Joseph Sweeney

6/26/23

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, bringing

death and destruction to the city of New Orleans and the gulf coast of the United States. In the

aftermath, one question dominated the minds of the country: “How could this happen?” The city

of New Orleans, built entirely below sea level, drew much pity for its predicament, but also a fair

bit of finger pointing from engineers and laymen alike, questioning the logic of the city’s

location in the first place, especially if such tragedy was ever a possibility. The signs were there,

the danger was there, the concerns were there. But all were ignored, ignored until it was too late.

When I think of Katrina, I also recall the advance warnings of global climate change and of the

rising sea levels. If people could obviously see why New Orleans was doomed to fail in the event

of a disaster, why wasn’t a similar reaction happening for the coastal areas of Georgia and

Florida, both clearly in the path of rising sea levels as global climate change continues. I set out

to find the answer, and found that while the concern amongst the general population is

lackadaisical, market research has shown that areas impacted by sea level rise have suffered

significant economic losses. Knowing the geographical factors that influenced the culture and

economies of these affected areas, the greater picture of how things will change as the years

progress becomes clear.

As one of the pre-eminent ports of the eastern seaboard, and one of the most widely

traveled tourist destinations in the world, Miami, Florida, and the greater Miami-Dade county

which surrounds it, is the economic battery of south Florida. The total impact of the city’s vibrant

nightlife, constant stream of tourists, and general status as a quote “destination city” for large

events, cannot be understated. With these impacts in mind, Miami also happens to be one of the
largest cities at risk of sinking underwater in the future, due to rising sea levels caused by global

climate change. Knowing that the city was at risk of becoming a slow disappearing act, citizens

and officials have taken action, in the form of climate protests, some as far back as 25 years ago.

In the late 1990s, the World Trade Organization had come under fire for its promotion of

multinational trade agreements such as NAFTA, which made trade between the United States,

Canada, and Mexico a far less taxing and tedious affair. While “Free Trade Agreement”

seemingly heralded the great triumph of the free market economy over the rigid command

economy of the previously collapsed Soviet Union, it also came with several foreseen and

unforeseen consequences. The reduction of tariffs between the U.S. and Mexico in particular

created an incentive for American companies to outsource their labor to the cheaper (and less

regulated by unions) Mexico. Creating jobs in Mexico at the expense of factory labor in the US

was not a foreseen consequence for American voters, and they took to the streets in Seattle,

Washington to protest at the site of the WTO.

At the same time in Miami, Florida, the WTO was protested in the streets for many of the

same labor concerns, but also for the very existence of the city. To explain, the liberal free market

economy favored by the WTO promotes rapid growth around the world, and intended to jump-

start the economies of peripheral countries, especially in South America. By the time of the WTO

protests the countries of South America had finally stabilized into their modern forms, after

decades of post-colonial and cold war unrest. The Laissez-Faire policies encouraged by the WTO

made the export of raw goods from the resource rich South Americas extremely profitable.

However, as with the issues of labor caused by NAFTA in the North American continent, the

uncontrolled export of natural resources from South America created many environmental issues
which persist to this day. The chief example is the rapid deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest

in Brazil.

As the rainforest, home to many endangered organisms and great natural beauty, burned

and fell, activists in the US took notice. The destruction of the rainforest had a root cause in the

unregulated globalized free market, and a face in the form of the WTO. But why Miami, Florida,

if the conference was in Seattle, Washington? Because the same policies that were promoting the

destruction of the rainforest in Brazil had also created an environment of non-action on the

changing climate in the US. As globalization increased, so too did the pollution and production

of Green-House gasses, speeding the process of global warming, and rising sea levels. Squarely

in the danger zone from these policies was Miami, Florida a city that could be sunk entirely if the

sea levels rose continuously. Armed with this knowledge, protestors flocked to the streets of

Miami, raging against the machine of globalization and corporatism.

Highly publicized, the WTO protests of 1999 mark one of the first true moments of

action by the citizenry of areas affected most by global climate change. Here was a population

recognizing the danger of the rising sea, and how it affected their lives personally, as well as the

homes and city around them. While the protests accomplished precious little in terms of policy

(the WTO continued its mission to this day.) The awareness raised caused many on either side of

the free trade argument to reconsider their stances. For citizens of Miami, the awareness was not

needed. From 2005 to 2016 and beyond, flooding in low elevation areas around the coasts of

Miami-Dade county has become a major economic factor.

The city, by and large a service based economy, creates most of its annual GDP in areas

around the coast. The vast majority of jobs and trade points of entry/exit exist there, and show no

signs of moving inward any time soon based on population trends. This is a huge issue that has
been building for decades. All projections state that the sea level rise will most negatively impact

the coast, but the lifeblood of the city is there. So, in spite of warnings by climate scientists and

common sense, the most growth for the city of Miami is around the coast. How has the citizenry

reckoned with the increasingly obvious flooding and rising sea level problems? By continuing to

move and live along the coast, but in the few elevated areas insulated from the most immediate

and pressing flood issues. This process, known as Climate Gentrification, involves redistribution

of funding and investment into the minorly elevated areas, pushing the lower income classes out

into areas more at risk.

Climate gentrification highlights the core issue at hand for my research topic. In a world

where a large number of areas are in the process of slowly fading into the sea, due in part to the

changing climate which has been sped up by the human race’s folly, it seems ridiculous that

people could continue to push to live in the very same at risk areas. But the cultural drivers are

all in place. The general attitude and decision making of the public is to ignore the whole, as long

as the individual prospers, for however short a time. Going back to the WTO and their Laissez-

Faire economy they promote, the focus is on short term gains. In the case of free trade and

unfettered capitalism, the short-term gains are supposed by experts to continue indefinitely. But

as in the case of every major economic collapse in history, the planet has a set limit of how many

“short term gains” it can handle before the consequences rear their ugly head.

Socially and culturally, the focus on individual greatness and gains drives climate

gentrification. The individual contributor’s need to be located in a destination city, an economic

center, and a cultural keystone like Miami is driven by dreams of short term gains. So too is the

blind eye turned to those pushed out of the environmentally and economically advantaged areas

with higher elevation. In many cases, those pushed out are left to choose housing in less
fortunate, at risk elevations. If those same less fortunate ones do not choose the at risk elevation

housing, they run the risk of being excluded from the economic and cultural heart of the city. So

in the eternal pursuit of short term gains, they choose to reside in the same places that may be

covered by the rising ocean tides in less than 50 years.

Recognizing the patterns which led to the current state of the coastal areas of the US in

terms of the housing market and social strata helps recontextualize the relationship between

economy and environment. As cultural geographers, it is important to use the information

gleaned from various sources and experiences to frame the stories we wish to tell. Through my

research I have found that the risks from climate change and global warming are sometimes

waived away in the eyes of the public, in favor of economic and social gains. This arena should

prove an interesting one in the coming years, as many of the short term gains have long term

consequences.
References

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