By Daniel Vock, includes “A chorus of questions greeted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio when he announced in March that he wanted to make the island of Manhattan bigger by extending it 500 feet into the East River. … The mayor says the federal government should pay for some of the improvements, because projects of that scope are beyond the means of states and local governments. It makes no sense, he argues, that the federal government will help communities recover after a disaster but not help them prepare before a disaster occurs, when the costs would be much cheaper.”