Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2026
Abstract
This paper investigates how climate adaptation policies in the Rockaway Peninsula of New York City produce unequal outcomes despite their ostensibly neutral design, framing resilience as an environmental and climate justice problem. Situated within a landscape marked by stark socioeconomic disparities, aging housing stock, and high exposure to coastal flooding, the study demonstrates that existing adaptation strategies—centered on uniform technical standards, insurance frameworks, and large-scale coastal infrastructure—systematically advantage actors with greater financial and institutional capacity while leaving low-income residents, particularly renters, disproportionately vulnerable.
The analysis identifies three core dynamics underlying this “unequal-by-design” resilience regime: (1) the stratified feasibility of compliance with flood standards, which privileges well-capitalized developments and constrains small homeowners and tenants; (2) the reliance on structural metrics that obscure lived vulnerabilities such as chronic dampness, extended outages, and delayed habitability; and (3) the reinforcing effects of public investments that stabilize property values and attract capital in already advantaged areas while neglecting inland and renter-dominated zones.
Building on this diagnosis, the paper evaluates three policy pathways through environmental justice (EJ) and climate justice (CJ) criteria: a status quo compliance-driven model with incremental adjustments, a tenant-centered accommodation framework focused on habitability and lived outcomes, and a transformative approach linking climate resilience to housing justice and collective governance. Comparative analysis finds that while the status quo pathway is administratively feasible but inequitable, and the transformative pathway is just but politically constrained, the tenant-centered model offers the most effective balance between equity and implementability.
The paper concludes that achieving just climate adaptation requires redefining resilience from a narrow focus on structural compliance and asset protection to a broader, capacity-aware framework centered on habitability, health, and the ability of communities to remain safely housed. In the Rockaways and beyond, equitable climate governance depends on aligning policy tools, metrics, and investments with the lived realities of those most exposed to risk.
