Climate change growing pains are real but necessary: Today, New York must advance its major resiliency projects

An article posted today in the New York Daily News describes the ongoing efforts to implement an ambitious and complex climate adaptation plan for Lower Manhattan. The plan, dubbed the Big U, originated from Rebuild by Design, a design contest that emerged in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy to plan for large-scale infrastructure to address climate change, inspiring the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge. City Council will vote to approve the first section of the Big U tomorrow. 

The article describes some of the decisions and trade-offs that must be made in the first phase of Big U implementation in Manhattan's Lower East Side. While difficult, these large-scale projects are ultimately necessary: 400,000 New Yorkers are currently living in flood zones, and that number is expected to increase to 1.2 million with the 3-6 feet of sea level rise that is expected by the end of the century.

"This is only the first of many big projects with painful trade-offs that will need to be made to transform our city’s landscape to address climate change," say the authors. 

Read the full article here.