Design for Climate Change in the Neoliberal Present: Gentrification, Ecocide, and the Loss of Urbanity in New York City

Leonardo Chiesi and Giuseppina Forte
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Leonardo Chiesi: Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università degli Studi di Firenze, 50127 Florence, Italy
Giuseppina Forte: Department of Art and Environmental Studies, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-25

Abstract: Climate urbanism is an emerging field of action that aims to adapt to or mitigate the impacts of climate change on cities. These interventions are often framed by narratives of climate collapse, implying that there is not enough time to engage citizens in participatory planning processes. Some scholars have argued that this may also enable the realization of urban interventions that would otherwise be difficult to implement under ordinary circumstances. At the same time, research has demonstrated that mitigation and adaptation policies and projects may result in the displacement of vulnerable populations. To avoid this scenario, city governments must ensure vulnerability assessments, transparency, and accountability to all affected communities throughout the design process, and examination of projects proposed by residents and developed by the city authorities. Based on interviews, fieldwork observation, and secondary analysis of open-source documents, this article examines the complexity of appropriate urban climate planning through a comparative analysis. Taking the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Project in New York as an exemplary case study, we analyze multiple perspectives, expertise, and rights involved in climate urbanism in global cities under the neoliberal present. We conclude that democratic city planning for climate change cannot be separated from questions of climate justice, which concerns democratic decision making and the impact of interventions on local communities and ecosystems.

Keywords: climate justice; climate urbanism; green infrastructure; vulnerability assessment; East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Project; Rebuild by Design; New York; neoliberal present; gentrification; participatory planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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