Optimizing Multifunctional Green Infrastructure as a Societal Co-Benefit Catalyst in New York City Policies for Coastal and Stormwater Management

Green infrastructure uses and imitates natural systems to support human habitats. There has been a resurgence of the concept in recent decades, and in New York’s case, especially as it relates to coastal and stormwater management, while awareness of the interconnectedness of persistent social and economic problems to the built and natural environments has grown. The concept of multifunctionality explicitly ties solutions to an array of issues, from the ecological to the social and economic, into landscape design. This paper, Optimizing Multifunctional Green Infrastructure as a Societal Co-­‐‑ Benefit Catalyst in New York City Policies for Coastal and Stormwater Management, seeks answers to the questions: do the policies in New York City regarding green infrastructure incorporate the concept of multifunctionality? To what extent does the increasing prevalence of green infrastructure policy for coastal and stormwater management present a potential catalyst to tie climate urgency to issues of social and economic urgency, and is this catalyst potential reached? By reviewing the evolution of green infrastructure, multifunctionality, and their correlation, and then analyzing at the city’s relevant GI policies, this paper finds that while multifunctionality is increasingly present in policy, policies do not take explicit advantage of climate urgency to expedite social solutions.