Abstract

This paper presents research and ideas on how to live and plan with a fluctuating river in the Basin of the Red River of the North in the United States. It examines intersections between urbanization and its consequences, wetlands and edges, as well as existing city structures and new developments. This paper begins with an overview of the landscape and how it was created by glaciers, the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the gateway to the west, and the development of prairie to farmland. The second part of the paper is devoted to the resent record high flooding of 2009 and 2010 and the influence on urban living and the construction of a fortress of sandbags and temporary dikes. The conclusion in the third part of the paper discusses the construction of a future “soft” plan for an archipelago of urban flood walls versus a more “hard” plan constructing traditional levees and diversion canals and seeks measures of environmental sustainability for both.