Radical proposals to address climate change and the housing crisis

[C.]

Two radical proposals. One out of Manhattan, the other out of Jersey City about reclaiming land to better protect the coastline from climate change and using the reclaimed land to increase the housing supply. Nothing will happen now, but maybe when major hurricanes start hitting the NYC region on a regular basis, these radical proposals to enhance coastal resiliency may be more palatable.



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/o...an-expand.html

On Jan. 1, Eric Adams was sworn in as New York’s 110th mayor. He is now in charge of the city’s response to big, and growing, problems. One is a housing affordability crisis. Another concerns the ravages of climate change: sea level rise, flooding and storm surges.

There is a way to help tackle both issues in one bold policy stroke: expand Manhattan Island into the harbor.

Last September, after witnessing unprecedented flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Mr. Adams said that it was “a real wake-up call to all of us how we must understand how this climate change is impacting us.” This realization should spur him to pursue aggressive measures to mitigate climate change’s devastation.

Both Mayors Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg offered climate-change plans that included extending the shoreline along the East River in Lower Manhattan. But these proposals, while admirable, would be small steps and would hardly make a dent with problems of such big scale.

This new proposal offers significant protection against surges while also creating new housing. To do this, it extends Manhattan into New York Harbor by 1,760 acres. This landfill development, like many others in the city’s past, would reshape the southern Manhattan shoreline. We can call the created area New Mannahatta (drawn from the name the Lenape gave to Manhattan).

Housing
In 2014, Mayor de Blasio announced an affordable housing plan that would build or preserve 200,000 affordable units. Despite this, rents continued to rise because construction did not keep pace with population and income growth. To give a sense of the scale, from 2010 to 2018, 171,000 units of housing were constructed, enough to accommodate about 417,000 people. Yet in the same period, the city’s population grew by nearly 500,000. New Mannahatta offers the possibility to realize the goal of adding a significant number of new units, many of which can be made affordable for low-income households.

Storm Surges
Creating land in the harbor would also help New York City fortify itself against climate change. The new community would push vulnerable places like Wall and Broad Streets further inland, and the peninsula can be designed with specific protections around its coastline to buffer itself and the rest of the city from flooding. In particular, wetlands ecologies around the shorelines would absorb surges. Building the land at a higher elevation would further improve its protective ability, and the new peninsula could recreate historic ecologies and erect environmental and ecological research centers dedicated to improving the quality of New York’s natural world.

Steven Fulop
@StevenFulop
·
Jan 18
In 2014 we explored a similar expansion of #JerseyCity + Hudson County on land/water that we control in order to protect against climate change + rising sea level, storm resilience. It was prepared by architecture firm Marchetto Higgins + slides below.

Entire Plan for Jersey City + Hoboken here: http://www.mhsarchitects.com/plannin...-defense-plan/

[photoLith]

A giant wall will have to be erected at the Verrazano narrows bridge and other inlets so that the city doesn’t flood. I don’t think that little wall in the above proposals will do much if sea levels rise by 40 feet or more.

[Obadno]

Nothing says protect the environment like filling in large natural harbors with landfill

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by photoLith

A giant wall will have to be erected at the Verrazano narrows bridge and other inlets so that the city doesn’t flood. I don’t think that little wall in the above proposals will do much if sea levels rise by 40 feet or more.

The oceans aren't going to rise 4 feet, let alone 40.

Proposals for filling in large sections of NY Harbor have been around for 100+ years.

[C.]

Originally Posted by photoLith

A giant wall will have to be erected at the Verrazano narrows bridge and other inlets so that the city doesn’t flood. I don’t think that little wall in the above proposals will do much if sea levels rise by 40 feet or more.

Are you trolling or just misinformed. Even the storm surge from Sandy was about 15ft or so.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by C.

Are you trolling or just misinformed. Even the storm surge from Sandy was about 15ft or so.

And Sandy was basically the worst luck imaginable. It hit exactly when tides were highest, like to the minute, both seasonally/time of day. If it would have come slightly earlier or later, the damage would be minimal.

Even assuming worst case global warming estimates, the possibility of another Sandy is pretty remote. There will be other flood events, no doubt, perhaps even greater, but a Sandy-like surge is extremely unlikely. It would be dumb to harden the harbor based on a thousand year event like Sandy, which wasn't even that big a storm, but hit at the worst time and place possible.

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by C.

Are you trolling or just misinformed. Even the storm surge from Sandy was about 15ft or so.

I should have said over the next few hundred years it could rise that much if co2 emissions keep on chugging along.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

[MAC123]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

Yes you do have an even more radical idea. One not based in reality. This can actually be completed, if only very expensively, not practically, and highly unlikely to ever leave the creators drawing board.
Yours is virtually impossible and will never go anywhere but inside your head.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

Here we go. Done on Paint.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

This actually was a real plan bandied about since the 19th century. Though the actual area which could be flooded (below sea level) is far more limited than you intimate.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by eschaton

This actually was a real plan bandied about since the 19th century. Though the actual area which could be flooded (below sea level) is far more limited than you intimate.

Yeah, I've seen that before. But it's pretty wimpy compared to my idea.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

a very interesting proposal with variations that have been floated over the decades (Qattara depression)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattar...ession_Project

[bnk]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

Not that I think its needed but flooding death valley, Undersea spots in Australia and parts of the middle east that are below sea level could also be added to that equation if needed.

Building mountains is a bit too much not nearly as easy just flooding below sea level parts of the world.

BTW sea level is not going to rise 40 feet so lets take a deep breath Photo.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I have an even more radical idea: Dredge giant canals and create vast new seas in the lower-elevation parts of the Sahara Desert. This will let the Atlantic Ocean spread into the newly-created seas, helping to lower sea levels worldwide. The dredgings from the operations can be used to create new mountain ranges in nothern Africa between the new seas, hopefully creating some orthographic precipitation, which in turn can make thew new mountainous areas more habitable.

And destroy the cultures of millions of nomadic and semi-nomadic people who have navigated the Sahara for thousands of years? Something tells me that is a humanitarian crisis waiting to happen.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by goat314

And destroy the cultures of millions of nomadic and semi-nomadic people who have navigated the Sahara for thousands of years? Something tells me that is a humanitarian crisis waiting to happen.

It wouldn't destroy the whole desert.

Plus, there's not a whole lot of people there. I doubt it's "millions." And I'd even be willing to bet a lot of them would be happy to have seas and bays and vegetated mountains to live amidst than harsh desert.

[The North One]

LOL good luck

[James Bond Agent 007]

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency."

- Daniel Burnham -

[photoLith]

You would have to totally obliterate all of north Africa and dig 5000 feet deep hole in the whole northern part of the continent to make any dent in sea level rise.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by photoLith

You would have to totally obliterate all of north Africa and dig 5000 feet deep hole in the whole northern part of the continent to make any dent in sea level rise.

Nah, I don't think it would be that bad. A series of seas maybe 100-200 feet deep in an area roughly the scope of the map I showed above would probably do the trick. After all, that's a huge area.

Plus, those landlocked nations in north Africa would no longer be landlocked. You could fill the seas with reefs and other nifty stuff for sea life, and you'd have opportunities for new metropolises all along the new coastlines.

I guess it would probably also be practical to redraw some national boundaries, depending on exactly where you made the new seas.