Hazards, Landscape, and Place: Staten Island and Hurricane Sandy
Open Access
- Author:
- Frey, Nathan Leidy
- Graduate Program:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 27, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Brenton Yarnal, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Brenton Yarnal, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Deryck William Holdsworth, Committee Member
Christopher Stiles Fowler, Committee Member
Barrett Alan Lee, Outside Member - Keywords:
- natural hazards
Hurricane Sandy
urban geography
historical geography
New York City
place attachment - Abstract:
- Hurricane Sandy, like most costly U.S. hurricane disasters, was fundamentally urban in character. Staten Island, New York, one of the five boroughs of New York City, received disproportionate damages in the storm, and recovery has been slow. The borough receives limited attention in academic and popular literature relative to the other four boroughs, despite a large population and a rich history dating to the colonial era. This study extends the idea that places are historically contingent and constantly evolving to place-based hazards research. It focuses on the historical development of places across Staten Island landscapes, on the ways in which those developments created and failed to mitigate coastal flood risk, and on the role of residents’ attachment to places in influencing their recovery from Sandy. It employs a mixed methods approach, relying on tools and concepts from the urban geography, urban sociology, historical geography, demography, and natural hazards literatures. The dissertation first explores the historical development of landscapes across Staten Island from the colonial era to the present day, noting the ways in which modern landscapes bear the traces of their historical antecedents. It next investigates the growth of flood risk over the course of the twentieth century in the island’s East Shore neighborhoods, pointing to prior storm events that foreshadowed Sandy. Post-Sandy policy initiatives are then examined in the light of these prior events. This study finds that many lessons have been learned from the failures of prior proposals, and that these lessons are reflected in the present-day proposals. The evolution of the study area’s demographic composition over the past 50 years is then examined within the broader context of other Sandy-affected areas to determine similarities and differences. Finally, the study examines the relationship between place attachment and recovery from Sandy, finding that one measure of place attachment, neighborhood satisfaction, is linked with recovery, but that another measure, duration of residence, is less clearly linked with recovery. Overall, this dissertation enhances the integration of place and history in geographic hazard risk research and reiterates the critical role that understandings of both place and history must play in establishing effective hazard mitigation, recovery, and resilience policies.