic environment. Therefore this work compares and contrasts three distinctive industries in a holistic manner and maps the impact of environmental flux on the firm, its subsequent disruptive ripples through the organisation and its absorption by slack resources. Through this process it is demonstrated that slack resources do positively contribute to organisational performance and subsequently the ability of slack to promote sustained competitive advantage is also identified.
While the thesis is on business organization, the points are fully relevant to organizational activity of all types. (Also consider the work of sociologist Charles Perrow on redundancy and organizational failure. His later work makes the point that complex systems are particularly vulnerable and therefore he recommends more decentralized forms of organization.)
When you don't have slack resources, hunkering down and preserving your capacities through measured shut down, so that you can have resources to deploy afterwards, is a logical course of action.
Location: Salt Lake City, UTAH (UT), United States
I am an urban/commercial district revitalization and transportation/mobility advocate and consultant. I was a principal in BicyclePASS, a bicycle facilities systems integration firm, based in Washington, DC. Now I'm in Salt Lake City for family reasons. Urban economic competitiveness is dependent on efficient transit and mixed use, compact places. Therefore, I end up writing a lot about mobility and urban design. I still own a house in DC, so I write a lot about Washington, DC issues. I try to write so that "universal lessons" are evident in the entries, regardless of the place.
