NEW YORK (AP) – Even earlier Superstorm Sandy floods Sweeping across New York’s Rockaway Peninsula, Edgemere, a remote seaside neighborhood long dotted with boarded-up houses and vacant lots overgrown with weeds to the waist, had an air of decay.
When the water receded, even more Edgemere homes lay in ruins. But there was also hope that the rebuilding effort would finally give the predominantly black neighborhood the momentum it needed to recover from decades of neglect. In the decade since then The sandy coast is swampythese hopes were not fulfilled.
There are little signs of the promised development along block after block of dilapidated houses, some long unoccupied. Meanwhile, mostly white communities further west on the peninsula are thriving, with rebuilding funds bringing new housing, businesses and gathering places.
“They tell me that we are one peninsula – no, we are not. It’s a tale of two peninsulas,” said Edgemere resident Sonia Moise, whose home was filled with seawater during Sandy and her car swept away by the tide.
“Going west, what do they have? They have a skate park. They have a dog park. They have concession stands,” Moise said. “What do we have? We have homeless shelters. We have hotels where the homeless live.”
When Sandy hit the northeast coast of the United States on October 29, 2012, the storm did not discriminate, causing an estimated $65 billion in damage – most of it in New York and New Jersey. Luxury vacation homes at the Jersey Shore were ripped up; small houses in working-class areas of Staten Island were submerged up to the eaves.
But the recovery efforts were far from equal. Adversity in Edgemere is a case study of the disparities that emerge in the US after natural disasters: the billions of recovery dollars that pour in find their way to communities of color and have the weakest impact. New Orleans has had a remarkable recovery since Katrina whiter, more expensive city where poor black neighborhoods still struggle. In Florida, along rows of crumpled mobile homes, there are already murmurs that relief has been fastest in resort beach communities since Hurricane Jan.
Post-disaster government spending has increased inequality, said Junia Howell, a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies race, housing and disasters.
“Communities that are whiter and wealthier actually not only recover from disaster, but in many cases they do better,” Howell said. “What you’re doing is giving resources to those who already have the most resources and leaving everyone else out.”
The contrast is perhaps most stark west of Edgemere, at Arverne by the Sea. Like much of the Rockaway Peninsula — an 11-mile stretch of barrier beaches that is home to about 124,000 people — both communities were almost completely underwater after Sandy hit. But Edgemere residents say they’ve seen Arvern and predominantly white communities receive more aid before.
Arverne already has a new grocery store and a Dunkin’ Donuts in the new commercial strip. And next door in Rockaway Beach is a new skatepark, rebuilt after Sandy demolished the old one. Construction of the public amphitheater continues.
Neighbors admit it’s not a perfect comparison. Some investments in Arverne were going before Sandy. Six years ago, a $1 billion development drew more white families to the neighborhood — most of which are still black, though their numbers are declining — and some of those 2,300 homes are reselling for $1.7 million. The development was largely unscathed by the wind and flooding, causing Edgemere residents to grumble that their homes were not built to last.
Community council leader Moise and others say it’s clear Edgemere has never had its fair share.
“We fought for years for what the rest of the neighborhoods got. We were ignored,” Moise said.
Unlike Arverne, Edgemere has no cafes or kiosks. There is a bodega and Chinese takeout restaurant along the main street of Beach Channel Drive. A smokehouse moves in next door. Up the street is a massive public housing project.
There is little sign of the Rockaways’ history as a beach resort. The grand hotels of the peninsula did not survive the automobile age. The 1950s brought urban renewal; officials demolished thousands of bungalows that were home to black and Puerto Rican families, replacing some of that lost housing stock with high-rises, leaving other blighted neighborhoods to nature.
Edgemere and other communities on the eastern edge of the Rockaways have become dumping grounds for the city’s poorest residents, pushed across a wide bay to the far end of the earth, a 70-minute subway ride from Manhattan.
But shortly before Sandy, there was hope that things would improve — even if neighboring communities were seeing faster progress. Edgemere rose. People settled. City officials have promised to build about 800 new homes to fill the vacant lots.
Sandy put an end to these small signs of hope.
The city says it is working to make changes in Edgemere. Earlier this year, it completed a development plan dubbed Sustainable Edgemere. Every member of the community council called on the city council and the mayor to reject it. But the community didn’t have the political clout to stop it.
The plan includes promises of affordable housing near the beach and high-rise apartments with 1,200 residential units above retail space. $14 million is for strengthening the shoreline with a raised berm to protect Edgemere from a 30-inch (76-centimeter) rise in sea level, and $2.3 million to upgrade sewer and drainage lines.
But residents worry that the low-income apartments will add to the neighborhood’s long-standing burden of housing the poor. More than a quarter of Edgemere residents live in poverty, the highest rate among Rockaways communities, according to a recent state report that underscores the area’s longstanding inequality.
Those who have money spend it elsewhere because there are few amenities in the community.
And while the plan’s shoreline work may be good news, many say it’s another case of being last in line. Elsewhere along the peninsula, sand dunes were quickly fortified to prevent high tides like those experienced during Sandy. Restoration of Edgemere Beach began just a few weeks ago.
Instead of a city plan, community council members want more duplexes and townhouses to fit into the existing housing stock. They want a new school and inner parks with grassy plants to help absorb the next flood. They want amenities like fully stocked grocery stores in nearby, more affluent communities.
City officials insist they have made progress, citing wetland restoration and more than 100 flood-proof homes. Sections of the wooden boardwalk have been replaced by a concrete boardwalk along the beach. The reserve’s headquarters are under construction, but construction has limited public access to the waterfront and beach.
Dexter Davis, a former NYPD officer whose Edgemere home was flooded with more than a yard (meter) of water during Sandy, says his community needs more than what has been outlined so far.
“What they pump into other communities around us is more positive. They’re giving them more recreational stuff, better quality,” Davis said. “They’re making stuff here — but it’s not at the same level.”
Experts like New York University sociologist Jacob Faber say it’s not just the natural disaster that has affected Edgemere and other poor communities — it’s the lingering effects of years of neglect.
“You have these geographically, socially and economically isolated communities that can be killed over and over again,” Farber said.
Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.
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