Planning in an Era of Polycrisis
Challenges and Pathways for Climate and Housing Justice
Bibliographic Data
Problem, research strategy, and findings Social and climate injustices are deepening as climate disasters, affordable housing emergency, and economic precarity disproportionately affect marginalized communities. Legacies of racialized exclusion and housing financialization in the United States and Canada compound these crises, demanding an evolution in equity planning. We have synthesized research on climate action, urban inequities, and green gentrification by analyzing shifts in planning through qualitative interviews with practitioners in Vancouver (Canada), Portland (OR), Denver (CO), Boston (MA), and Washington (DC). We examine here how planners perceive their practice adapting to polycrisis, highlighting barriers and calls for reparative climate and housing justice amid systemic and structural constraints. Our findings do not represent the wide representative sample of all cities within the United States and Canada; however, we investigated and explored the evolution of a diverse set of cities facing a variety of climate changes and housing pressures. Key tensions between climate adaptation, housing affordability, and economic development are revealed, as well as emerging strategies to align these agendas.Takeaway for practice Planners navigating the polycrisis must contend with persistent tensions between climate and housing goals, as funding is unstable and responses are historically reactive. A justice-oriented future requires small, strategic steps; cross-departmental collaborations; and shifts in planning education to prepare professionals for more agile and adaptive equity-focused practice. Our study shows that planners’ own perceptions, viewpoints, opinions, and experiences shape choices, highlighting the need to critically reflect on how perspectives can shape what challenges are prioritized and which solutions are pursued
Climate change · Climate justice · Economic Justice · Environmental justice · Urban planning · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Urban and Rural Development Challenges
Searching for the Just City
Green gentrification in European and North American cities
Explaining Progress in Climate Adaptation Planning Across 156 U.S. Municipalities
Global polycrisis
Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
Urban Planning for Health Equity Must Employ an Intersectionality Framework
“The Past We Step Into and How We Repair It”
Transforming US urban green infrastructure planning to address equity
Confronting Climate Coloniality
The health of workers in the global gig economy
Reimagining the language of engagement in a post-stakeholder world
Should planners join politics? Would that help them make better cities
Seeing the insurgent in transformative planning practices
Reconstructing Decision-Making
Planning and Crisis, Planning in Crisis
Missing the Housing for the Trees
Grassroots mobilization for a just, green urban future
From sustainable urbanism to climate urbanism
Urban crisis
Urban green gentrification in an unequal world of climate change
Mapping the Margins
Trends and Directions in Environmental Justice
They Didn't See It Coming
Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas
Adapting the environmental risk transition theory for urban health inequities
Greening the gentrification process
Racial Inequity in Green Infrastructure and Gentrification
Expanding the Boundaries of Justice in Urban Greening Scholarship
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| Highly cited | No |