Climate change
Cities produce around three quarters of global emissions and concentrate most of the population exposed to their effects: heatwaves, floods, sea-level rise. They are at once the main cause and the front line of climate change, which is why urban planning is climate policy.
Mitigation means compact cities, public transport, efficient buildings and fewer cars; adaptation means shade, water, permeable ground and coastal protection. Ashley Dawson warned in Extreme Cities (2017) that adaptation can be as unequal as everything else: the levee protects those who can pay for it.
Videos on this term (14)
- Infrastructure
Bent Flyvbjerg: Why Megaprojects Fail Despite a Rational Plan
Bent Flyvbjerg explains why megaprojects run over budget and time: power versus rationality in Aalborg, optimism…
Bent Flyvbjerg 3 min read - Climate change
Vale and Campanella: Who Returns to the City After Disaster
The Resilient City by Lawrence Vale and Thomas Campanella shows that cities almost always rebuild, but resilience…
Lawrence Vale 3 min read - Climate change
Urban Resilience and Climate Change: Governing Climate with Justice
Urban resilience to climate change is a way of governing, not a technical attribute. What Pauline McGuirk's…
2 min read - Urban geopolitics
Urban Geography in the 21st Century: Challenges and New Frontiers
How urban geography has changed: theory beyond the Global North, cities and climate change, technologies of…
2 min read - Climate change
Harriet Bulkeley: Urban Climate Governance and Sustainability
Harriet Bulkeley explains how cities govern climate through networks, experiments and partnerships, and why that…
Harriet Bulkeley 2 min read - Infrastructure
Critical Infrastructure: Urban Vulnerability per Stephen Graham
Critical infrastructure fails more often and in cascade. What Stephen Graham's Splintering Urbanism and Disrupted…
Stephen Graham 3 min read - Urban ecology
Green infrastructure: the city that manages its climate
Parks, green roofs and wetlands are not ornament: they lower temperature, absorb rainfall and replace grey…
2 min read - Urban geopolitics
The Endless City by Burdett and Sudjic: The Global City Compared
The Endless City (2007) by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic compares with maps and data New York, Shanghai, London,…
3 min read - Climate change
Urban resilience: adaptation and social justice
What urban resilience means for Timothy Beatley and Judith Rodin: adapting to climate, pandemics and disasters…
2 min read - Urban ecology
Liquid Power by Erik Swyngedouw: Water, Power and Modernisation
Liquid Power (2015) by Erik Swyngedouw explains how dams, transfers and irrigation were the instrument of power…
Erik Swyngedouw 3 min read - Urban ecology
Sustainable Cities: Girardet, Beatley and Newman
What a sustainable city is and how it is built: Girardet's circular metabolism, Beatley's nature in urban design,…
2 min read - Climate change
Extreme Cities by Ashley Dawson: Cities, Climate and Inequality
Extreme Cities (2017) by Ashley Dawson explains why coastal cities are climate change's first victim and how…
Ashley Dawson 2 min read - Infrastructure
Sustainable Urban Energy: Key Ideas from Peter Newman and William Rees
Urban energy decides a city's footprint and resilience. What Peter Newman and William Rees propose, the three…
3 min read - Climate change
Cities and Climate Change: Mitigation, Adaptation and Examples
Cities emit 70 percent of energy-related CO2 and feel the impacts first. What mitigation and adaptation mean and…
2 min read
