Waterfront Future Cities and Climatopias

As climate change continues to unleash untold misery on human populations by increasing the frequency and intensity of hazards, communities and cities worldwide seek new ways to adapt. Who can adapt, where we invest adaptation dollars, and how we adapt have significant ramifications for climate justice and social equity. As an urban political ecologist and social activist, I am concerned not solely about how climate change impacts populations or how we adapt but about three crucial issues: 1) how climate adaptation strategies are being used to reshape the metabolism and social fabric of cities often in ways that reproduce a mix of colonial, post-colonial, and neoliberal legacies of injustices. 2) how elite and state-sponsored adaptation programs undermine marginalized populations' everyday adaptation and resilience; and 3) how communities can collectively create new visions and praxis of just adaptations, whether it involves relocation, migration to new regions, or building new habitable cities.

Ajibade Idowu (2022) The Resilience Fix to Climate Disasters: Recursive and Contested Relations with Equity and Justice-Based Transformations in the Global South. Annals of American Geographer. 112 (8) 2230-2247

Ajibade Idowu (2019) Planned retreat in Global South megacities: disentangling policy, practices, and environmental justice. Climatic change 157: 299-317

Ajibade, Idowu (2017) Can a future city enhance urban resilience and sustainability? A political ecology analysis of Eko Atlantic City. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Vol 26: 85-92