11/12 Planning for climate change: Building Equity into sustainable urban futures
2019-20 Stuart Meck Memorial Lecture in Land Use Law and Affordable Housing
Climate change raises many profound questions about the future of cities. How will cities adapt to more frequent and extreme weather events? How will they change their infrastructure and energy systems to move toward a zero-carbon future? As researchers in planning and allied fields, explore these questions, an emerging, cross-cutting theme is the issue of equity: what will climate adaptation and mitigation mean for less advantaged urban residents and communities? who will have a voice in climate-related decisions and actions? and, most importantly, where are the leverage points for building a sustainable and equitable urban future? This emphasis on equity is not only front and center for urban governments, but is also foundational for a proposed Green New Deal and the climate justice movement more generally. Robin Leichenko, Professor and Chair, Department of Geography, Rutgers University explores opportunities, synergies, and challenges associated with bringing equity into planning for climate change in cities, drawing from Leichenko’s work on equity-based community adaptation in New York City.