Even before Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters surged over New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula, there was an air of decay in Edgemere, a far-flung seaside neighborhood long pockmarked with boarded-up homes and vacant lots with waist-high weeds.
Public spending after disasters has led to increased inequality, said Junia Howell, a sociologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago who researches race, housing and disasters.
Neighbors admit it's not a perfect comparison. Some Averne investment was underway before Sandy. Six years prior, a $1 billion development drew more white families to the neighborhood — which is still majority Black, though that number is dropping — and sprouted 2,300 homes, some now being resold for as much as $1.7 million. The development was mostly unscathed by winds and flooding, prompting grumbling by Edgemere residents that their homes weren’t built to last.
There's little sign here of the Rockaways' history as a beach resort community. The peninsula’s grand hotels didn’t survive into the automobile age. The 1950s brought urban renewal; officials tore down thousands of bungalows that were home to Black and Puerto Rican families, replacing some of that lost housing stock with high-rise housing projects while leaving other razed blocks to nature.
Sandy brought those small signs of hope to a halt. And residents say they saw a familiar story, with priority given to white neighborhoods around them.
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