Manhattan is commonly regarded as an iconic island-territory of the twentieth century. Conventional representations reinforce its reading as an urban condition resulting from neoliberal capitalism. These forces have expanded the city grid and extruded its architectures as a laboratory of urban ideas.
Yet, like many other coastal and insular conditions, twenty-first-century Manhattan faces adverse Anthropogenic climate change. Stronger storm surges and sea level rise now demand that the island recalibrates its social and environmental positions. The city needs to consider once again its fluid ar chipelagic conditions inherited from glacial dynamics.
