Where to Reinforce, Where to Retreat?

The New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region is the largest and one of the most densely populated in the United States. As the impacts of climate change – more frequent and intense storms with heavier precipitation, greater incidence of flooding, extreme heat and sea level rise – take hold, our communities live with more risk today and will live with increasingly more risk into the future. The places we live and work and their infrastructure were designed and built for the risks of the past, not for those we can now expect. Thus, there is an urgent need to adapt our communities to new levels of resilience.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in those places that have developed in the floodplains of rivers and along the shorelines of our coasts and estuaries, our ​‘flood zone’ communities. As Regional Plan Association undertakes its Fourth Regional Plan - a once in a generation, long-range strategic plan for the region - it is imperative that we consider how and where we develop and redevelop to ensure our communities are safer, healthier and more livable.

The era of climate change in which we live demands that we find ways to strategically modify the built environment to adapt to climate impacts – becoming more resilient - through:

• Rebuilding to better, safer standards;
• Resisting flood waters through engineered solutions;
• Retaining storm and flood waters through green infrastructure;
• Restoring and enhancing protective and productive natural systems; and
• Retreating from those flood plains and surge zones at greatest risk.

These ​‘Five Rs’ – in concert with wide range of social revitalization investments – will comprise the strategies for resilience for our region’s communities, from the suburban beach community like Milford, Connecticut, or the densely built neighborhoods of 2 Roundtable: Where to Reinforce, Where to Retreat? | Regional Plan Association | March 2015 Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Understanding the costs, benefits and impacts of different spatial approaches to resilience will help to determine what strategies work best for which community, and how they can be carried out in an effective and equitable fashion.