An examination of midwestern US cities’ preparedness for climate change and extreme hazards

In the face of uncertainties associated with climate change, building adaptive capacity and resilience at the community level emerges as an essential and timely element of local planning. However, key social factors that facilitate the effective building and maintenance of urban resilience are poorly understood. Two groups of US cities differing markedly in their commitment to climate change are contrasted with respect to their planning approaches and actions related to mitigation and adaptation strategies, and also in relation to social features that are believed to enhance adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. The first group manifests a strong commitment to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the second group has demonstrated little or no such commitment. These cities are compared with respect to several noteworthy social features, including level of social capital, degree of unconventional thought, and level of cultural diversity. These characteristics are postulated to contribute to the adaptive capacity of communities for dealing with the impacts of climate change. The aim is to determine to what extent there is a relationship between social/cultural structures and urban commitment and planning for climate change that could discriminate between climate change resilient and nonresilient urban areas.

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Climate change, ambient ozone, and health in 50 US cities

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-006-9166-7 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 82 (1-2) ◽

pp. 61-76 ◽

Cited By ~ 212

Author(s):

Michelle L. Bell ◽

Richard Goldberg ◽

Christian Hogrefe ◽

Patrick L. Kinney ◽

Kim Knowlton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ambient Ozone ◽

Us Cities

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The Climate Change-Temperature-Crime Hypothesis: Evidence from a Sample of 15 Large US Cities, 2002 to 2015

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology ◽

10.1177/0306624x20969934 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 0306624X2096993

Author(s):

Michael J. Lynch ◽

Paul B. Stretesky ◽

Michael A. Long ◽

Kimberly L. Barrett

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

P Value ◽

Individual Level ◽

Temperature Trends ◽

Large N ◽

Change Temperature ◽

The Mean ◽

The Individual ◽

The Relationship ◽

Us Cities

Drawing on prior studies, green criminologists have hypothesized that climate change will both raise the mean temperature and the level of crime. We call this the “climate change-temperature-crime hypothesis” (“CC-T-C”). This hypothesis is an extension of research performed on temperature and crime at the individual level. Other research explores this relationship by testing for the relationship between seasonality and crime within a given period of time (i.e., within years). Climate change, however, produces small changes in temperature over long periods of time, and in this view, the effect of climate change on crime should be assessed across and not within years. In addition, prior CC-T-C studies sometimes employ large geographic aggregations (e.g., the entire whole United States), which masks the CC-T-C association that appears at lower levels of aggregation. Moreover, globally, crime has declined across nations since the early 1990s, during a period of rising mean global temperatures, suggesting that the CC-T-C hypothesis does not fit the general trends in temperature and crime over time. Addressing these issues, the present study assesses the CC-T-C relationship for a sample of 15 large ( N = 15) US cities over a 14-year period. Given the CC-T-C hypothesis parameters, we assessed this relationship using correlations between individual crime and temperature trends for each city. Crime trends were measured by both the number and rate of eight Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Part I crimes, so that for each city, there are 16 crime-temperature correlations. Using a liberal p value ( p = .10), the temperature-crime correlations were rejected as insignificant in 220 of the 234 tests (94%). We discuss the Implications of this finding and suggest that rather than focusing on the temperature-crime relationship, green criminologists interested in the deleterious effects of climate change draw attention to its larger social, economic, environmental and ecological justice implications.

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Cities on the Front Lines

Greenovation ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190695514.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Joan Fitzgerald

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

European Union ◽

Urban Climate ◽

Gasoline Prices ◽

The European Union ◽

Sustainability Planning ◽

European Cities ◽

Effective Policy ◽

Per Capita ◽

Us Cities

This chapter first sets out the book’s purpose, which is to take readers on a tour of greenovating cities in North America and Europe, exploring their strategies and successes, along with the opportunities and obstacles they have encountered along the way. In general, European cities have lower per capita greenhouse gas emissions than US cities due to their higher density, more diverse transit options, historically high gasoline prices, and long-standing climate policy at the European Union, national, and municipal levels. A broad literature has emerged on urban climate change and sustainability planning, much of it focusing on what constitutes successful practice. In contrast, this book focuses on the how elected officials, planners, and other stakeholders design and implement effective policy and programs. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

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Mitigating Climate Change in US Cities: Opportunities and obstacles

Local Environment ◽

10.1080/13549830120091699 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 393-406 ◽

Cited By ~ 200

Author(s):

Michele M. Betsill

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Us Cities

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An Analysis of Resilience Planning at the Nexus of Food, Energy, Water, and Transportation in Coastal US Cities

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13116316 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (11) ◽

pp. 6316 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kristin B. Raub ◽

Kristine F. Stepenuck ◽

Bindu Panikkar ◽

Jennie C. Stephens

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food System ◽

Water System ◽

Energy System ◽

Coastal Communities ◽

Food Energy ◽

The Us ◽

Context Specific ◽

Us Cities ◽

System Water

Climate change poses increased risks to coastal communities and the interconnected infrastructure they rely on, including food, energy, water, and transportation (FEWT) systems. Most coastal communities in the US are ill-prepared to address these risks, and resilience planning is inconsistently prioritized and not federally mandated. This study examined the resilience plans of 11 coastal US cities to understand 1. How FEWT systems were considered within resilience plans and, 2. How nexus principles or elements critical to a nexus approach were incorporated within resilience plans. A “Nexus Index” was created to examine the incorporation of nexus principles, which included partnerships and collaborations, reference to other plans or reports, discussion of co-benefits, cascading impacts, and inclusion of interdisciplinary or cross-silo principles. These principles were used to score each action within the resilience plans. Results showed that only eight actions (1% of all actions across the 11 plans) focused on the connections among FEWT systems within the resilience plans. The transportation system was associated with the most actions, followed by the energy system, water system, and the food system. While FEWT systems were not consistently included, there was evidence from the Nexus Index that the plans included elements critical to a nexus approach, such as the inclusion of partnerships and reference to co-benefits with the actions they designed to build resilience. The heterogeneity among the systems that each plan emphasized reflects the heterogeneity among the challenges that each city faces. While context-specific differences in resilience plans across cities are expected, some consistency in addressing certain infrastructural needs and their nexus interactions may greatly benefit and improve the implementation of resilience planning.

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