Stress can push some people to their breaking point, but the same can be said of a city. In Miami-Dade, most stresses are caused by sea level rise, affordable housing, and a lack of transit options, according to a recently-released study.
The findings are part of a 2017 assessment funded by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program, which aimed to improve resiliency in the county. Miami is one of 100 cities the program was targeting for improvement, but the program is closing down in July as many of the cities are beginning to roll out their own resilient strategies.
Other issues facing Miami, according to the report, include poverty, education, and public health concerns like Zika.
In terms of sea level rise, the assessment found that nearly $21 billion worth of assets were at risk due to rising tides. At the time, the sea level was expected to rise from three to seven inches by 2030.
When looking at transit, Miami-Dade was the sixth-most congested county in the U.S. Half a million commuters travel through Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami, and the City of Miami Beach every single day. Nearly 800,000 commuters stayed within the area.
Poverty and housing went hand in hand, as sixty percent of residents were considered cost-burdened, meaning more than 30 percent of a person’s income was spent on housing. That issue, the assessment found, stemmed from Miami’s economy.
The top three economic engines in Miami-Dade county were Miami International Airport, Port Miami, and tourism. All three are reliant on a transient population, which forces more than half of the population to work low-wage jobs.
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This assessment was the first phase of 100 Resilient Cities' two-phase process. The second will be Miami’s new resilient strategy - Resilient 305.
Over the past six years, the organization has poured $3 billion in funding across 100 cities around the globe. The initiative, which created a global network for cities to discuss solutions for these stresses, has completed more than 2,000 projects geared toward improving a city’s resilience.
“Resilience is the ability of a system to easily and quickly be able to bounce back when something happens,” Miami Beach's Chief Resilience Officer, Susanne M. Torriente, said.
The City of Miami Beach and Miami Dade County began the road to resilience in 2015 when they each hired their own Chief Resilience Officer to study the area’s unique vulnerabilities. But in 2016, when Miami joined 100 RC, the city was able to reach its destination a lot quicker.
“What 100 RC gave us was the network, a lot of tools, a lot of resources. The ability to talk to other RC’s around the world,” she said.
Those connections allowed the city to create the preliminary assessment in 2017 - in order to find out what issues were stressing the area the most. Now, the organization plans to continue the momentum through phase 2 of the project.
“[Resilient 305] talks about sea level rise, flooding, but it also talks about transportation, affordable housing, education, jobs," Torriente said.
The new strategy will act as a tool kit for different cities and municipalities within Miami to look at when designing resilient projects, and it contains all the research the city conducted thanks to 100 Resilient Cities funding. Torriente says she hopes by this time next year, Miami will have the same resilient network the Rockefeller Foundation created six years ago.
The full project will be released May 30th.
