what if new york city…

…had a (another) major disaster.

This was the premise to a recent competition held by the New York Office of Emergency Management. The entries were asked to “temporarily house a displaced population in a hypothetical disaster scenario in a realistic but fictitious neighborhood”.

As a resident of New York, I’m not sure how to feel about this competition. On the one-hand, I’m glad to see that some thought is being given to temporarily house the many people that might be uprooted in the event of a disaster (which could include myself one day). On the other-hand, why have we waited so late to do this?

I will say that i think it’s a great idea to hold a competition for this purpose. You are certainly more likely to get the most creative solutions to a very hard problem. And it’s always good to get community involvement. However, competition entries can sometimes reside in the clouds, and I hope the jury paid good attention to see which entries are pratical for the purpose.

{competition}

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