Adapting cities, adapting the curriculum

This article is the second of two on teaching about sustainability and cities in geography. The first article set the scene by assessing sustainability initiatives and arguing that the most profound challenge facing urban communities in the twenty-first century is adaptation (Kirby, 2014). This second article explores these claims in greater detail and goes on to show the potential for geographic research and education in this arena. Via a series of examples, this article demonstrates that existing approaches, such as planning, resilience and sustainability, are all shackled to broad normative concepts, when it is highly localised responses that are required to deal with the problems cities face in the coming decades. With its ability to offer a curriculum that incorporates the singularity of individual communities, geography is uniquely placed to offer leadership in this context.