The Climate Refuge City
A New Urban Imaginary in Formation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19219679 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stephanie Wakefield (0000-0002-5070-8993, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0309-1317 • E-ISSN: 1468-2427 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1468-2427.70100 |
| OpenAlex | W7155799069 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
This essay examines the climate refuge city as an emerging yet underdiscussed urban imaginary. Across media, governmental and academic discourse, certain cities are increasingly framed as speculative destinations for ‘climigrants’, projected to be displaced from regions cast as ‘becoming‐unlivable’ due to floods, extreme heat or wildfires and as a new object of urban planning. This imaginary departs from the resilient city imaginary assembled post‐Hurricane Sandy in New York City, which emphasized adaptation‐in‐place through infrastructural transformation and has shaped urban planning for the past decade. In contrast, the climate refuge city envisions the preemptive abandonment of certain zones, climate migration as an imminent twenty‐first‐century reality, and the proactive production of safe havens in ‘receiver’ cities identified as infrastructurally, demographically and ecologically suited to absorb incoming populations. Through analysis of its discursive, visual and epistemological construction, this essay maps the climate refuge city as a problematization‐in‐formation, clarifying its foundational claims, political stakes and planning implications. By tracing its emergence at an early stage, I argue, researchers and practitioners can better understand and engage the premises and trajectories it is beginning to consolidate
Abandonment (legal) · Climate change · Destinations · Object (grammar) · Politics · The Imaginary · Urban climate · Urban planning · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Water Governance and Infrastructure
Resilience
Resilience
Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems
Resilience as embedded neoliberalism
A systematic review of climate migration research
Exploring the realities of urban resilience
Integration as Adaptation
Seeking refuge? The potential of urban climate shelters to address intersecting vulnerabilities
Dreamscapes of Modernity
Vulnerable City, recipient city, or climate destination? Towards a typology of domestic climate migration impacts in US cities
Understanding climate adaptation and transformation challenges in African cities
From environmental to climate justice
Transformation and recognition
Towards a crisis of resilience? Eight takes on a troubling concept
Why climate migration is not managed retreat
An approach to pluralizing socionatural resilience through assemblages
Planet at the End of the City
Megaprojects and the limits of ‘green resilience’ in the global South
Thermal insecurity
Climate Change and Property Experiments in Appalachia
We do not want to leave our land’
What Kind of Thing is Resilience
Urban resilience as critique
Climate change and the politics of causal reasoning
A New Urban Dispositif? Governing Life in an Age of Climate Change
Sunken Cities
The Urban Lab
Negotiating informality and urban resilience
Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene
Topologies of Power
Anticipatory ruination
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |