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The threat of climate gentrification is galvanizing Miami’s most vulnerable neighborhoods In most other urban areas in the country, communities of color were often relegated to flood-prone areas with poor infrastructure through the exclusionary housing policies of the twentieth century. And as we have witnessed, minority communities like Houston’s Fifth Ward and New Orleans’s Ninth Ward bear the brunt of the impacts from the twenty-first century’s strongest storms. But in South Florida, the opposite segregation pattern is true. Miami’s Black and minority communities were historically confined to the northwest quadrant of the city, atop a limestone ridge that sits seven to 14 feet above sea level. These neighborhoods were established near the Flagler railroad by many of the line’s African American and Bahamian builders, while Miami’s white and affluent populations resided in more desirable coastal areas like Miami Beach, which peaks at four feet above sea level. Now with more developers and landowners considering the long-term impacts of sea level rise, flooding, and hurricanes to their properties, Miami’s historic neighborhoods of Little Haiti and Liberty City are feeling a new stress created by the convergence of the climate and affordable housing crises — the threat of climate gentrification. One of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods, Lemon City, was settled by Black and white homesteaders following the Civil War, growing into a thriving community. Over time, Haitian immigrants moved into and rebuilt the neighborhood, bringing the culture, traditions, and sense of place to the neighborhood now known as Little Haiti. Largely a community of low-income renters, it is one of Miami’s last areas with an adequate stock of naturally occurring affordable housing, or rental units not requiring government subsidies. But with rising property values, the neighborhood is threatened with gentrification as investors target the area.
Little Haiti’s average home price in 2012 was $102,000. Compared with the average home price in 2021 of $340,000, the neighborhood has seen values jump 233 percent in just nine years. Across the same nine years, Miami Beach has seen only a 44.6 percent increase in home values, from $258,000 in 2012 to $373,000. Similar discrepancies between the rates
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of appreciation of land values in high-elevation communities and those in low-elevation and flood-prone communities were initially published by Harvard researcher Jesse Keenan, drawing some outside attention to the issue. But the people of Liberty City and Little Haiti did not need an Ivy League researcher to concern their already vulnerable communities. Perhaps this sentiment is best embodied by a quote from climate activist and Liberty City resident Valencia Gunder from a WLRN podcast series on the topic: “My grandfather, he always would talk to us, like, ‘They gonna steal our communities because it don’t flood.’ I remember him saying it as a young child.” Other than this accelerating growth in land value of highelevation properties, there is no tangible evidence that current development pressures in these communities are a direct result of climate gentrification. However, investors’ intentions for future waves of development have been made clear. For example, the Urban Land Institute recommended in a study for the City of Miami that developments focus on “density and transit oriented development along more naturally water resilient elevations like the ridge,” while noting that city officials would have to “be sensitive to potential displacement pressure.” Apparently, one investor has taken this recommendation to heart as two properties in Little Haiti are owned by Premium Elevation, LLC, per the Miami-Dade County Property
Appraiser’s database.
In the residents’ eyes, the biggest threat to the neighborhood’s character is the 17-acre Magic City “My grandfather, he Innovation District, always would talk to us, planned at the like, ‘They gonna steal our eastern edge of Little Haiti. In plans communities because it submitted to the don’t flood.’ I remember city by developers him saying it as a young of the district, it was child.” directly stated that
