Miami is dealing with a wicked problem.

Today, cranes populate the Miami skyline, building more and more skyscrapers at the water’s edge. Growth is what fuels the economy – increased development grows the tax base and keeps property taxes from rising. Developers push for growth. It’s a high reward game with little actual risk: they will get their ROI two years later when the condos get sold.

Buyers, mostly international cash investors, are also hedging their bets – hoping to flip their affluent properties a few years later and long before the psychology of sea level rise bursts the real estate bubble. Because of this brazen overdevelopment, citizens don’t have a real sense that sea level rise poses a true threat to their homes, savings, jobs, and community. 

Politicians, who are evaluated in two-year and four-year election cycles, aren’t incentivized to plan for the long-term. They engage in ribbon cutting ceremonies for new buildings with impunity even if that will only burden future generations. Their pro-growth actions signal to constituents that everything will be fine, but all they are doing is kicking the can down the road. 

In Miami, rising seas will disproportionately impact people of color and poorer residents living in low lying areas (as low-income neighborhoods are abandoned, property owners will lose everything) and higher lying areas (evicted renters – the victims of climate gentrification). 

The Underwater aims to uplift and amplify these voices in the pursuit of social and economic stability for all Miamians.