Can New York City Survive the Sea?

While wandering New York City’s asphalt streets and peering up at its towers of steel and glass, or while driving the parkways and roads that crisscross the metropolitan area, it is easy to forget that, as little as a hundred years ago, the city was situated smack in the middle of tidal wetlands. By one account, some 300 square miles of wetland—an area about a quarter of the size of Rhode Island—covered the ground within a twenty-five-mile radius of City Hall in Lower Manhattan. It was easy to forget, that is, until Hurricane Sandy came roaring through in 2012 and the sea returned to its old haunt.