Adaptive Land Lab

The Adaptive Land Lab researches how to plan for urban climate adaptation in ways that improve sustainability and social justice.

As cities worldwide launch climate adaptation plans, many repeat past patterns of urban social and spatial inequality, for instance by investing in centers of economic and political power, neglecting marginalized communities, or extracting resources from less powerful places in service of urban resilience. This lab explores how existing property rights regimes, land use and fiscal policies, and regional governance contribute to these outcomes. Responses to these inequities should therefore not only encompass physical transformations of the built environment, but also a willingness to imagine new approaches to land ownership, land valuation, and collective decision-making. To elevate and advocate for alternative approaches, the lab seeks to learn from governmental experimentation, community based adaptation, and Indigenous approaches to managing environmental change.