New York Before the City

Watch this video, where Eric Sanderson, a landscape ecologist, recommends a natural history approach to making cities more livable and sustainable. Using GIS technology, historical maps, and other documents, Sanderson and his team recreated the natural environment of Manhattan Island before European colonization.

They explored what Mannahatta looked like when the Lenape people were its only residents and saw an opportunity for combining the past and present to influence the New York City of the future.