FT: "New York labours to raise flood defences a decade after Hurricane Sandy"

“It was: ‘Oh, you’re ruining our park.’ No, we’re saving it,’” Gernot Wagner, a Columbia University economist who serves on the city’s panel on climate change, said, recalling the civic battles that erupted over plans to fortify the east side.

At the local level, where so many decisions are made, too many incentives point in the wrong direction, Wagner complained. After a disaster, for example, local politicians inevitably vow to rebuild things as they were, and the federal government supplies money to do so.

Still, he seemed more inclined to celebrate than despair as the Sandy anniversary neared. “It took almost a decade,” said Wagner, “but now it’s happening.”