Miami residents fear 'climate gentrification' as investors seek higher ground
PRI
Carolyn Beeler, PRI's The World
3 hrs ago
Next Slide
1/5 SLIDES © Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Schiller Sanon-Jules remembers eating fried pork and plantains in Little Haiti when he was a kid in the 1980s.
“It was a taste of Haiti,” says Sanon-Jules, who immigrated to the US as a child and now owns the Little Haiti Thrift and Gift Store, one of the shops on the neighborhood’s brightly-colored main street.
As a teenager, he used to parade down the same street with friends and drums, in a kind of Haitian second line.
“Every Saturday night, this is where you’d find us,” says Sanon-Jules. “Sometimes we’d be out for two or three hours just walking, and there’d be like 100 people following the band.”
But the neighborhood is changing, gentrifying rapidly. As developers buy up property and push out longtime residents, Sanon-Jules says “you don’t have the Haitian influx that you used to have.”
Little Haiti’s location, close to both the beach and downtown, makes it a prime target for development. But some residents also believe there’s another factor contributing to gentrification here: the threat of climate change.
Beachfront flooding makes higher ground more attractive
On Miami’s beachfront, rising seas regularly push water up through the ground during high tides. Flooding is more and more of a problem. But Little Haiti sits roughly a mile inland, and on relatively high ground. Sanon-Jules’ store, for example, is 11 feet above sea level — nearly double the average elevation of Miami.
Some residents believe that relatively high elevation makes their neighborhood a more attractive investment for developers.
“For sure, I think that 100 percent,” says resident Lidia Toussaint, who grew up in the neighborhood.
After Hurricane Irma made rivers out of roads in some Miami neighborhoods in September, Toussaint noticed Little Haiti was relatively dry.
“This area, we didn’t really experience flooding. We really just got some downed power lines,” says Toussaint.
“I was having this conversation with a friend about how this changes the market in this area, makes it more valuable. So now we’re definitely going to get pushed out of here.”
Toussaint believes that’s already happening. Her parents have lived here for nearly 40 years. But as their rent rises, they’re looking at moving somewhere cheaper.
“They’re retired, so their income is restricted,” Toussaint says. “They can’t afford it, so now they’re going to have to try to find something they can afford.”
Click for Full Text!