I will point out one other problematic thing with the Midwest - where much of New England is around rivers, there's also a lot of glacial valley action (even if it's very weathered by this point.) Since the water tends to be at the bottom, while some things may flood, there's still some natural direction for water flow, so you don't get stuff pooling.
In Minnesota (the bit of the midwest I'm obviously familiar with), people built around the water sources, the same way. But there's very little in the way of hills between the water sources, so it's quite easy for overflow to a) not have an obvious direction to go and b) for overflow from multiple sources to converge (even if that's just 'rain coming down on flat surface' and 'slightly overflowed river/lake')
Plus, being the land of 11,000 some odd lakes, it's really hard to go very far without hitting a lake, and of course, those can flood too, given enough rain. If there was no building around any water source to the degree that Massachusetts managed to do sanely, you'd have to cut out large swaths of suburbs, and a chunk of part of Minneapolis.
That said, outside the urban areas, I think giving lots of space around the river is very sane. And even in the Twin Cities, the river cuts *very* deep - 30+ foot cliffs almost all the way through - so you'd have to have really really major flooding before it hit most of the city. The one place that isn't true, they sensibly put the small municipal airport, and if that floods, it's not the end of the world - they can move the planes, easily enough, etc.
It's just a little trickier if you don't have much in the way of hills, and have tons of lakes to avoid.
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Date: 2006-05-16 03:13 pm (UTC)I will point out one other problematic thing with the Midwest - where much of New England is around rivers, there's also a lot of glacial valley action (even if it's very weathered by this point.) Since the water tends to be at the bottom, while some things may flood, there's still some natural direction for water flow, so you don't get stuff pooling.
In Minnesota (the bit of the midwest I'm obviously familiar with), people built around the water sources, the same way. But there's very little in the way of hills between the water sources, so it's quite easy for overflow to a) not have an obvious direction to go and b) for overflow from multiple sources to converge (even if that's just 'rain coming down on flat surface' and 'slightly overflowed river/lake')
Plus, being the land of 11,000 some odd lakes, it's really hard to go very far without hitting a lake, and of course, those can flood too, given enough rain. If there was no building around any water source to the degree that Massachusetts managed to do sanely, you'd have to cut out large swaths of suburbs, and a chunk of part of Minneapolis.
That said, outside the urban areas, I think giving lots of space around the river is very sane. And even in the Twin Cities, the river cuts *very* deep - 30+ foot cliffs almost all the way through - so you'd have to have really really major flooding before it hit most of the city. The one place that isn't true, they sensibly put the small municipal airport, and if that floods, it's not the end of the world - they can move the planes, easily enough, etc.
It's just a little trickier if you don't have much in the way of hills, and have tons of lakes to avoid.