Waterfront Living: Climate Change and the R-Word

Waterfront Living
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Waterfront Living
Part 1
“R-word” is a frequent acronymic letter that could either refer to retreat or resilience. However, the Norfolk community and particularly, planners prefer the latter because it offers people positive limelight upon which to perceive their prevailing circumstances. Resilience is associated with projects such as “sea walls, retention ponds, rebuilding wetlands, and improved storm-water capacity” (Morrison, 2020). The Center for Climate Integrity estimates that $42 billion will be required to “build sea walls for United States coastal cities with more than 25,000 residents” (Morrison, 2020). When communities with fewer than this number are taken into account, the costs rise exponentially to about $400 billion. This situation is complicated considering that there about 126 million people living around these regions. This figure constitutes approximately 40% of the U.S. population meaning that the dynamics of movement concerning this situation will be a major challenge.
FEMA’s approach to buyouts appears to favor the wealthy urban communities more than their rural colleagues because the former possess the resources to facilitate paperwork as well as an application for federal money. Resilience points is an interchange mechanism that a developer gains after paying a nonprofit land trust for which the trust uses to “buy a property that has flooded twice within a decade” (Morrison, 2020). In essence, it is a secure manner of transferring development rights where neither the homeowner nor the developer gets to scam the other. Eventually, the developer continues with their job, which is building properties and thus, guarantees that the community is progressing positively.
Part 2
Over time, I have come to understand the massive force t...