New York 2140

New York 2140, a 2017 climate fiction novel by American author Kim Stanley Robinson, imagines a New York City transformed by rising seas. The story unfolds in a future where two major sea-level surges have permanently submerged much of the city, leaving people living on the upper floors of buildings, similar to modern Venice. Most of Manhattan south of 46th Street is underwater, earning the nickname "SuperVenice." Several characters reside in the MetLife Tower on 23rd Street, which the tenant association has equipped with flood defenses and boat storage; Robinson chose this building because it was modeled after Venice’s St. Mark’s Campanile. Wealthier residents occupy new skyscrapers in Uptown Manhattan and near The Cloisters, both above water. Denver has replaced New York as the center of American finance and culture, and large parts of the United States have been deliberately abandoned to make room for wildlife. Robinson has addressed sea-level rise in earlier works like *Aurora*, *2312*, and the Mars trilogy.

The novel depicts a 50-foot rise in seawater, though scientists consider a rise of 3 to 15 feet more likely by 2140. A rise of that scale would flood parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, but not as extensively as in the book. However, some projections suggest rises up to 72 feet by 2300 if global warming reaches 5°C above pre-industrial levels. Robinson set the story in 2140 to keep the setting recognizable, while the sea-level rise is possible but "extreme."

The story criticizes capitalism, unregulated financial systems, and market economies. Many citizens live in co-ops and rely on resource-pooling organizations, while the affluent occupy former office buildings and new skyscrapers north of 125th Street and in Yonkers.

Critic Gerry Canavan, writing for the *Los Angeles Review of Books*, called the novel a step in Robinson's "construction of a huge metatextual history of the future...distributed across overlapping but distinct and mutually irreconcilable texts." In a 2022 *New York Times* article, Alexandra Alter described the novel as "oddly uplifting." Filmmaker Ken Burns called it "wonderful," noting it features "disasters and climate change, but it also has sort of human adaptability, and it's really spectacular."