Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Earth & Environmental Sciences

Advisor

Cindi Katz

Committee Members

William Solecki

Tom Angotti

Kafui Attoh

Subject Categories

Environmental Engineering | Environmental Law | Human Geography | Nature and Society Relations | Spatial Science | Tourism | Urban, Community and Regional Planning | Urban Studies and Planning

Keywords

Urban geography, adaptation, climate change, retreat, gentrification

Abstract

This study examines the rapid acceleration of coastal development in the United States despite projections of climate change-induced sea level rise. Like no other developed country, the U.S. has transformed its fragile coastline into sites for leisure, consumption, and retirement. These spaces now face the prospect of more frequent and severe storms, as well as land loss and inundation, due to climate change. This dilemma has sparked debates around coastal resilience, adaptation, retreat, and climate gentrification.

While many studies seek to measure perceptions of climate change risk and vulnerability, this dissertation reverses the question by positioning risk perceptions as an outcome of political and economic struggles and projects, which are the object of this research. I trace these struggles through the actions of New Jersey’s beach lobby, the U.S.’s oldest and most successful lobby for enrolling the federal and state governments into nurturing coastal development. New Jersey beach lobbyists shepherded the development of coastal engineering as a modern scientific field as one euphemistically directed at ‘shore protection’ of coastal property values, rather than coastal ecosystems themselves. Subsequently, these lobbyists worked to enshrine shore protection in the mandate of the federal government, via the Army Corps of Engineers, and allied with insurers to fashion a solution to rising disaster costs in the form of the National Flood Insurance Program, which uses public funds to underwrite coastal property values.

Yet not all U.S. coasts become beaches. Just as the waterfront has frequently been targeted for resort and leisure development, it has also frequently been earmarked as a literal dumping ground dirty and undesirable land-uses like waste dumps, chemical plants, and shipping facilities. This study examines New Jersey’s Bayshore, along the north shore of Monmouth County, as an example of a place with a dynamic and evolving role within the uneven coastal development dialectic. Although the Bayshore, like New Jersey’s Atlantic shore, thrived as an early 20th century tourist destination, its proximity to extensive pollutants lining Raritan Bay ultimately sent the region into a long-term decline. This study scales down to the Bayshore town of Keansburg to understand contemporary adaptation debates as the extension of uneven coastal development into a new round of uneven coastal restructuring. While Keansburg was arguably experiencing unplanned retreat by the dawn Superstorm Sandy, the disaster activated a plethora of material and discursive tools that local boosters could use to fashion a new development pathway for the town. Despite local ambitions to transform Keansburg’s development trajectory in ways that would make it more resilient by embracing a retreat from the beach, what has ultimately proved resilient in the Keansburg case is a development model centered around reproducing the beach as a luxurious amenity. The adaptation by gentrification model showcased in Keansburg raises serious questions about climate justice, managed retreat, and the future of the working-class coast.

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