Climate change and the city: Building capacity for urban adaptation

The significant shifts in climate variables projected for the 21st century, coupled with the observed impacts of ongoing extreme weather and climate events, ensures that adaptation to climate change is set to remain a pressing issue for urban areas over the coming decades. This volume of Progress in Planning seeks to contribute to the widening debate about how the transformation of cities to respond to the changing climate is being understood, managed and achieved. We focus particularly on spatial planning, and building the capacity of this key mechanism for responding to the adaptation imperative in urban areas. The core focus is the outcomes of a collaborative research project, EcoCities, undertaken at the…