Analysis of Flood Mitigation Infrastructure in Hoboken, New Jersey: Public Sentiment, Historical Analysis, and Monetary Issues

Globally, there exists an ever increasing attention on climate change and its effects on sea level rise. The thriving bustling populations of Hudson County, New Jersey are on edge of this unfortunate truth. When Hurricane Sandy occured, the dense urban centers of the area were flooded costing the state millions. This is especially true in Hoboken, New Jersey. The 4th densest city in the nation sits in particular risk as more than ⅔ of the land is susceptible to flooding by small and large scale storm events. My interest is in how anthropogenic changes to this area might have made the situation dire for a community such as this one. Practices such as land reclamation, dredging, and large scale urbanization all played a role in changing the once marshy landscape into a thriving developed community. With the assistance of historical societies, archives, documents and city officials I was able to develop a in depth analysis on how the past is the key to the present and subsequently the future. Flooding isn’t anything new to a peninsular county and a city on the banks of a mighty bay estuary, so green and grey infrastructure undoubtedly mitigated the problem. I expect there to be support for detaining the river but at what cost and exactly what problems were the past solutions solving. With the help of maps, blueprints, and plans we can create a visual on how flood mitigation changed from a priority to a afterthought back to a priority. Today, Hoboken is embarking on astronomically priced projects to deal with storm events and the floodplain levels.