All interviews were recorded with the consent of the interviewee and were transcribed on a word document. Considering the small number of interviews, no analysis software was use but themes were identified through keyword search.

On the use of quotes in the analysis

The use of quotes or verbatim from participants is a typical and necessary component to any qualitative research report. It is by revealing participants’ exact language that the researcher helps the user of the research to understand the key takeaways by clarifying through illustration the essential points of the researcher’s interpretations. The idea is not to display an extensive list of what people said but rather provide quotes that have been carefully selected for being the most descriptive or explanatory of the researcher’s conceptual interpretation of the data. By embedding carefully chosen extracts from participants’ words in the final document, the researcher uniquely gives participants a voice in the outcomes while contributing to the credibility – and transparency – of the research (Morrow, 2005).

Observations at Public Meetings

To make up for the interviews that I was not able to attend I increased the number of public meetings I observed, from two to four. These community group meetings were called around a variety of issues directly or indirectly connected to coastal and inland flooding and specifically. The first meeting was organized by Hope Inc. and in this occasion, I presented the findings from a coastal flooding mapping project I carried out as part of my GIS course at the New School. The project was a cooperation with Hope and Ascendant. The conversation that ensued between the two managers at Hope and Ascendant revealed some important aspects and concerns of matters CDCs when it comes to flooding. During this and the other 3 meetings I attended I took notes in a notebook about the themes naturally addressed by the meetings’ organizers and those brought up by attendees. The meetings attended with topics and attendees are listed below. The choice about what to attend was driven by the topic addressed in the meeting, I didn’t have a lot of choice given the short amount of time I had for field work; it had to be an issue that was directly – climate resilience - or indirectly connected to flooding – such as land use and planning. The full list of meetings I attended is shown below with date of attendance, topic and number of attendees.
  1. Meeting topic: exposure to coastal flooding in publicly funded, privately owned housing. HOPE Inc HQs (March 29, 2019) > number of attendees: 6
  2. Meeting topic: land use and planning. Community Board 11 (April 3, 2019) > number of attendees: 10 community board members: 8 people in audience
  3. Meeting topic: full Community Board 11 meeting (April 16, 2019) > number of attendees: 10 community board members; 30 people in audience
  4. Meeting topic: climate change resilience working group. WeAct HQs (April 24, 2019) > number of attendees: 3 WeAct members; 15 people in the audience
I practiced participant observations during both one-to-one interviews and meetings. They helped me to collect information on naturally occurring behaviors in their usual contexts, such as how interviewees addressed other staff members in my presence, but also their working spaces and the room set up at community meeting.

Secondary content Analysis

Finally, I reviewed official policy documents about East Harlem, focusing on the recently published Rezoning Plan (2017) for the district and two community-based plans. One produced in 2015 called the Northern Manhattan Climate Change Action Plan (NMCA) led by WeAct and the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan, the 2016 plan that was brought to life by community groups at the news of a possible rezoning of the district. In each document I searched for keywords related to exposure and interventions, such as: climate change, vulnerability, resilience, adaptation, flooding, storm surge, extreme events, elevation, building design, berm, sea-wall, green infrastructure.