Transforming Streets to Adapt to Climate Change

BY JOHN L. RENNE

In the 21st century, urban areas will need to adapt to a changing climate and simultaneously act to significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Today, we are faced with an existential crisis of climate change. And the question is: How can we address these issues? How can we transform our streets to save our planet?

In my book, Adaptation Urbanism and Resilient Communities: Transforming Streets to Address Climate Change, my colleague Billy Fields and I make the case that bouncing back is not enough. We cannot just design our infrastructure to be able to withstand disasters. We need to leap forward and adapt our infrastructure to solve the climate change problems. We need to integrate adaptation and mitigation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cleaning up the environment.

Adaptation Urbanism is based around four core elements: sustainable transportation, compact development, blue-green infrastructure, and doing this in an equitable way. We evaluate resilience plans in each of our case study cities and emphasize the concept of resilient streets or districts.

At FAU, we are using VR to get the public to see the effects of climate change firsthand. We turned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ model for what high tide would look like in the year 2100 into a simulation. We also replicated this experiment in Honolulu and found that 95% of people said that others in their community would benefit from that simulation. The level of comprehension was incredible. Genuinely seeing is believing.

We have partnered with Virtual Planet Technologies and a researcher from the Virtual Reality Lab at Stanford University to develop a model to engage with the community in West Palm Beach. We can also use this to develop adaptation strategies such as sea walls, vegetative walls, vegetative coastlines, and other techniques and figure out what the community may like to see.

Adapting our infrastructure by building walls and other mechanisms will not solve our problem. We need to adapt our infrastructure to withstand greater climate change threats. Now that is complicated in South Florida, where our bedrock is on limestone. But there are strategies and solutions that we need to consider, including where we direct future development.

Adaptation Urbanism is about learning lessons from places that are making radical differences. We need to develop strategies to direct future development to high ground in an equitable way. We cannot displace poor and marginalized communities. We need to think about adaptation urbanism, sustainable transport, compact development, revamping our infrastructure, and making future investments to get people out of their cars. I hope we can figure out a solution to take South Florida to the next level.

John L. Renne

Professor, Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

John L. Renne, Ph.D., AICP, is a professor of urban and regional planning at Florida Atlantic University. He is a leading expert in transit-oriented development, sustainable and resilient land use and transportation planning, and resilience. In 2020, he co-founded Priority Funds, LLC, which focuses on investing in real estate in walkable communities via crowdfunding and off-market opportunities.

© GHB LANDSKABSARKITEKTER/STEVEN ACHIAM

Tasinge Plads, Copenhagen

One of the case studies for Adaptation Urbanism was Tasinge Plads in Copenhagen. It once looked like a typical asphalt plaza that experienced flash-flooding events known as cloud bursts. The city replaced asphalt with brick pavers, public art, greenery, and engineering that can retain the water without flooding the homes.