Mr. de Blasio, reconsider this wall!

You've probably heard a lot of talks about walls recently: a certain Presidential candidate wants to build one, magical creatures want to get passed a wall to destroy all life, and maybe your friend is walling themselves up because the sun is out.

One wall that is sure to be talked about come fall, and in the next few years to come, is the one that is going to "save" Manhattan from a cataclysmic storm. We've talked about this plan in the past, but now it seems that it will be widely different from the renditions.

The 'Big U' is a New York City-funded 10-mile wall that is suppose to protect Lower Manhattan from future superstorms like Sandy.

The barrier created by Bjarke Ingels Group, was originally planned to be hidden in parks, pools and pedestrian walkways. The $540 million proposal may not turn out like the earlier renderings that featured smiling families throughout all seasons. 

Many now believe that this wall will be just that: a wall.

It seems almost medieval that we'd consider building a wall to stop a seemingly unstoppable enemy like weather, and this doesn't seem like a solid preventative measure to take against Mother Nature anyway. 

Storms like Sandy will continue to become more and more frequent in the future (because, science), and the entire world needs to start making decisions soon in order to prevent catastrophic damage, or, worse, death.

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The question is: Would we be comfortable with just a wall that does nothing but protect?

New York sea levels are rising 50% faster than the global average and this wall might not be enough to stop what may be coming. 

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A huge issue is that we could spend a lot of resources and time on this wall only to have it fail after a major storm.

If we are going to protect this city from future storms we must learn that we cannot predict the future but rather try our best to plan for it.

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