ABOUT
THE REGION
The Northeastern New Jersey Region includes Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken, and Bayonne. The region is densely and diversely populated and is highly interconnected through a complex network of transportation infrastructure, including public transit, highways, freight rail, and ports. The region was heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Many homes and businesses were flooded. There were widespread power outages and damage to critical regional transportation systems and healthcare assets. The extensive impacts of Hurricane Sandy underscored the need to strengthen the area’s resiliency by reducing its vulnerability to extreme weather events and coastal flooding.
In addition to coastal flooding, many neighborhoods in the region experience flooding during rain events. Heavy rainfall can overwhelm the drainage infrastructure, which also carries sewage from homes. This flooding disrupts daily activities and businesses, can contain raw sewage, and will only get worse as climate change increases the intensity of rainfall.
Resilient Northeastern NJ began as an effort to develop solutions to reduce flood risk. The About Our Region report provides initial context about features of the region that relate to flooding and resilience, including history, preliminary flood data, development trends, and existing resilience-building efforts to ensure that the program honors work already completed or underway.
In Spring of 2021, Resilient Northeastern NJ worked with communities to complete a visioning process to identify regional values, priorities, and visions for the future. Through this process, the program expanded to consider other climate-related hazards such as heat and poor air quality, because community members emphasized the importance of addressing these inter-connected challenges. Learn more by viewing the reports using the links below. Findings from these reports were incorporated into the Action Plan, which recommends strategies to increase climate resilience in the region.
About Our Region Report
Vision & Priorities Report
Get Involved
Your input and involvement are critical to increasing the resilience of our communities. Opportunities to engage with the program will be updated periodically on the Get Involved page.
STAY IN THE LOOP
Sign up for periodic emails to stay up to date on program process.
EXPLORE OUR RESOURCE LIBRARY
The Resource Library contains our project reports, anytime and youth engagement materials, and other information about progress.
COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL
The Community Advisory Council is a diverse group of community representatives from Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken, and Bayonne. The Council is facilitated by representatives of Ironbound Community Corporation. Council members meet quarterly and have the following responsibilities:
- Share information about the project with their community
- Review materials as needed
- Ensure effectiveness of engagement of socially vulnerable and historically underserved populations
- Ensure community priorities are clearly reflected in the planning process
THE REGION TEAM AND STEERING COMMITTEE
The Region Team refers to the entities that partnered together for Resilient Northeastern NJ. Representatives of each Region Team entity sit on a Steering Committee that leads the program. The Region Team entities include:
- JERSEY CITY
- NEWARK
- HOBOKEN
- BAYONNE
- HUDSON COUNTY
- IRONBOUND COMMUNITY CORPORATION
