Climate Adaptation, Migration, and Global Cities

Catalog description

The climate crisis is no longer a distant threat; it is shaping the daily realities of cities around the world. In July 2025, unprecedented flash floods in central Texas killed more than 135 people and displaced thousands more, as the Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet in under an hour. Just months earlier, in March, wildfires tore through Los Angeles, fueled by extreme drought and record- breaking winter heat. From New York to New Delhi, from the Hill Country to the Sahel, climate-related disasters are intensifying. Heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, and coastal erosion are accelerating, not only as isolated weather events but also as systemic, compounding threats to infrastructure, housing, public health, and human mobility. This course investigates how cities around the world are adapting to the growing pressures of climate change. We will explore a range of climate impacts and adaptation strategies: managed retreat from coastlines, floodplain buyouts, urban greening, migration planning, and resilient infrastructure design. We’ll examine how governments ranging from municipal agencies to international bodies are responding to displacement pressures and what it means to plan for mobility, not just mitigation. The conversation around climate adaptation increasingly demands that we consider social vulnerability, racial justice, and the lived experience of both sudden displacement and slow-onset change. Cities are now appointing heat officers, rewriting land-use codes, and confronting the limits of 20th-century infrastructure in a 21st-century emergency. Students will complete a hands- on, project-based conference project focused on climate and urban crises in a neighborhood of New York City or another global city. This course is open to students with a wide range of interests, including environmental studies, urban planning, engineering, public policy, geography,…