How New York City Plans To Expand Itself

New York City is facing two separate but big crises how do you combat the effects of rising sea levels on the city and how to manage the increased demand for housing as the population continues to grow so lo and behold this map shows an ambitious plan to solve both of these issues it's called the new manah project a throwback to its original name manah from the lape tribe now this idea is insane it's one of the most extensive building ideas proposed for New York City if not the United States as a whole if we compare the existing map of Manhattan with what the extension will cover it would be quite a feat of engineering if completed but whatever difficulties it may propose ideas like new manah could be the most necessary option to take if New York City hopes to prevent the major consequences that these two issues will create and Main itself as the most powerful city in the world for quite some time now the city's politicians urban planners and local officials have been working on several proposed ideas to solve these problems these issues have been building up over s several years and many New Yorkers would agree the time has now come to create a permanent solution that works for everyone even if the ways to go about it have caused difficulties for those already living in the city and been met with protests over the environmental damage to Green spaces this has been especially relevant to the famous Manhattan District in part due to the neighborhood's ongoing boundary expansions and because we're talking about an area which is essentially a giant Island but hosts a very crowded space of residential and commercial buildings now the idea of EXP expanding Manhattan isn't actually a new one in fact it's been done many times before if you look at this map of the growth of lower Manhattan from 1650 to 1980 you can see it's continuously gotten wider or maybe this aerial view of some of the area from 1954 versus 2004 can illustrate this better in total while there's been various estimates it said that 29% of the entire Manhattan land mass has basically been created by Reclamation having been started by none other than the Dutch no surprise there as they're literally famous for this and then later carried on by the British and finally the Americans obviously the reasons for this constant expansion have been attributed to Redevelopment projects such as Battery Park which began as a British military Outpost but today has been made into a public park and residential area Manhattan has also seen land reclamation to provide more building space economic incentives to create more housing in the area and the city's desire to stop a population decline in Upper New York which is seen as harmful to local businesses but while these developments have brought New Life to lower Manhattan and helped the city expand they've also thrown out questions on how to protect the area from extreme weather conditions and the effects of rising sea levels especially as research from the New York City Economic Development Corporation predicts that 37% of lower Manhattan will be at risk of storm surges by 2050 and by the end of The Next Century sea levels will have risen by 6 ft more or less putting much of this area underwater right now all expansion of New York City into the surrounding water still fall under the rivers and harbors Act of 18 1999 which means the United States Army Corps of Engineers hold authority over any Urban expansion into waterways with commercial traffic but the harsh reality for NYC is that its people are now facing a problem which really needs a more radical and Innovative solution that may be beyond the course permission and it helps to understand how these two issues have been building up and why addressing them isn't going to be an overnight task even if the steps to do so must be taken without any further delay first New York City and its surrounding neighborhoods are literally the most densely populated areas of the United States with it also being the most populated American city with no sign of that slowing down NYC has always had a reputation as one of America's most important hubs for finance culture media and much more even to the point of it being referred to as the capital of the entire world historically it's been the go-to destination for immigrants looking to build a new life in the United States and even after the era of processing millions of new arrivals from around the world at Ellis Island came to a close New York City in the present day Still Remains an important destination for both US citizens and overseas immigrants to move to for economic opportunities so as a result the City's population has kept growing and growing as research by the United Nations world population prospects shows New York City's population is projected to keep expanding and is predicted to exceed over 20 million people by 203 but thanks to the unique geography of the city there's not really any direction that downtown parts of areas like Manhattan can sprawl outwards to accommodate this ongoing influx of people unless it's out over the water the housing market has greatly risen across the United States since the pandemic and in 2022 the median house to median rent to income ratio reached 30% for the first time with a record statistic of Americans exceeding that threshold and this has been particularly felt by many people in New York City where High property prices and rents have already pushed residents out of the city's big metropolitan areas in search of more affordable places to live but when it comes to population growth the situation hasn't been helped by the fact that New York City has been constructing new homes at a far slower rate compared to other US cities like Chicago and Los Angeles with much of the blame being given to zoning restrictions mounds of red tape being placed on building new houses in areas where job opportunities have increased for example New York City's job rate increased by 22% in 2020 and while this may look good for boosting the local economy and providing employment the city's housing stock has only increased by a mere 4% in the last 13 years it doesn't help either that a lot of the apartments being built there are just luxurious ones too with insanely high prices that just end up sitting empty this has caused both a massive spike in the cost of rent and an ongoing housing shortage to the point of there only being a recorded 3% vacancy rate of available housing in New York City in 2023 but to make matters worse New York City has not only been slow at constructing new places to live but the city is also in fact losing apartments at a time when the price of housing has risen because space is so hard to come by in the crowded City some wealthy residents have been buying multiple units and combining them to create larger spaces to live in it's estimated that at least 100,000 apartment units since 1950 have been lost to this issue then there's the rising sea levels the threat that perhaps threatens the very survival of New York City those who haven't lived there tend to not associate the city as one struck by natural disasters and extreme weather especially compared to other cities in places like Florida or Texas but it's in fact in a very vulnerable position when it comes to Violent storms combined with rising sea levels see New York in all its Glory is really just low-lying Wetlands over the course of this past Century in particular New York's once magnificent stock of wetlands started to be rapidly built over with roads Parks landfills and buildings for example in New York Harbor as a whole more than 17,000 Acres of wetland estimated to exist in the mid 1800s had vanished during the Golden Age of American capitalism to make way for this infrastructure and the expansion of Kennedy Airport and the result is that all these things have started to Bear Down on the marshy grounds areas in New York that are flooding are really just places that used to be Wetlands or streams or ponds in the past and had the City built on top of it so this is sort of expected these problems are not only dangerous for the well-being of the citizens of New York City they have the power to completely important infrastructure cutting New Yorkers off as roadways and Subways are damaged and left without electricity when Hurricane Sandy hit the United States in October 2012 it pushed a 13t storm surge into New York City's Harbor which went on to wreak absolute chaos across the the city the storm killed at least 43 people within New York downtown and caused significant damage across major New York areas like Brooklyn and Queens even wiping out entire communities on Staten Island within the downtown core of Manhattan the location of many of New York's Financial operations the storm caused severe flooding and power Cuts plunging the city Into Darkness as water raged through its streets and leaving many homes without electricity and clean drinking water subway stations and most major road tunnels leading into Manhattan were flooded over all it cost the city an estimated $19 billion in damage repair and forced the New York Stock Exchange to close for 2 days essentially grinding the local economy to a halt what Sandy ultimately showed was that existing storm defense measures were not up to the task of protecting the city and this was over a decade ago not much has changed since hurricane Sandy wasn't just an isolated case in August 2021 tropical storm Henry and hurricane Ida also caused heavy rainfall in New York City and sparked fears that an inevitable repeat of rough hurricane like Sandy Could Happen except even more intense in fact environmental and natural disaster experts have been closely monitoring what effects future severe weather will have on New York City and some of their findings have been quite chilling exposing the design flaws in ways parts of the city have been built and why urgent Solutions will be needed to fix this for example when Hurricane Sandy swept through NYC the storm surge funneled from the harbor into these historical low-lying areas I was talking about but the natural tidle channels and mud flats that would have absorbed the rising water have have been long gone filled in by concrete buildings and streets with no natural outlet for the water to go science has shown that it will simply fill up the streets and continue to cause damage to the point of these areas becoming hazardous for people to live and work in if we also take into account Manhattan's low Shoreline it not only sits on the water but in many places there is practically no room between the water's edge and nearby buildings experts have predicted that by the 2040s the rising tides and sea levels combined with violent storms will start to flood streets buildings entire homes and subway stations unless where the protection measures are put in place by the end of the century the high tides and floods will be so severe that the water will be able to swamp three blocks Inland all the way to Pearl Street home to many of the main commercial and financial areas of New York if nothing changes it'll inevitably cause massive amounts of economic damage essentially dooming the city's reputation as one of the world's most important locations and call into question whether it should host America's Financial and business institutions if they cannot be protected but if one positive consequence did come from from the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy it's that both New York City and the US government have started to put plans into place to protect the city's status and ensure the safety of its residents from natural disasters within a year of Hurricane Sandy the Obama Administration launched the rebuild by Design initiative designed to channel US Federal funding and Research into rebuilding vulnerable parts of the city to protect nyc's business resources against storms while modernizing infrastructure and living space for people in 2019 New York City's local government also channeled around $900 million into design and research projects to protect Manhattan under what was dubbed the Lower Manhattan climate resilience study the study aimed to perform a giant risk assessment highlight the most vulnerable points of the city and propose what measures could be done to protect them while it found that the areas around the battery and Brooklyn Bridge would be a challenge to protect and in need of further study the project did identify Solutions on how to protect over 70% of Manhattan Shoreline with a number of proposals and four key project ideas being put forward one such proposal The Battery Park City Coastal resilience project aims to make drainage improvements around Battery Park to prevent the buildup of floodwater a second proposal is the battery Coastal resilience which seeks to raise the level of the shoreline while preserving the historic character of the Park area the third is aimed at protecting the area around Brooklyn Bridge and is known as the Brooklyn Bridge Montgomery Coastal resilience it combines permanent flood walls and floodgates that are hidden during normal weather conditions and then flip up in the event of a coastal storm to create a solid line of flood protection sort of like venice's Mo system the fourth proposal has been termed the seaport Coastal resilience project and this aims to protect New York sea port which the study found to be one of the most vulnerable parts of the city due to how low it sits in front of the water the area around the port would be raised by 3 to 5 ft while creating new paths for pedestrians and cyclists but other proposals have gone even higher and argued for more drastic solutions to protect New York City one was thought up by the Department of Housing and Urban Development which which they called the big U the scheme proposed to essentially wrap Manhattan with what are known as berms raised masses of land and artificial shorelines these BMS would be covered in salt tolerant green spaces to both protect Manhattan from rising and Stormy Waters levels and also provide the public with more recreational spaces the Project's idea wouldn't just cover Manhattan but also build a Breakwater barrier near Staten Island to guard it against future flooding however trying to implement the big U idea hasn't been without controversy among New Yorkers and the project has not turned out entirely as planned members of the city's local government determined the big U project would be disruptive to a nearby stretch of highway and potentially damage an underground electricity line that runs close to where the project is being developed unless changes to the design were made instead New York's then mayor B DeBlasio then opted for an alternative plan and decided to elevate the whole park by 8 ft to act as a sea defense but Public Communication around the project ended up being poor and soon locals began complaining about the noise and disruption the project was causing as the diggers and cranes moved in to tear up the existing Park not to mention that removing trees and green Spaces by ripping up half the park in order to raise it was not a popular move at all and soon many residents in the area were calling for it to be halted altogether yet despite these PR issues the aim is for this project to be completed by 2026 but the issue with the big U is that it's more a temporary issue I mean it could work but it's only designed to protect the city against rising sea levels projected to occur before 2050 which could render them obsolete after only a a few decades now of course none of these actually fixed the insane housing shortage problem in Manhattan and frankly that could maybe be fixed through better use of existing land and a complete overhaul of rail Transportation making it easier faster and more comfortable to get to Manhattan from the outer Burrows and importantly Northern New Jersey which means more ways to cross the Hudson than two little tunnels that funnel into Penn Station would be absolutely golden there's so much underused and super close land just beyond Hudson County giving better transportation options so people can live farther away way with lower rent and reasonable commute times would cut down this crisis but of course this never seems to be an option so that finally brings me to the other large scheme proposed which brings me back to the new manah project now the feasibility of this and quite frankly the realistic chances this insane plan actually goes through is quite low for a number of reasons but it doesn't hurt to look at first proposed by Economist Jason Bar in a 2022 article for the New York Times the idea takes elements from similar projects already undertaken in Hong Kong and the Netherlands who faced the same issues in which land was reclaimed to provide more living space and fight against rising sea levels the new manah project would first and foremost protect Manhattan's Financial District creating a high elevation barrier with a ring of wetlands surrounding Manhattan which would act as a natural barrier against strong Storm surges and prevent water from sweeping Inland and unlike the other proposals new manah aims to not only provide an answer to rising sea levels but also adds value to the city as a whole if successfully completed it would increase Manhattan's Island Space by 1,760 Acres through adding artificial Wetlands South into the New York Harbor and absorbing Governor's Island into the new landmass the new land would start on the east side close to the Manhattan Bridge and then it would extend South close to Red Hook and then run north up the Hudson river past Battery Park while it's claimed that this new land would create 187,000 new housing units for 250,000 New Yorkers of all income groups there's probably a high chance that most of it will just be luxury apartments but maybe I'm being pessimistic I mean the housing would be based on the current Upper West Side neighborhood which is known for its high housing density in addition the new manah proposal would also expand nyc's Subway Network by adding extensions and new stations to the existing Transit Subway Lines one which runs from the financial district and subway line G from Brooklyn to connect it to the rest of the city supporters of the project have argued that even if it's expensive to complete it would in fact increase tax revenue for the city and would be able to pay for itself remember that currently one acre of land in Manhattan has a value of around $85,000 which would make the land value of new manah worth about 150 million according to bar around $1.4 billion in real estate tax revenue would be created through the project it is certainly an ambitious plan which could solve some of the issues facing the city but like the other Project's ideas it would not be without potential drawbacks and criticisms like the problem facing existing building projects any extension of Manhattan would have to consider the fact it will disrupt and be built around existing infrastructure developments as well as running into government red tape and restrictions for example the Jones act does not permit foreign ships to dredge New York's Harbor bed within the Hudson Bay Area bar himself has acknowledged that American companies do not have the same dredging capabilities as European firms and that allowing a European company to participate in the project would speed up its time frame for completion but the law does not currently make this possible unless the US and local governments would feel comfortable enough to change it it has also been highlighted by critics that plans for new manah have not yet specified how high the wetlands will be elevated and what surface they will be covered with others have also questioned why a built- up residential neighborhood would be used to protect the financial district and Stock Exchange in Manhattan where not many people live it would also be impossible to complete such a large scale project within a short period of time but supporters of new manah have argued that with proper planning and Swift action the new land could be developed within a 20-year time span with new houses being added in stages as Manhattan continues to be extended outwards giving this area of New York much needed protection while quickly adding housing at a time of shortage whatever issues the new manah project May create New York City will have to come to terms with the fact that changes must be made in the present day in order to safeguard the city's important status land reclamation does work we've seen it before but will the City of Dreams do it again and this dramatically thank you for watching

Channel: Versed

Views: 71,398

Keywords: new york city, nyc, new york city land reclamation, urban planning, nyc land reclamation, nyc expand itself, city planning, expanding nyc, expanding new york, new york, plan to extend manhattan, lower manhattan expansion, manhattan

Id: d2CVhUwS7PY

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024