There are plenty of dire predictions about what will happen to our cities if the worst predictions about global warming were to come true: flooding, droughts, famine, chaos and massive death. But Matthew Kahn, an economist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, sees a different future. He tells that story in his new book Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future.
Kahn looks to the past for clues to how cities adapt to changing circumstances. Chicago recovered strongly from the devastating Chicago Fire of 1871. He argues that Japanese and German cities recovered rapidly after World War II and experienced sharp population growth. So how will cities adapt in the future? Kahn expects that cities will continue to compete for desirable residents, and that residents will make their own locational decisions based on risk preferences. For example, while the risk-averse may choose to locate to “safe” cities like Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Minneapolis or Detroit (Kahn’s top 5 picks), cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York will continue to attract people. Especially if these cities prepare for a warmer future.
Ultimately, Kahn’s optimistic vision of the future rests on adaptation and innovation: “Unlike the Manhattan Project during World War II, we do not need to make one big bet on the strategy for winning this war. Instead, we will launch a billion mutinies against climate change. In a world with billions of educated, ambitious individuals, the best adaptations and innovations will be pretty good.”? For a longer preview, check out Kahn’s recent essay on Vox.
Kahn has agreed to answer your questions about this topic and his new book, so fire away in the comments section below. As always, we’ll post his answers in good time.
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A first world child adds a million kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere. There’s the problem.
Wait – is the reasoning really,
“Climate change won’t have dire consequences for cities because cities recovered from the Great Chicago Fire and the bombings of Tokyo and Dresden and so on”?
Yes, humanity will figure out a way to keep going even after climate change disasters, but that doesn’t mean that the disasters weren’t disasters. Neither should we assume that recovery always happens, or is pretty: see, eg, New Orleans.
In any case, one should be wary of any reasoning that could lead one to suggesting that we should bomb our own cities once every few decades. Urban renewal at its finest!
-M
I have not read the book, but I am eager to hear the author distinguish between heat-related maladies (the heat itself) and heat-related collateral (rising sea levels).
imagine Las Vegas or Bangkok10 degrees F hotter – at what point does it become effectively inhabitable? Then there is the collateral damage question about rising sea levels, which threaten Miami and Bangladesh alike. The two should be differentiated as threats. And of course … agricultural changes.
Given the heat wave in Russia this summer, do you still think that Moscow will be a good city to move to after the effects of climate change become more significant?
Although we do have a small risk of both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, I’m quite happy to be living in Seattle, where we will have an ample supply of fresh rainwater as long as weather patterns don’t change.
“A first world child adds a million kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere. There’s the problem.”
How much can one deduct from that when watering the plants in the yard?
What is the most that the Earth can warm?
first world child adds a million kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere. There’s the problem.
Yes it’s much better to be in 3rd world poverty, but hey at least you’ll have a nice small carbon-footprint.