The Startup Lifting Cities out of Flood Zones | Terranova
- Stephen McBride
- 5 days ago
- 1 min read
Flooding already costs America $180 billion a year. By 2050, more than 300 million people will live with regular flooding.
Until now we’ve only had two options: build a seawall. Or give up and move.
Terranova’s Laurence Allen is building a third way: Just raise the city itself.
I caught up with Laurence to hear how he’s already proven it works… and what it’ll take to lift his first city.
In our interview you’ll hear:
Why seawalls don’t work… and who’s still building them
How a “wood chip milkshake” can fix flooding
The forgotten 70s experiment that raised an island
How Terranova’s robots lift an entire city in place
A trillion-dollar gopher disaster waiting to happen




