Mannahatta2409.org: Creating and Sharing Visions of Sustainability and Resilience
Eric W. Sanderson, Senior Conservation Ecologist, Wildlife Conservation Society
ABSTRACT
Mannahatta2409.org is a web forum that empowers the public to develop and share climate-resilient and
sustainable designs for Manhattan based on rapid model estimates of the water cycle, carbon cycle,
biodiversity and population. Users can vary the ecosystems, lifestyles, and climate of the city to create a vision;
investigate the ecological performance of visions in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, stormwater runoff,
species diversity, population density or more than 60 other metrics; and then share and promote their visions
of what sustainability or resilience practice means to them. Vision metrics are compared to the same area of
the city today and to how that part of the city worked prior to development (based on data from the Mannahatta
Project.) Mannahatta2409.org will be of interest to architects, developers, and city managers; to teachers,
students, and researchers; and to everyone who loves New York City and wants to see it last.
BIOGRAPHY
Eric W. Sanderson is a Senior Conservation Ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the
author of “Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City” and “Terra Nova: The New World After Oil, Cars,
and Suburbs.”