Our lives in the Bay Area, and our collective relationship to the Bay is ever changing. The ground is shifting, the water is rising and people throughout our region want to know what to do. The 21st century requires unprecedented solutions to today’s vexing ecological and social challenges. Well designed, holistic approaches underpinned by solid science, grounded in practicality and capped off by ingenuity are needed. The Bay Area is world-renowned for its innovation, as well as our respect for the environment and multiplicity of cohesive communities; this is part of our collective DNA. We must apply this West Coast spirit and embrace our changing environment.

The Bay is an ecological and social system with an intrinsic capacity for resiliency that we will “harness” and enhance through discrete local interventions that generate transformative effects across the region—effects that are ecological, legal, and socially beneficial. By “hack” we mean that solutions and interventions need not be grandiose in their execution: Simple, elegant, implementable solutions can be networked to create interconnected benefits. Through these small acts, we also transform the hard boundary between land and water, re-orienting communities towards the Bay. This will require a dedicated amount of ingenuity achieved through the open collaboration of a knowledgeable and creative team.

The networked approach strengthens the Bay Area region by harnessing its inherent resilience. By building on our knowledge and research of the region, its systems and behavior, our networked approach can successfully exist independently, and help shape its context for the betterment of the larger region—reducing the catastrophic and gradual stress on the entire Bay ecosystem. Through these actions, we aim to catalyze the formation of a new adaptive shoreline culture.