Cities and Climate Change: The Challenge of Urban Resilience
The future often looks bleak. Climate change is now referred to as ‘the climate crisis’ by many media outlets and other organizations; some call it an existential threat. This course takes an urban studies approach to the problem, which is relevant since more than half of the human population lives in cities and cities produce more than 70% of global CO2 emissions. The challenges posed by a warming climate have exacerbated pre-existing patterns of urban social inequality, and now present some of the most urgent demands on governance, policy, and planning that cities have ever experienced.
Yet cities also exhibit resilience and even hope. Cities are the sites of social movements and resistance among those most severely affected by environmental degradation, and of innovations in social organization and policymaking aimed at adapting to and/or mitigating the effects of global warming. Some say the climate crisis presents humanity with its best-ever chance at creating a more equitable and sustainable socioeconomic order.
In this course we will use social-scientific theory and research methods to analyze the impact of climate change upon urban planning, policy, and everyday life in cities. We begin with a critical look at the concept of resilience - the desired goal of urban climate policy, according to much of the literature. We then explore a selection of other theories and approaches to climate change in urban studies, and apply them to case studies drawn from cities worldwide. Topics covered in the process include climate justice, consumerism, development, climate change denial, neoliberalism, and individual choice versus collective action.
The goals and objectives of this course are:
- to enrich and refine our prior knowledge of climate change with a well-informed urban studies perspective;
- to explore the practical and ethical implications of theories discussed in class by applying them to real-world urban climate scenarios; and
- to develop our analytical and communications skills in preparation for further studies and/or professional contexts.
