Just two months ago, two New Yorkers died when severe rainfall and flooding hit every neighborhood across the city. In just 20 minutes, Bed-Stuy, Flatbush, and Hollis, which have rarely flooded to this extent, saw the brunt of this cloudburst event. Ask any New Yorker — we know. Images of flooded streets, subways, and homes are our new normal.
Mayor Mamdani, who has already shown an eagerness to improve public life and tackle big challenges has a chance to create a newer normal, one where the city manages climate challenges through innovative and strategic use of the public realm — our streets, parks, public plazas, and government buildings — to address heavy flooding. This upfront investment will reduce the risk to New Yorkers’ lives and pocketbooks.
An analysis by Rebuild by Design of New York City property sales in 2023 revealed that more than 7,300 (1-3 family) homes sold, valued at $3.6 billion, were situated within or directly adjacent to the flood zone. That’s thousands of New Yorkers passing risk to one another in locations where they have a high likelihood of flooding before the end of their 30-year mortgage.
Safeguarding NYC communities will require testing new infrastructure, breaking down silos in city government, and thinking holistically about how we use our public space.
Think of a typical street. Buses, taxis, private vehicles, bikes, delivery trucks, street vendors, and pedestrians, jockey around terrorism blockades, trees, sewers, garbage storage, and sidewalks — all competing for space. Instead, if we set a clear vision with bold goals for our streets — being owned by and designed for the people, with the people, across multiple agencies — we could dramatically shift the way the city serves its residents and create a more livable, climate-ready city.
The city has piloted open streets like Jackson Heights’ 26-block Paseo Park on 34th Ave., which proved essential to one of the city’s most impacted communities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Now imagine if the permanent linear park, championed by the community and local City Council member, could manage heavy rain when the sewers are unable to keep up, reducing flooding for the more than 2,000 at-risk homes and businesses in Jackson Heights.
NYC Parks create billions of dollars of benefits in human health, ecosystem services, economic impact, and climate resilience — serving as staging grounds for disaster recovery, refuge from extreme heat waves, and shields against poor air quality. There are 177 NYC parks serving communities that will have high flood risk, heat risk, and social vulnerability by 2050. Sixty percent of those are located in the Bronx.
Over the next 20 years, if every time we upgrade parks, we prioritize community benefits and climate resilience, we can reduce risk; improve access to recreation and gathering space; drive better health and mental health outcomes; enhance local ecology and biodiversity; and open up benefits to every neighborhood, while creating opportunities for new types of funding.
This is already happening across the Hudson River where Hoboken’s new ResilinCity Park is designed to hold 2 million gallons of stormwater, keeping a 20-block area that was known to flood dry.
Mamdani can drive this change. Here is how:
- Make climate resiliency in the public realm a key focus for the deputy mayor for operations. Empower the office to oversee projects and coordinate city agencies with a mandate to stretch every government dollar to its fullest through cross-agency priorities, such as street safety and climate resilience.
- Utilize the mayor’s new Office of Mass Engagement to develop a vision with communities, starting with the most physically and socially vulnerable, in which every piece of our public realm reflects community needs. Building on the work by Climate Strong Communities, harness the heft of all city agencies and funding for implementation to be sure the work will be realized.
- Institutionalize collaboration across agencies and budgets. Incentivize agencies to share resources and meet one another’s goals.
Inflation is high and budgets are tight. Mamdani is already flexing his political muscle to deliver on his quality of life promises. By shifting the focus from solving one issue at a time to a multi-benefit approach, we can build smarter public spaces, save money, and save lives.
Chester is director of Rebuild by Design at NYU.
