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Manhattan's Shape Dictated City Growth
- Manhattan's long skinny shape forced New York's growth to proceed almost strictly northward during the 19th century.
- That linear expansion made younger neighborhoods consistently lie farther uptown compared with older downtown areas.
Canal Drainage Enabled Uptown Expansion
- Draining the Lisbonard Meadows swamp via a canal (now Canal Street) unlocked large tracts for development north of downtown.
- That engineering move enabled the city's first meaningful suburban expansion in the early 19th century.
Manhattan Is Largely Man-Made Terrain
- Much of Manhattan is artificially leveled and landfilled to make it buildable, reflecting a long history of terraforming.
- The Dutch legacy of reclaiming land set a precedent for reshaping Manhattan's topography for urban growth.