Rutgers professor proposes to expand Manhattan to solve the problem of housing prices in New York

How to solve the housing crisis in New York City? Just make Manhattan bigger. Jason Barr, a rutgers professor, argues that there is only one way to make New York cheaper and to address the growing climate threats associated with global warming: expanding the city.

According to the New York Post, Barr is the author of "Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan's Skyscraper." This month, he wrote in an opinion piece, "There is a way to solve both of these problems with a bold policy initiative: expanding Manhattan Island into a seaport." "This new proposal creates new housing while also providing important protection against rising sea levels." To do so, it will extend Manhattan to New York Harbor, up to 1,760 acres. ”

Barr proposed to name the new area "New Mannahatta," which would be built from a landfill and reshape the southern coastline of the district so that it extends to New York Harbor via the Red Hook. The new Manhattan will be larger than the Upper West Side (1,220 acres) and could accommodate a sizable number of homes: nearly 180,000 units, from brownstone to mid- and high-rise apartment buildings.

In addition to actually providing more land to help New York City better meet residential needs, it would also "push places like Wall Street more inland, and newly created areas can design specific protections around the coastline to protect themselves and other parts of the city from flooding." He explained the problems based on rising sea levels caused by global warming.

"Building the land at a higher altitude will further enhance its conservation capacity, and the new peninsula can rebuild its historical ecology, establish environmental and ecological research centers, and work to improve the quality of New York's natural world," he said.

However, not everyone agrees. Writer Willie Blackmore notes in a response article that "closest" to Barr's proposal is the land-based community that Robert Moses built along Jamaica's Gulf coast.

"How has the region been over the years?" Blackmore quipped, "The houses on Queen's Broad Channel stretch up to the swampy shoals, arguably the most flood-prone area in New York and the highest percentage of duplicate flood insurance claims." ”

(Compiler: SW)