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St. Louis Anthropocene: displacement & replacement

JJP

A brief essay about St. Louis' notorious eminent domain history--

--along with 2 recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch articles about "urban renewal" projects that are scheduled to reoccupy the Mill Flats area, which hosted the most notorious episode of displacement of African-American communities: the Chouteau Greenway project (will it serve or displace low-income St. Louisans?); and SLU's Mill Creek Flats high-rise project, which certainly will, and whose name seems to me an especially tone-deaf if gutsy move...

https://humanities.wustl.edu/features/Margaret-Garb-St-Louis-Eminent-Domain

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/steelcote-developer-plans-more-apartments-brewery-space-in-million-midtown/article_811eaf96-76e1-5c20-a870-1e79abd3f06e.html

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/chouteau-greenway-project-aims-to-knit-st-louis-neighborhoods-together/article_55fea4e6-6829-5c80-9168-313305b4e3bb.html

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stephanie.niev…

Several public officials were named in this article: Robert McDonnell, governor of Virginia, Jack Markell, governor of Delaware, Patty McQuillan, a member of North Carolina's emergency management agency, Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, Tom Corbett, governor of Pennsylvania, Michael Nutter, mayor of Philadelphia, Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary, and President Obama.

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stephanie.niev…

There were several professional design teams a part of reaching a solution to make Newark more resilient to hurricanes. Among these groups, there was a group of students that had helped in planning. One of the teacher's in charge of a design group from NJIT had been teaching a master’s class in infrastructure planning. There were 15 students in the class that had helped her in her design strategies. After being into seven different teams, the students went out and did research in towns that were deeply affected by Hurricane Sandy. There were a range of majors among the students, from architecture to design or planning. Each student used his or her own knowledge and separate disciplines to come up with ideas to aid areas that were affected by Sandy.

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stephanie.niev…

Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Red Cross helped during this natural disaster. Also, New Jersey had sent out several sotrm warning and procedures on what to do if stuck in a troubling situation during the sotrm. New Jersey also sent out shelter locations to go to if necessary. In Newark, the public safety sent out several tips and methods to prevent any internal damage, such as flooding, in housing and what to store during the super storm.

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stephanie.niev…

The main point of this article was to illustrate the severity of the super storm Irene. It shows the stressed and frantic thought process and procedures before the storm. In addition, it shows the aftereffects of the storm and how many different places and people were affected greatly thoughout the East coast. These points are supported by quotes, statistics and overall analysis of the super storm itself.

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stephanie.niev…

A year after Hurricane Sandy, ten different design groups, filled with designers, architects, planners and engineers, decided to gather at NJIT to discuss ways on how to make Newark less vulnerable to hurricanes and other natural disasters. One team was lead by a professor at NJIT, who had four different proposals that will protect a wide portion of the coasts of New Jersey. Each of the teams came up with several ideas on how to make Newark more resilient to natural disasters.

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stephanie.niev…

There were several forms of resilience int eh article. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were preparing several emergency personnel are preparing all along the coast. In addition to this, there were several shelters open, one specfically at the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center. Many of the shelters had also teamed up with Red Cross to help during the storm.

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stephanie.niev…

The author of the article took several quotes from government officials to depict the severity of the situation: mainly taking quotes from governors and even the president to illustrate how the hurricane affected the surrounding communities and mentalities of those living in such towns. In addition, the author added statistics of the support relief and the number of deceased due to the storm. The author also discussed the background of many of the public transportation work shifts, such as airlfight and train systems: they were down becuase of the storm.

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stephanie.niev…

The largest risk at hand would be how the nautral disaster, Hurricane Sandy, affected the beaches of New Jersey, causing some the beaches to lose a significant amount of sand; this becomes a risk because the beaches weren't available to use. The beaches of New Jersey make most of the profit in tourism: the shore gaining $35.5 billion for tourism locations. This became a risk becuase there was money lost during and after the storm, as groups tried to repair the shores. In addition, the cost to repair the shores were extremely costly. Another group that received risks and hazards were the communities near the shores: they had to change their entire lifestyle when the beaches were destroyed after the storm. Those communities had to learn how to live without the beaches' resources and had to get accustomed to not going down to the shores while the beaches were being restored.