Resilient Communities from the Ground Up

For decades, American cities have experimented with ways to remake themselves in response to climate change. These efforts, often driven by grassroots activism, offer valuable lessons for transforming the places we live. This course focuses on the unique ways in which US cities are working to mitigate and adapt to climate change while creating equitable and livable communities in the process. Four main themes and twelve case studies show how US cities are reclaiming their streets from cars, restoring watersheds, growing forests, and adapting shorelines to improve people's lives while addressing our changing climate. The course relates national models to field study in Boston and Cambridge, where we meet with local advocates, community groups, government officials, scientists, and urban designers. Students walk the Rose Kennedy Greenway and visit the site of the Big Dig to learn how Boston buried an interstate highway and built a world-class park over it. We ride the region's evolving bike network, featuring paths that are among the best in the country, and meet with city transportation planners to better understand how bike and scooter shares are complimenting public transit. Tours focus on the ways in which Boston's efforts to make its streets safer are also a part of its green infrastructure plans to manage stormwater. We examine Boston's tree canopy, observing how disparities in urban trees correlate to race and income and, subsequently, inequities in exposure to air pollution and extreme heat. We paddle the Charles River and learn about how the Resilient Boston Harbor Plan aims to protect the city from sea-level rise and storm surge by creating green spaces along the city's 75 kilometer shoreline. Class assignments engage students in researching, measuring, and engaging in individual and group projects related to the themes of the course. Students examine how they can take action in their daily lives and careers to support efforts in their own communities for emboldening solutions.