Sustainability, Adaptation and the Local State: An Overview

Local governments face multiple issues, which are revealed most clearly in urban areas. There, climate change is exacerbating existing problems such as deepening inequality, infrastructural needs and housing affordability, which are in turn overlain across permanent issues of segregation, transportation provision, pollution and resource depletion. This paper explores published examples of urban adaptation that demonstrate the complexity of these policy challenges, and the value of an equally rich approach such as the local state. The paper notes that examples of transformational policy-making in US cities point to highly interventionist approaches rather than strongly participative regimes.