Metropolitics

A Construction Boom in an Urban Floodplain: Long Island City, Queens, NYC

Christopher Ryan — 2020-02-11T06:00:00Z

New York City has encouraged development in Long Island City, Queens, even as the neighborhood has not recovered from damage due to Superstorm Sandy in 2012, and remains vulnerable to future flooding.
A high risk for flooding
With four of its five boroughs located on islands off the coast of the continental United States, New York City is particularly vulnerable to coastal impacts of climate change. The New York City Panel on Climate Change (2019) outlines multiple climate-change risks,

- From the Field / New York, Queens, resilience, vulnerability, flooding, natural risks, disaster, ecological disaster, catastrophe, environment, sea-level rise, climate change, transport, public transportation, Long Island City

Poverty as a Social Stigma

Axelle Brodiez-Dolino & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-12-13T06:00:00Z

The distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor is deeply entrenched, and representations of poverty have long been burdened with their share of prejudices and stigmas. Historian Axelle Brodiez-Dolino brings into perspective the changing social boundaries, categories and policies that have constructed, deconstructed and sought to tackle poverty.
Society—whether Christian or secularized, monarchical or republican—has always been, and remains, the product of interaction among

- Essays / urban poor, poverty, precarity, vulnerability, assistance, welfare state, stigma

Insecure Lives Under Extreme Climate Conditions: Insights from a Fishing Hamlet in Tamil Nadu, India

Devendraraj Madhanagopal — 2018-04-17T05:00:00Z

In recent years, climate change–induced weather events have exacerbated poverty and insecurity in small fishing villages on the southeastern coastline of India. Author Devendraraj Madhanagopal documents the difficult choices that vulnerable fishermen must make between safety and livelihood, and urges action.
---- Series: Climate Change and Social Change Rainwater and seawater surrounded the whole village, and we were disconnected from the external world for a few days.
[15 March 2016,

- From the Field / safety, poverty, India, climate change, vulnerability, insecurity, precarity, Tamil Nadu, fishing, social change

How Children Cope When Home is a Hotel

Erwan Le Méner & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-02-05T06:00:00Z

Emergency housing in social hotels is affecting a growing number of families in the Paris region. How does this experience impact the lives of children? What are the consequences on children's relationship to space, on how they grow up, and on how they learn, make friends and play? Erwan Le Méner shows how school plays a central role in stabilizing an otherwise precarious situation.
---- Series: Children in the City Today, one in five people experiencing homelessness in the Paris region are

- From the Field / France, Paris region, housing, children, public policy, sociabilities, vulnerability, homelessness, precarity, vulnerable housing, emergency accommodation, social emergency, social hotel, school

Looking Backward into the Future of New York

Ted Steinberg — 2015-01-12T05:50:00Z

Can the lesson of Hurricane Sandy dampen the enthusiasm of New York City's growth machine? Ted Steinberg, author of Gotham Unbound, an environmental history of New York City, gives an overview of the historical developments that make the city one of the most vulnerable to floods in the United States.
How should those who rule over New York City plan for its future? Sketching out elaborate plans has long been a cottage industry in the nation's largest city. To date, however, historical

- Essays / catastrophe, disaster, environment, United States, urban ecology, land, water, New York, history, sustainable urban planning, Sandy, sea-level rise, flooding, vulnerability, wildlife