The Army Corps of Engineers also does a lot of flood management work, and they use a cost/benefit analysis when deciding which projects to approve that takes into account the value of the real estate being protected. And even then, the local community has to put up a large share of the funding. So it definitely ends up favoring richer communities.
99 Percent Invisible did an episode about this recently:
In seriousness, it was really cool to see the counter proposal's "nature-based solution" which would design 39 acres of distributed barrier islands around the coastline, to block storm surge naturally.
99 Percent Invisible did an episode about this recently:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/nbft-05-the-little-le...