Great content here. Considering the costs, you have to include how crucial the seawall is to tourism, and just in general, the local attraction that it is. These bring money into the economy. Without a seawall, or a similar feature to replace it, I believe many people would move away, and/or just not go outside as much, leaving less money entering the economy. I would most definitely leave the city, without hesitation. It's the only feature, just slightly keeping me in a city that has a mega cost to live in (both immediate and into the future due to less savings), and seems to be getting colder n colder (socially) each year.
I love to bike the seawall but I hate to run on it. If we do change the seawall in the future, we should keep the pedestrian walkaway surfaced with fine sand/gravel compacted down to keep it flat. It'd feel much nicer to run on and more people would walk/exercise more often with reduced pain from running on the asphalt.
Idealistic when you literally say the ocean is going to be 8ft higher by 2100, there’s not much getting around raising false creeks walls and we haven’t even gotten started on the Great Wall of China* I mean Richmond