AP/SOSC 3714 3.00
Cities and Climate Change
Cities face many challenges, but climate change presents some of the most urgent demands on governance, policy, and planning that cities have ever experienced. Inequalities are heightened in crises and are often determinative of success or failure in survival. We examine the concept of resilience which is much-touted in academic and popular literature as the desired goal of urban climate policy, consider the issue of urban social justice, and critique how cities can and do pursue resilience in a context of climate uncertainty. The course presents and discusses a range of concepts, theories, and issues relevant to and important to understanding the challenge of climate change for cities. We explore how cities are responding to climate change impacts and forecasts, and how urban scholars assess these responses. We discuss the varied and competing ideas of resilience as a response to climate change and their varied frameworks for assessing and developing resilience. We consider social justice issues inherent in climate change, and review governance and policy approaches. Students in the course address real-world problems through research and prepare dossiers on assigned cities, working in groups, and present their work-in-progress for class discussion and feedback. The city dossiers include a background report on the city’s climate scenario, an assessment of existing climate-related policies, a summary of key urban climate resilience issues and propose a climate resilience development strategy tailored to the city.