Underwater: Resilience, racialized housing, and the national flood insurance program in Canarsie, Brooklyn

Abstract

Resilience is a pervasive discourse for adapting to environmental risks, and one which the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) uses frequently, yet limited attention has been paid to the operationalization of resilience through environmental governance. This study uses the case of the NFIP's impacts on Canarsie, Brooklyn to ground resilience in the policy mechanisms and programs through which different visions of a resilient coast are enacted, the histories of uneven racial development in which these programs operate, and the impacts these programs have on coastal residents. Proposed expansions of New York City's flood risk maps combined with cuts to NFIP subsidies mean thousands of Canarsie residents who have never previously been required to purchase flood insurance will soon face mandatory premiums of $3000–$6000 per year. The 85% black neighborhood of Canarsie was targeted by more subprime loans in the 2000s than any other neighborhood in New York City, robbing many residents of housing wealth they might have otherwise used to shoulder flood insurance costs. Drawing on ethnographic research, I show that Canarsie residents have subsidized their plundered housing wealth with social reproduction strategies such as renting out their basements, setting up a contradictory situation in which Canarsians' financial resilience relies on spaces the NFIP deems a threat to physical and environmental resilience. The Canarsie case study ultimately demonstrates that the NFIP, by governing through the mechanism of household finances, stands to reproduce and accelerate existing racial inequalities in the housing market.