 Good afternoon. My name is Manuel Ochoa, your moderator for today's session, climate gentrification, what it is and what we can do about it. Like you, I've been long interested in the topic of gentrification because of what it does the neighborhood and communities, especially communities of color. For those who experience gentrification, they feel powerless and it lies at the intersection of power, equity, politics, history, culture, and most of all, investment, especially the question on who's investing. It is ultimately a power dynamic about who has a seat at the table where decisions are made. And there are many, many definitions of gentrification. Only one definition I like to use is one developed by the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, or NALCAB for short. They define gentrification as a type of neighborhood change, which real estate appreciation and investment leads to involuntary displacement and significant cultural change. I like to use the term neighborhood change rather than gentrification because we should work to empower those who are being displaced before it happens. The first time I heard about the term climate gentrification was actually in Miami many years ago. It was a little understood term at the time, but now we understand that millions of people around the world are being displaced by climate change, especially sea level rise, but also more frequent and more intense heat, floods, hurricanes, and all manner of disasters. And Miami has become ground zero for climate gentrification. We have also seen with our own eyes after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey, or even most recently Hurricane Iain in Southwest Florida, that the most vulnerable residents are the ones most likely to experience the effect of climate change. These communities not only experience physical and economic loss, but also cultural loss and are uprooted from their history and their culture. To get into the conversation today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to three great panelists from South Florida who will share their work and their experience with this topic, many of which I've had, many of whom I've had the pleasure of working with. First, we have Salala Medefres, Deputy CEO of Catalyst Miami, Catalyst Miami's mission is to build a more just and equitable Miami. And as change makers, they work to empower the community. And they have been at the forefront of the conversation on climate change on communities of color and its impacts on communities of color. Next, we have Malika Burgos Flores, Chief Executive Officer of the Alapada Collaborative CDC. Seeing what gentrification was doing to her community firsthand, Malika and her partners in the community founded the Alapada Collaborative CDC. Also with this today is Christine Rupp, Executive Director of Dade Heritage Trust, Miami Dade's leading preservation organization that just celebrated its 50th year. Chris can often see sea level rise happening in so-called sunny day flooding not far from her office in Miami's Brickell area. And finally, we have Jane Gilbert, Miami Dade County's Chief Heap Officer. Jane is a nationally known expert in climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience. So we welcome them today and we're so pleased that they could join us. So in this short period of time that we have together, I will be asking our panelists a few prepared questions, but we would like to invite you to send us comments and questions over chat and I will try to share some of them with our panelists. So let's get to it. So our first question for today is just the question about what exactly is climate gentrification and is climate gentrification real? Is it a real phenomenon or is it something else? So welcome today. So thank you for all of I've seen a bunch of people who are online today. We have people from Sandy Ridge, North Carolina and Fargo and Peoria, Arizona and Athens. Georgia, welcome. So let's start out with Jane. Jane, what do you think about this phenomenon of climate gentrification? Yeah, so we absolutely in Greater Miami have both very strong intense development pressures going on, rising real estate prices across all areas of the county. And we are the tip of the spear in terms of climate change impacts and changes. So that does impact real estate dynamics here. Absolutely. Essentially what climate gentrification is, is intensifying development pressures in an area that is higher ground, that is less risk to, sorry, my phone just Sorry about that. As less pressures to and as less risk has been in those areas are built along our ridge and our rail line. And that was historically redline neighborhoods, historically lower income, let you know, our highest valued real estate has been along the coast, the lower levels. And so there has been increased development interest in those higher elevation areas. Some people will say that's because it's close to downtown, it's close to job markets, it's close to transit. And those are all also true. And there's there's this, you know, biggest opportunity because they're lower valued already for development. And that is all true. But it is also true that people are investing in those areas because in the long run, they will be more resilient here going forward. Yeah. And Chris, how did preservation organization become interested in this topic? How did date heritage trust? Oh, thanks, Ben. Well, first, I want to say it's a pleasure to be on the panel with with all of you, you're amazing people doing amazing work. So thank you. Well, what we found out is definitely there's gentrification happening in Miami is there are it's happening in every big city here. It's just a little more striking because of the amount of money that's pouring into Miami right now. So what we found out that we have to weave preservation advocacy into into this effort, because we have to identify what's worth saving. And traditionally, in these neighborhoods of color, there hasn't been a lot of preservation activity and doing good survey work to identify what is worth what is worth preserving. And so that's where we find that we can do some really great work. Because even though gentrification is going to happen, there are still buildings and venues and green spaces that are worthy of preserving because of their because of the stories that they tell and their their meaning to the community. So absolutely, we have to weave preservation into an ever evolving and right now quickly evolving Miami. So we can identify and we do have active surveys right now in Brownsville, which is a neighborhood of color and unincorporated Miami day. And also, we just received a grant from the state of Florida to be doing survey work in Liberty City, which was the very first debt really area designated for African American people. It was the site of the one of the very first housing developments in the entire nation for only African American. So this is great work. And we're going to continue to work with all of you on this. Congratulations, Chris. Manuel, I think I wanted to add something regarding what Jane said earlier regarding of what is climate gentrification. I think the audience that doesn't know Miami means to under things. Number one, communities of color, you built Miami. Usually the Bahamian, mostly the Bahamians and African Americans from the south and later many ways of Latino immigrants. So I want to make sure that that's known and also that when the mother of Miami invited Flagler to come down and build the railroad and invest built in the highest grounds of the area, right? And that in that in those highest grounds is where many of the BIPOC communities were able to settle. And that is why those communities are mainly African American, Latinas and so on. I also want to mention that those were the areas that were redlined during the area, eras. That is why that is why a lot of the community doesn't own their properties in those communities because there was no access to capital then. OK, so you have these people of color that come from these communities that are in their highest grounds because they built Miami that didn't have this access and they cannot buy. Therefore, they live there and they rent is the way of life. Right. And climate crisis and in the numbers of real estate going up, they now in many things changing, it prices have gone up and they still don't have that access. OK. So I just want to kind of set that ground, because I think that racial equity plays a really big role in the climate displacement issue. Climate. And that's really at the center of our conversation. Yeah, definitely. I just one more one more thing, Manuel, because this is the second part of this. Miamians do not drive the real estate market of Miami. Foreign investment drives the real estate market of Miami. So just because a Miami and cannot buy a seven hundred thousand dollar home doesn't mean that they will stop selling seven hundred thousand dollar homes because a foreigner will come a foreigner and purchase it. So that's what we're fighting against when we talk about climate gentrification. Yeah, well, we're definitely going to get in deeper in this conversation. So those are all great points. But I wanted to bring Zalalam into the conversation because Catalyst Miami has really been at the forefront of this phenomenon and especially empowering the community to advocate. It was the first time that I heard the term climate gentrification was from Catalyst Miami and from Gretchen Beesing. So I just so Zalalam, can you tell us a little bit too about just this phenomenon and how Catalyst came to work in this area, advocate? Yeah, I really think being rooted in history is really important. So I don't think I could say it better than Milica with the history of South Florida and the incredible irony that because of Jim Crow laws, these African American communities and later Hispanic Latino communities are like literally forced to live in these neighborhoods and now are being forcibly what feels like forcibly removed, right? So there's that. But I think on our end, you know, Catalyst's work on climate justice precedes me by about a year or we had started to hear, you know, about development pressures from the community members that we work with. And so we are we are an economic justice organization that does direct services as well as well as policy. So we are not like a climate organization first historically, but it was clear to us that it was like incredibly important to to work on these issues. So we we do have a leadership training program for community members called Clear that talks about all the ways climate change impacts here in Miami and in South Florida, including housing and climate gentrification. And I will say like proudly, you know, there's like now this is like a big thing. You read it in the newspaper and, you know, there's research on it. But as people often coined the term from a Harvard researcher that published a paper on it, but we know like our community members have been talking about climate gentrification and calling that term for for a long time. So we have one community member, Miss Paulette Richards. I think she's the first that we've heard it from who's you know, experiencing this issue as well. So I just wanted to lift her up in this conversation. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's I thought it's fascinating just to hear that really that it comes from the community itself, that this is not necessarily just like this scientific term, but it's really just part of a lived experience rooted in the community. So I thought it was wonderful that it's actually was a community activist that brought it to the attention of Catalyst Miami and really change the direction of how we all work and how we think about community and economic development in Miami. I also think it's important to just also note, you know, what we've been through with the pandemic. It's its own form of disaster. And I've had the privilege of doing work in Miami with with Chris and Malika, especially and, you know, now newly now with Salaam as well in the allopata community. And, you know, it was a double edged sword. So we want to acknowledge that because on the one hand, the the pandemic itself gave a pause to some of the gentrification that was happening in some cases. In other cases, it also seemed to accelerate it as we were as we were moving through it. So I wanted also to just talk about the impact of the pandemic on gentrification in the community. And so Malika, you know, you were at the forefront working with allopata collaborative. And so it really shifting the work, but also helping to accelerate the work that you were doing with the small business community. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. So definitely devastating for many for all of us. I mean, worldwide, obviously. But I think that in our community, it was one of the epicenters in Miami, specifically our community. And it's because obviously it's a disease that spreads very easily and people are doubling up in homes. And two or three families living in the same home. Because of the cost of higher rents, it's not not having a good access to to really isolate properly. We had that. That's one of the main reasons why we had such a high COVID rate in our community. But even through that, we focus on helping the small businesses. First of all, keeping making sure that their families were all set and worked a lot with catalysts on this, making sure that they can provide those services to those families since it's access PPP and making sure that we work with the Health Foundation of South Florida. So the businesses and their patrons and their staff can have the PPE that they needed and the training that they needed so they can test and do all of that. So that's what we did when the pandemic happened. But the one thing that the pandemic brought for us was that people kind of woke up on their need for digital inclusion, for their own their needs for making sure that they are truly assessing all the resources that they're entitled to and their need to come together as a community, building, bringing people together became ever most important because what they did notice is that despite this kind of low point in business, the rent went up. We got the rent went up. Traffic on the street wasn't any any higher. There were not people looking for, you know, the demand for for this for storefront wasn't higher. But the rent went up. So what we noticed that happened during the pandemic and after the pandemic was all these corporations, because it wasn't that that Mr. John bought the building, what happened is that now this multinational corporation started to acquire these places in our community and and raise the rents because now, you know, that, you know, they have a different type of, you know, payment arrangements and so on. So so everything really changed for them. And a lot of that came because of the zoning loss that had been set up in our community. Many times without even the community input. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you know, one of the things in Alapada has been, you know, that we've talked a lot about has been the potential impact on historic resources and historic buildings. And Chris, that's something that we've talked about often, you know, date heritage trust has been at the forefront during different decades and phases of development pressure. And with the pandemic in Miami, we had a lot of new people who decided to to to take stock and, you know, move to sunny Miami as they have done for different reasons over the decades. What has that meant to historic resources during the pandemic period and coming out of that in historic buildings? Well, I will say, Manuel, that, you know, as far as major historic public buildings are concerned, you know, we haven't lost that many. I think we're in pretty good shape. And that what I'm what I'm getting to is that the survey work that we're doing to identify historic buildings in urban Miami neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color is so important because once they're surveyed and potentially designated, then they can be preserved. What what and Maleka alluded to it, but zoning changes and and increased density is really, you know, driving the train here as far as neighborhood change, that increased density and allowing what, you know, what were traditional single family homes to now turn into areas where there's multi multi unit residential buildings. So that to me is the biggest change during the pandemic. Of course, people want wanted to be here. I mean, look at the image behind me. You can't fault people for wanting to be in South Florida. It's it's a fabulous place to be, but certainly, you know, equity and affordability are have to be have to be considered for for a better Miami for all. And I think that's that's the major issue when it comes to climate gentrification and gentrification. Gentrification isn't necessarily a bad thing if it helps improve neighborhoods. But when it displaces people, then then it's not a good thing at all. And so it's to me, it really boils down to governmental policy and what is allowed and what isn't allowed. And so we can we can talk about all of these things that need to be done, that we wish would be done. But it's really in the hands of the decision makers to understand that equity and affordability are really important to to maintain a better Miami for everybody. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that in in our conversation, preparing for this, that really brought it home for me and Salaam, if you could share just what, you know, being in Miami during the pandemic and seeing gentrification happen about the impact on the culture the way that you shared your own experience was very impactful to a conversation to share that. I did want to share. I know we mentioned the rent went up, but I think the guys here. Oh, I'm sorry, Christine. I know we mentioned the rent went up, but I wanted to share like Miami is now the most unaffordable housing market in the entire country. When we say went up, like I have friends who used to rent like sixteen hundred dollars for like a very nice apartment that it's now they're asking twenty six hundred, twenty seven hundred. And that's like a very, very typical thousand. Yeah, three thousand. Yeah, the doubling like the rent and Miami, Florida in general, has extremely low wages. Like I think our median income is somewhere for a family of four is somewhere around the fifty thousand dollar range for Miami Dade County. It's worse in the city of Miami. And on top of that, even before the pandemic, over half of the three million people, about three million that are here were considered in poverty or the working for, which means you don't have savings to keep you above the poverty line for three months in case of an emergency, which the pandemic is an emergency, especially in a as you all know. But, you know, especially an economic emergency in a economy or a place where the number one economy is tourism, right? And that was not happening safely at the very least. So, yeah, I mean, I think for me personally, it's been like very heavy seeing so many people not only at work, you know, with all the communities that we work with, but also just personally, so many people have to leave South Florida because they literally cannot afford this entire state with the with the wages that are offered and cannot compete with people working from home in Florida, which is like a huge change in population that I've seen because now work from home is I think it's a wonderful thing, but you can work from home in Florida, but you're working in New York and you're working in California, where the wages are much better. And so it makes it like extremely hard for locals to compete with home ownership and with like these extremely high rent rent costs. So that's all I wanted to share. Yeah, the other thing, too, is that the Airbnb business is has had an impact on on affordable housing here, too, because if the building owner can make way more money, right? Airbnb out there, their unit or their home, that that's that's a that's a good economic option for them, not so much for the tenants. Yeah. And so, you know, and the climate, you know, the term that we're using climate gentrification, it's about, you know, like where it's happening and who it's happening to a lot of the communities of color. You know, Malika mentioned, you know, she mentioned, you know, Julie was mentioned like Julia Tuttle, the mother of Miami and Flagler, who built along the ridge line. And so as she was pointing out, it's like, well, guess what? The communities of color are along the railroad line that happens to be the highest point of land, you know, the highest elevations. If you can call it that, I don't know, Jane, how many feet of it is like eight feet or 10 feet above sea level? And so we also, you know, as we as we talk about this about, you know, like why, you know, like, why is it happening and why is it so out of control? And, you know, so so, Jane, you know, we've all with this group, we talked about planning and, you know, community engagement. Could you talk a little bit about that, about the planning and community engagement aspects related to how we can address some of these issues in Miami and in South Florida? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this housing crisis really did get worse. Just to go back to the pandemic question, it got a lot worse because we not only had the foreign investment, we had the people from California and New York coming down big and big and to focus more on the single family housing, right? Cause that was considered safer. And so those neighborhoods that were primarily single family housing, whether it's owned or rented really got hit the hardest with some of that. So our mayor, Danielle Levine-Cava, has responded with a very aggressive homes program to provide people with rental assistance from working, that working poor down to helping people with increased investment in retrofits, both for single family housing and multifamily. So that if you are a lower income homeowner, you can retrofit your property and stay in your property in an affordable way. And then the creation of a lot more, 32,000 units into new affordable and workforce housing units over the next five years. So very aggressive, but it's not gonna be enough. The need is well over 100,000, maybe it's probably over 150,000 for new units. So that means, we talked about government policies being critical, but it's critical to think about at what level of government. So a lot of these areas with the strongest pressure within the city, which I used to work for, I was there prior to this job. Well, it's their zoning code that is what's, but they're also somewhat regulated by the state and we can't do inclusionary zoning, but we can incentivize inclusionary zoning through development incentives. Those are some of the things that have been used. There was a case in Winwood, just north of Winwood where a group, a community group got together and they initiated a planning process to get a zoning overlay for that neighborhood to really try to incentivize being able to only add density with that kind of inclusionary clauses. That's what's needed at every neighborhood, that kind of community-driven planning processes in these neighborhoods for how not only the residents, the kind of stuff Malacca's doing for the small businesses can also stay there and because a community is made up of both the restaurants and the stores that the people who live there go to and identify with and can, and- Yeah, the dirt spaces, yeah. So it really takes that kind of group planning because the city hasn't had the resources or focus to, they could respond to a community-driven process but they couldn't drive that community-driven process. And it's gonna be, it's the same with the community. Let me say- That was an unincorporated date. Yeah, I will say too, like I think political will, when it comes to anything to do with climate and also development, like political in Miami at least, political will is like the hardest thing to make happen. Like we have so much money, like we're such a wealthy area to be honest, like, and it's just about like what you prioritize, right? Including the state, the state of Florida is a very wealthy state and gives out millions, millions and millions of dollars, like incorporate tax cuts and stuff. Like we could be prioritizing this, but it's like, it's not. And there's a long history in Florida. I read a book called The Swamp, which is literally about like them building South Florida, paving the Everglades or attempting to do so. And since, you know, that book started in the 1600s, like this stuff has been going on. So there's a really long history of like development that doesn't honor our ecology, development that like displaces and abuses people of color, like hundreds of years of this. And, you know, like I wish like our cities and counties are thinking about planning in that way. And in a collective way and in a cohesive way too, because we're very segmented, we have 34 municipalities within the county. We have unincorporated Dague County, which is like 1.5 million people that aren't in a city. And then we have like 13 commission districts that like to act alone for the most part, like within the county, right? And several commission districts within each city. So I just wanted to name that too. I totally agree with Jane's set. I think like we have the ability to do it. It's just drumming up that political role, which is why like we do advocacy, Milica, you know, and we have wonderful government partners and government staff who would probably kill to do this work that really care about the climate issues and the housing issues too, but are disempowered because, you know, developers talk to politicians who talk to, you know, who get their projects done in the way they want to. So our block good policy. So I just wanted to share that reality. I'm so glad that Salelo mentioned the history because I think that we're going to continue to trample over our history until we acknowledge it. I think that, you know, understanding that I think that Mario Arisa wrote a book called Disposable City and it's great because, you know, aside from being his experiences, it's a very well done book about, you know, sea level rise in climate in South Florida and how it's regulated and paid attention to just like what you said, Salelo, I'm like, I feel that yes, political will is one of the biggest issues that we have in Miami because we are a rich city and we are a rich county and we are a rich state. We really are, but the priorities are not given to those areas. And I think Salelo, I think you need to, I would love to give you a lot of props for the community work that I do in Miami-Dade Hall teaching the community about the county budget and energizing the community on how that county budget can really work for us. So I really want to give you props for that because I think that that's where it begins is that organizing that Miami does not have. Miami, unfortunately, we don't have strong organizing methods and those are things as a lay them and Miami worker center and different auditions here in Miami were really focused organizing and getting the community to be the one driving this train. Just like what Jane said that the county can respond but the community needs to drive it. I think that's what's going to change the way that things are being done and it's going to really put climate conversations and see rights conversations at the forefront for the safety of our community because if we look at what just happened in November on the middle of the ocean, I mean, this is real. And the fact that it continues to be postponed is only going to come back to hurt us. Yeah. And I know Jane made the point about the importance of planning and community engagement and to let me know the advocacy has been so important and I know Malika, you've engaged with Catalyst and other partners in public land for public good which I think is very much related because it includes the intersection of planning and community empowerment. Can you talk a little bit about that as I think it's important and also just your efforts to just making sure that the community understands the planning process and to be more engaged? Yeah, so public land for public good, it's a coalition of organizations here in Miami-Dade led by the South Florida Community Development Coalition is on making sure that all the public land that we have in the county is used for public good. Selenium alluded or mentioned clearly that land in developers and the commissioners it just happens that land continues to disappear and just evaporate. These are public resources. Those are the only resources we have. If we're able to utilize those resources to mitigate or housing needs or climate mitigation, the needs of the community as it is and fighting for it, that's something that that is the goal of the public land for public good coalition. And I'll give you a few examples. They are, they just wanted to move the line that the development line of the county. That is something that public land for public good is very interested on because it is a climate risk and it's a risk for all of us. If we continue to move that development line and go into the Everglades, which is basically our resource to stay safe. The other project that we worked on is 18 acres of, 18 acres in the middle of the city right here in Alapada and making sure that whatever is developed there is what the community needs. So we've been working for the past three years with the city of Miami to make sure that that development speaks to the needs of the community and not to other echelon of centers that are not even here. Because as I mentioned in the beginning, Miami's real estate market doesn't need locals in order to thrive. It is thriving with an international market with foreign investors. But we wanna make sure that the developments that happen in Miami really serve the locals. So that's what we have been able to do with public land for public good. As for the Alapada Collaborative, we are working on our, we are a main street community. So in our main street designated master plan in really including the community. I'm working with Jane on that. I'm including Chris on that. We wanna have many layers of what is important in this community and how are we going to mitigate the future changes? Can we have an overlay district here? What are the things that are needed so this community can be reflective of the people who truly live here? Engaging universities. But this is a process that we are facilitating but really letting the community drive. So we have our community board and the community board is bringing people together. And these Alapada residents, high school students, seniors, parents who are business owners who are coming to the table and saying, and interacting with the universities, with the different professionals and including about it first and then interacting on that topic. Hopefully we'll have a master plan we can present to the city and the county and hopefully make some changes because at the end of the day, policy is the way, unfortunately. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I mean, and I think this effort on community driven planning is important because there is a difference for those of you that aren't from Miami, the city of Miami is its own municipality that has most of the historic resources and the older buildings that Jane used to work for. Now she works in Miami Tade County is a much larger encompasses the whole county. So the development permits are different, the permissions and the zoning changes. There's the county has purview over the large unincorporated area versus the city that has purview within city limits. So Chris, I'm glad to see you back. We had some technical difficulties. We were trying some. So very timely that you're back because Renee Kuhlman and hello Renee had a question here about, is the solution more tax credits and more or like a state historic tax credits to make housing more affordable? But I wanted you, we've also talked before because there are tools available and data heritage trust has been very interested in the transfer of development rights. So there are tools, right? And we've had like Miami 21, which on paper looks great, but there's this interplay between what happens in the development process and what doesn't happen. And then all these tools. And so I know the data heritage trust has been at the forefront of these tools and advocacy. So I want you to touch a little bit about some of these solutions and why they work and why they don't work because I think this is definitely an important part of the conversation. So people get a feel about how Miami works or doesn't. Chris, you're really... Looks like... Sorry about that. And for the technical difficulties, like there's construction happening out here right now. So it affected our cable. Sorry about that. So there are incentives for sure that are out there both in the city of Miami, federal tax credits, but like any major city, money drives the train and property values here are escalating at such a rapid rate that there needs to be more incentives, Rene and others to make preservation more attractive to the greater development community. I mean, there have been ideas floated, especially for affordable housing and the preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing, meaning the preservation of existing buildings to maybe do some incentives where the property taxes are decreased, right? If people are preserving historic buildings and preserving affordability, that makes perfect sense to me, but there's not been an appetite within Miami-Dade County to grasp that. Even though there are willing building owners who are saying, look, we'd be happy to continue affordability if we can get some reduced property taxes. That to me seems to be kind of a no-brainer, right? Because the property, well, there's so many layers here, Manuel, it's complicated, but I'll give you guys an example. At the same time, there's a lot of money pouring into Miami-Dade County and property values are escalating. And so those new property owners are really bearing the brunt of those escalated values, especially when it comes to single-family homes and the property taxes that they're paying. And so even though Miami-Dade County needs way more affordable housing, I mean, you guys can probably tell me the last figure I heard was that we need 80,000 units of affordability and in these areas that are suffering from climate gentrification, also a major portion of that. And we need infrastructure to address climate change and sea level rise. And Jane, that's your area, right? As a heat officer, what do we need to do infrastructure to be able to assure healthy living environments for everybody? But in the face of all of these things that are needed here, the County Commission voted to decrease property tax values by what was at 1% across the board for everybody. And we're like, is that right now, really when there's so many needs for this community, why are we looking at decreasing property taxes across the board? So it's all about politics here, right? It's all about politics and development and money. And we do have to find ways to empower the voices in these neighborhoods that Malika and Zulalem and others deal with and driving a sense of empowerment is fabulous. But we also have to make sure that our elected officials listen to that voice. And that's the key. So I know I've sort of really gone way off topic there, but I think there are many things that the County can be doing to create more initiatives for affordability in these neighborhoods facing climate gentrification. And they're working on it. I think the County is being more proactive right now than ever when it comes to affordable housing and looking at neighborhoods to try to drive some sense of equity. And as day heritage trust, we can be a good example to the development community to show that preservation of existing housing actually does work because we've entered the affordable housing realm. We're so proud of our work. And we're trying to be a good example to the development community. Yeah. No, it's all- I mean, our mayor has put in $500 million in this budget for affordable housing. I mean, part of that is federal support. There's incredible. But to your point, Chris, is how do you shift a policy to really incentivize it on a private level that I think we have fallen short because of lack of them. Mayor's pulled every lever she possibly can. And, but it is a 13 member commission that does policy and that's where we do need a strong community ground game to build support for some of this shift to really incentivize. I mean, what you need is to allow for more density, only if it's going to be inclusive, along transit lines and safe. Jane, and can you talk a little bit more about just the mayor's priorities on this issue? You started talking about them, but could you talk a little bit more and about your work, especially as it relates to heat as well in the intersection in these communities of color and these communities that are experiencing gentrification? Yeah, so our mayor has been a long time advocate for Underson, Miami-Dade County, that she came from that world and nonprofit community and continues that. Didn't she start Catalyst? She started Catalyst Miami. She's the founder of Catalyst Miami as a social work and law degree. So that is her foundation from a professional standpoint. She's also been a long time environmental advocate and really ran because she saw politicians not focused enough and facing head-on about the climate impacts facing our county. So equity and environment are top on top priorities and through economic sustainability lens through engagement, engagement. Those are all her four E's, economy, equity, environment and engagement. Those are her four E's. So anything that I do and Office of Resilience does has to take all those four E's into account. And we look at both a very aggressive carbon mitigation strategy through transportation is our biggest source of emissions and buildings. But also how do you do that? Looking at adaptation as well, looking at the impacts of both sea level rise and extreme heat. So housing and development is at the juncture of all of this, right? So it's not only where are you cited because it's become unaffordable in Miami not only because of the housing costs but because people have to live so far away and the transportation costs gets. So it's about it. And there's been not only a massive investment in housing but also we finally have pulled the funding together for a plan that's been on the books for decades, literally decades, a smart plan to invest in more transit. Really the vision, future vision for greater Miami is to have more density along those high transit lines much more use, get people out of their cars and to make sure that that's inclusive. And that's the biggest challenge. I think that we've got the money coming in here but how do you direct it in a way that actually builds the kind of community that Miami has won. And that's where we need a ground game is on zoning laws and on ways to incentivize through property taxes as Christine mentioned to have a more inclusive and where we wanna build so that we can recover quicker. And part of it is like, part of it is following through, right? I mean, the transit, the penny tax that was supposed to go for transit and highways, every time I visit Miami we drive, it's like, oh, look, there's some more construction. They're finally building the transit line to westward to FIU. I'm like, no, that's just widening of the highways. I wanted to meet in a couple of minutes, I did want to acknowledge Malacca made a comment and so did Zalailam on the urban boundary, which is something that you were alluding to. And that's a great question. It's like this right every decade, Miami-Dade County grapples with this whole thing. So for those of you who aren't from Miami, and of course on the east is the ocean and the bay, but on the west is the Everglades. And part of what has been an important pillar of planning in Miami is protecting our water resource, protecting the Everglades, which is such an important part of our environmental and regional economy. And so they always want to creep that urban boundary line westward. So on the one hand, we have to protect that, but on the other hand, that also encourages density, which is some of the density that we've seen in downtown and possibly feeding into the gentrification we're seeing, but it's a double-edged sword. So in the few minutes, Zalailam, I don't know if you want to have any comments. Yeah, I know you said every decade, it's every year that they think you have and it's not multiple times a year. And also I just wanted to talk a little bit about what we risk if we don't do all these things we've been talking about today, which is the Everglades is actually our drinking water source. It replenishes the Biscayne aquifer. So you're literally paving over your fresh water, drinking water, which is just, as sea level rise increases, like it's called saltwater intrusion. You also have less fresh water to drink from in your aquifer, right? So that is like, if nothing else, love of the Everglades, everything else, conservation, like have I like drinking fresh water and not having to be a billion dollars like a month in my bill. So I think that's really important. And then too, on the point about the having a foreign like rental market, the thing we risk there and some of the things Christine was talking about is for example, the Florida Keys, it's about four hours South of Miami for Key West. And they basically drive in all of their workforce, four hours each way because they have no more affordable housing. The businesses, the hotels and stuff are building affordable housing because they realize it's not sustainable to have your workforce be shipped in from Miami Dade County for eight hours round trip. So yeah, I just, that could easily be Miami. I think the Keys is a canary and a coal mine and just doing what we need to do now because eventually you're gonna have to do it. Like what we're doing now does not make sense for our economy and for our health and for survival. So yeah, it's just the urgent, I'm glad I'm working with all these wonderful women here to push the urgency of these issues. Yeah, so we have three minutes left. So I'm gonna give you the three of you, Chris and then Malika and Jane, 30 seconds just final comment on everything we've talked about today. Sure. And to the last minute. Okay, I still wish everybody was here in Miami to see all of these things in person because it's so striking. But I just wanted to say that climate gentrification is happening but gentrification is happening everywhere. And Miami is so interesting because you have these neighborhoods that are inland that are gentrifying and zoning is changing but you still have very wealthy people building on the water because property values, even in the face of all of this, property values on the water are not decreasing. If anything, they're increasing. And so it's kind of this fantasy land where yes, investors are going west because they understand that's higher ground but people are still building luxury housing right on the water because they can. So it's a fascinating place and I hope you all come down and visit us. Thank you. I think I can say a few things very quickly. Power money and influence, this is not a very difficult, though it's complex, it's not difficult. So power money and influence, if you follow that, you understand exactly what's going on. Number two, we need policies to protect our communities. It is important because majority of the communities that we're talking about are renters and our communities of color. Number three, we need to reckon with a racist past. I think that by doing that, we are able to solve a lot of the issues, policies that we need in place. And last but not least, we need to include community. We need to educate community and we need to be at the center stage of everything we do. Thank you so much for inviting me, Manuel. Thank you. And Jane, you have the last word. Well, it is such a treat to be on this with all of you, Manuel, you've been a great facilitator. I just to those out in the audience, yes, Miami is a tip of the spear of climate impact, but there is no community that is, does not experience some climate impact. So all of you, I know climate, equity, development pressures, you're all facing it. And I think one, we need to call a spade a spade when we see it and know what really understand what those future impacts could be, not just now, but in the future on our economy, on our people and on our environment. And so I just encourage everyone not only to face things head on and see the challenges and the increasing stresses and shocks that our people are facing, but also know there are solutions. The solutions aren't rocket science. It's about that engagement. It's about building political will. There are solutions. Actually, we have the opportunity to build a better and stronger, more inclusive community with these challenges. Thank you, Jane. What a great way to end this panel. And I just want to thank all of you. Remember to vote everyone, November 7th. I'm sorry, I just had to say it. Vote today, forget about November 7th. It's really voting in your community. So to Zalailam and Malika and Chris and Jane, I want to thank all of you for this great panel and this great discussion. And I hope all of you who are out there will get a chance to come visit Miami and see it for yourself. So I'm sorry, I couldn't be with you in person, but I hope to see you all soon. Take care and I hope you all have a great afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thanks, take care.