Urban designers Baxter Hankin, Garlynn Woodsong, and Matt Lambert discussed the concept of "receiver cities and towns" and how they are important to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Receiver places are likely to gain migrants as climate change problems build. Place Initiative, a small nonprofit with CNU connections, recently published a Receiving Geography Guide and a Community Principles Guide. They have identified more than 600 likely "receiver cities and towns."
So, welcome to On the Park Bench, a Public Square conversation brought to you by the Congress for the New Urbanism. On the Park Bench presents interactive conversations with thought leaders in the New Urbanism and allied industries giving uh listeners a chance to engage in real time. On the Park Bench is a platform for CNU uh members to engage, debate, and collaborate on pressing issues of the day. Today, that topic is receiver cities and towns uh which are places that are uh expected to gain uh climate or or migrants as climate problems get worse. Uh Place Initiative, which is a relatively new organization with connections to CNU has done a lot of research on receiver cities and towns and put out a couple of reports on um the principles or qualities of of uh receiver cities and towns as well as a geography guide that actually lists uh more than 600 communities around the country that are likely uh to be uh receiver places. And we're going to talk about these reports and and other things that that are being done in issues related to receiver cities and towns. Uh today, we have Baxter Hankin, Matt Lambert, and Garland Wood Song and the interviewer, myself, Rob Steuteville. So, share your thoughts on #ontheparkbench www.tinyurl.com/otpbfeedback. And register for the coming webinar uh Tuesday, May 17th, uh we have one also at 12:00 noon uh with folks from the Form-Based Code Institute who will be joining uh for a discussion on how uh such codes can be used as a policy tool for integration and to counteract the segregation inherent in uh conventional zoning. Uh cnu.org/resources/ontheparkbench for more information. And um I'm very pleased to have this panel today. Um I thank you very much for being part and thanks for thanks for all the listeners for joining us. And uh once again, we have Baxter Hankin who is a designer at Robert A.M. Stern Architects in New York City and a graduate student in real estate development at New York University. He received his architectural degree uh from Syracuse University in 2020. And he founded the Climate Resilience Places Project at Place Initiative where he both manages that project and serves on the board of directors. Uh Matt Lambert is a uh urban designer and uh planner and architectural designer uh with nearly two decades of experience. He runs the DPZ CoDesign uh office out of Portland, Oregon. Um and he is also on the CNU National Board of Directors. And Garland Woodsong is managing director of Woodsong Associates, a planning, real estate, and urban analytics firm also based in Portland, Oregon. I'm Rob Steuteville, editor of CNU's Public Square. And we're going to have presentations uh from all three of the panelists um followed by a uh discussion among the panelists and myself and then we're going to go to Q&A from the audience. So please use the Q&A function of Zoom to ask your questions as they occur to you so we can get right to those questions uh when we get to that portion of the show. At this point, I'm going to stop sharing and I'm going to pass this along uh to Garland. Thanks, Rob. Uh well, I'm I'm happy to be here this morning, um, although, uh, a little bit sad because, uh, Camille Cortez, our co-founder and board chair, um, was supposed to be here this morning and I am standing in for her as, uh, she was unfortunately unable to make it at the last minute. Um, can I just want to confirm that you all can see my screen? Okay, cool. Um, so, uh, we are from the Place Initiative. So, before we dive into the Climate Receiver Places Project, I just want to tell you all a little bit more about, uh, Place Initiative, who we are and where we came from. So, Place Initiative was really founded, uh, following, uh, the, uh, CNU in Louisville, which, um, was, I think, 50 or 60 years ago, um, before the pandemic. I'm a little bit hazy on time. Something happened. Um, and, uh, and following, uh, CNU 27 in in Louisville, um, we held a Place Summit, uh, in August of 2020, um, online. And, uh, during this Place Summit, we were really focused on climate and equity. And at the end of the Place Summit, um, we essentially asked, "What's next? What can we do to work together to take action at the intersection of climate and equity and urbanism?" And from that conversation, um, the Place Initiative, uh, was born. Um, here's a screenshot of all of us on a Zoom call, um, uh, sort of the the the co-founders, if you will, are all shown on on this screen cuz we were all, uh, on board with working together to take next steps to figure out what we could do. Um, Place Initiative was born. Um, we, uh, we quickly put up a website, placeinitiative.org, which you can see here, um, uh, in screenshot form or access in your browser at home. Um, and we, uh, we developed a strategic plan, um, to to guide our, um, immediate action. I would say this is not a long-range plan. This is, uh, a guide for our immediate action now and over the next 6 months. Uh, and our elements are to spread awareness of urbanism's role in climate and equity. That, um, electric panels and solar cars, or rather, uh, solar panels and electric cars are not quite enough to, um, to get us to a zero-net energy future. That we also need to reduce energy demand, and urbanism is the key, is the solution to reducing demand for energy by reducing the need for driving in our cities. Um, our second, uh, strategic plan goal is to implement, uh, climate receiver places. Baxter will be talking, uh, a lot more about that later. And the third is to affect local, regional, and national policy. Uh, so as I said, electric cars and solar panels won't allow us to achieve our climate goals with sufficient urgency. We must address the legacy of our existing automobile-oriented urbanization patterns to reduce demand for energy from transportation and buildings by roughly 1/3. Um, and so, as as we like to say, for effective climate action, urbanism is the missing link. Uh, and so this just shows all of the different materials that are involved in producing greenhouse gas emissions per the IPCC reports. And we believe that urbanism plays a role in reducing most, if not all, of these sectors to one degree or another. Um, so the opportunity how we reduce energy demand is to retrofit our cities, towns, and countrysides to create 15-minute communities everywhere. Uh, to create defensible space around each community for climate resilience, uh, and to ensure that economic and housing opportunities are equitably available to all, including by providing pathways to ownership of housing and economic pursuits. Um, this ethos of place initiative is baked into the work of the climate receiver places project. Our, uh, actions to date have included developing what we call resource sheets. These are intended to be, um, short leaf behinds that could they could be given to advocates or uh consultants who are meeting with policy makers. And thus far we've created resource sheets around climate change and urbanism, climate change and equity, on enhancing federal climate strategies, which was intended to inform the Biden administration as to what they could do from the executive branch without needing to involve Congress, um an infrastructure bill response, which is intended to be constructive feedback on the uh the proposed infrastructure bill when it was going through Congress, uh adaptation resiliency and and housing. We have also last year we held an Urban Thinkers Campus in combination or uh in cooperation with UN-Habitat and the World Urban Campaign, uh as well as uh CNU as a shoulder event to uh the second virtual CNU, I believe. Um and we we um produced key results in five areas: climate justice for BIPOC communities, equitable development of housing and economic opportunity, natural and working lands, climate resilience and adaptation, and transportation. Uh and by the way, we are now working on putting together our second UTC event for later this year. Um so our um our Place Initiative goals, coming back to this and diving a little bit deeper, to spread awareness to the critical role of urbanism in achieving goals for climate and equity, um we are looking to work with other groups uh including non-governmental organizations such as Energy C, Smart Growth America, Sunrise, 350, ACLU, and others to help spread spread awareness of the crucial role of urbanism and climate change. Our second goal of implementing the Climate Receiver Places project, Baxter's going to tell you a lot more about that later, but here's a little preview of uh one of the maps produced by that work. Um here's another map produced by that that work. Uh and some of the goals for that project uh uh and we're really action-oriented in terms of our goals for the project. We want to help real places produce housing for the first thousand migrants to to create through retrofit the first 15-minute neighborhood in a climate receiver place and to build out fully interactive online tools and and maps to support this effort. Here's some of the the documents that have been produced by the places the climate receiver places project thus far. Baxter's going to tell you a lot more about those soon. And then in terms of our goal three to affect local, regional, national policy. We We I'm going to just target two of these. We aim to create housing, land use, and transportation model policy including targeting state legislation. And so this is really a companion effort to CNU's project for code reform in trying to get out there and get better policy on the books cuz we've seen the power of adopting better policy in enabling change at the local level. So if you'd like to work with Place Initiative, you can send an email to [email protected] and we are looking for all kinds of involvement including advice, connections, expertise, as well as volunteers who'd like to work with us. And with it that I will pass it over to Matt, I believe, right? Baxter. Baxter's next. Okay, and then Matt'll Matt'll close it out. Thank you. Thanks Garland for the intro on Place Initiative. I am going to be presenting on the climate receiver places project at Place Initiative. So I'm Baxter Heiken, project manager of the climate receiver places project. And as Garland just gave an overview on Place Initiative, it's a policy platform that operates in the intersection between climate change, social justice, and urbanism. You might be asking, what is a climate receiver place? These are communities with lower climate-related risk, well situated to receive climate migrants in terms of geography and urban form. We see new urbanism as a solution to climate change because new urbanist communities can reduce carbon emissions and land use. And we also see new urbanism as a solution to adapting to the impacts of climate change, as new urbanism can create communities that are more adaptable and resilient, which is very important in a future of uncertainty and great challenges. In this project, we ask a number of key questions. Where will people go? How will communities manage manage growth and provide necessary jobs and services? And how will well-situated places remain viable and resilient in the future? We answer these questions with the with the climate receiver places project from a place of hope and optimism, as we implement this project to create a better future for all. The project's backstory begins with my time studying at Syracuse University, located in Syracuse, New York, which is one of many climate receiver places that we've identified as potential targets for this project. The city has a strong urban core that has been emptying out for many years. Unfortunately, even though the region's population stagnates, uh the uh the the region continues to expand into sprawl on the edges, uh eating into natural lands and farmlands um in the metro area. And as I witnessed this happening in a place that seems well-situated to receive climate migrants and refugees in the future. I wondered if this is happening now with a stagnant population, what happens in Syracuse and other places like it across the country and world when climate migrants refugees come uh sprawl increases and we lose all the valuable resources of natural lands and farmlands as well as losing the advantage of quality urbanism for a large portion of the region. It was due to these reasons that I initially started the climate receiver places project so that communities can plan proactively ahead of mass migration for more resilience in a future of climate change. The project is for legacy places to provide new life and opportunity. The project is also for extant and incoming residents to provide opportunity and safe havens for all. And we want to ensure great places for all by implementing sustainability with measurable tools. We create change through resilience and sustainability in communities incorporating diverse perspectives and incorporating all community members into the process. We do this by building coalitions, advocacy, education, and partnerships. Our strategy is not radical. We are aggregating and reframing many existing ideas of quality urbanism. The unique quality of this project is that identifying and assessing climate receiver places incentivizes timely local implementation of sustainable urbanism in the CNU charter in a way that without this framing of this project and the sense of urgency has not always been easily achievable in the past. In this project, we're using the term receiver place instead of the term receiver city because the term city alienates many communities relative to climate migration. We believe that climate receiver places can be big and small. And it's not about the size of the place, but it's rather about the quality of the land use and infrastructure to start off. Our project goals include creating a toolkit for better local and regional government governance, which we are well on our way to creating that toolkit. And then helping communities implement the toolkit and our guiding principles. The audience for the project includes local and regional governments, stakeholders, and organizers that can create a better future for their community by implementing our goals and principles. And the project is really broken down into five main documents. The receiving geography guide identifies communities that are good targets for uh receiving climate migrants and refugees. The community principles guide sets our big ideas and detailed issues that communities should consider when trying to become more resilient for future climate change. The implementation guide will give communities strategies to move forward and take next steps. The community metrics guide will provide a way to measure current and future conditions and progress and success throughout this project. And then the receiver places toolkit will act as a database providing case studies, policy recommendations, and other resources. The first two documents of this project are ones that we've completed and are continually updating. The receiving geography guide and the community principles guide. And together, these create over 114 pages of content that communities can start with to dive into the issues that matter for the future. The receiving geography guide is the first document and is a supporting document project. In this document we select receiver places. Uh the main idea of this document is limiting the project scope to the places most viable in a world of climate change. There are many other kinds of receiver places and our data is imperfect and incomplete. And there are many other approaches that matter. We are just one piece of the puzzle. We're not discounting other communities that don't make this list. Uh all other places and efforts are just as important as ours. This is the first map of our projects. Um this is taking various climate risks and aggregating them into a county-level climate risk score um uh which is continually updating as we revisit and and modify our data and how we look at our data. The methodology for creating this map weights risks such as water stress, sea level rise, wildfires, heat, wet-bulb temperatures, farm yields, extreme rainfall, flooding, hurricanes, and economic damages. We then took this map and set thresholds for which communities count as receiving geography, might count as receiving geography, or don't count as receiving geography at least within the scope of our project. Then we looked within those count- counties and selected specific communities that both have quality urban form, such as in the image above and not the image below, and also have manageable local urban flooding that isn't picked up in the county-level level risk scores. Through this we've identified hundreds of communities across the country and our list is constantly expanding to include more. Um and we see these projects at these places as primary targets for working with us in the climate receiver places project. The second document of the project is probably the most important document, which is the community principles guide. It sets goals, principles, and next steps for communities to follow to become more resilient in the future. Our goals set the stage for the the backdrop of what communities should be considering. These are really big picture ideas. The communities should be capable, they should have capacity to house climate migrants and refugees in a comfortable and sustainable way. They should be resilient, thriving, urbanist, specific as in taking a contextual approach, and communities should also be exemplary as in setting an example for other communities around the country and the world for implementing such a proactive approach to managing the the future issues of climate change. The next section of this document is the principal section, which gets into very specific issues that communities can can consider uh when implementing the ideas of this project. Um we have equity, affordability, and access, regional focus and partnerships, resilient infrastructure, good governance, high-quality built form, connected communities, resilient economies, environmental sustainability, and hazard risk reduction. Here's an example of the pages from the community principles guide in the principal section. Um we really break down these principles into a lot of different pieces where you get very specific issues that the communities can consider. Um and we try to touch upon all the major issues of uh of climate change, quality urbanism, and social justice. The the last step of this document, which is which is also continually being worked on, is the next step for community the next steps for communities. First, communities can review the community principles guide and our other documents. Then they can complete a pre-assessment, a full assessment, set goals for project outcomes, engage in education and advocacy, implementation, and then a post assessment. Our next steps for the project include funding the project, expanding our volunteer base and outreach, building integrated documents and resources, and working with communities. And when I speak about building integrated documents and resources, here's an example of what I mean. Within the principles section of our community principles guide, one of the many issues we touch upon is land use. And within this, you see we break down land use into population centers and commercial activity, farmland and resource extraction, infrastructure and transportation, and natural lands. This is the These are the big picture ideas about these issues that we have in the principles section of the community principles guide, but we also want to link these ideas directly to how we measure existing and future conditions in the community metrics guide, so that communities can tie specific metrics back to these issues. And then we also want to link these issues with the same structure of ideas that we have in the community principles guide document directly to our receiver places toolkit that we're building, so that specific case studies and policy recommendations and other resources link back to these exact issues. So, it's a very seamless project process for communities to use. We're very integrated set of tools that we're building. Thank you for uh listening to this presentation about the Climate Receiver Places project. If you're interested in the project, you can visit our website here or uh scan the QR code on the screen. Thanks, and I'm going to hand it over to Matt. I know Rob's looking at that time over there, and uh the good thing is that Baxter covered a bunch of stuff that I would have covered, so that's that's kind of that's kind of good to to get us out of the Q&A. So, I'll I'll be super brief. Um you know, I think to to start um uh I'll just say it takes a village, right? You know, this is not this is not easy, and I think um one of one of the the folks who's a who's a local champion for um for a pilot that we're uh starting to launch right now said, "Well, I I read through the the community principles guide, and you know, you're just talking about good urban policies and practices, right?" You know, Baxter said, "Um our goals are really to implement the charter, and we have not been able to fully implement the charter really in any place, right? Because there's a lot in there. There's a lot of goals, and uh it's really taken that that that both that impetus um of of the looming uh climate emergency, but also of looming and present, uh but but also um a a need for motivation. And and we think that there's a great motivation to to bring to communities. And so, uh moving moving forward in this uh we're beginning to identify uh through through work with uh with a couple of pilot projects, um really all the moving pieces. And uh you know, it's not it's not really for for Place Initiative to be the ones making change on the ground. You know, this is where we need uh folks in in a in a coalition of partners. We need uh all the practitioners uh in CNU. We need to train new practitioners because uh this this problem is is significant, right? But the opportunity is also significant. And so we like to look at this uh through through the lens of hope and say we have an opportunity now to capitalize on uh on on on an emergency to move us towards all the principles that we've wanted to implement for for quite a long time. And so no no one of us is going to do that. And uh I was discussing uh the implementation piece with Patty Steinshneider and and and Scott Bernstein as we were sort of thinking around it. And you know we came to the question well you know if if a part of this uh starts to starts to catch on and I'll talk about advocacy in a minute. Uh and and you know XYZ ginormous engineering firm is is the one who gets that contract to do it. Is that is that cool? We're like well you know as long as the outcomes are what we want to see uh then we need everybody all hands on deck working on that. So that's that's all of our practitioners. But that's that's why there's also a necessity to create these partnerships, coalitions, and to call upon local advocates too. Uh so a a piece that we didn't talk so much about are are are the metrics. The metrics are in in process in terms of analyzing where a place is now and and and where it can go on its way to implementing change uh because we think it's in the best interest not only of you know those of us working professionally but those of us living in places that want to see change to benefit communities to to really press for that change. Uh and it's not one document that's going to create this. It's not multiple documents. It's the work of many organizations uh working together in partnership uh to to take on little pieces of the pie to make this broader change that is both you know local advocates as I mentioned local organizations and and and foundations also regional statewide and and national organizations. You know so CNU is a a piece of the pie as well and as some of the others that that Garland and Baxter mentioned. So, really it does take a village and and we're we're trying to frame this and and sort of help usher a process that will assemble that village and focus their efforts on making change to to really improve the lives of people that that live in these places today and the people that will live in these places into the future to ensure that they are long-term sustainable. Great. Um well, I think that we should get into the discussion here and I want to remind everybody that if you have questions, I see some people are already putting questions into the Q&A function of Zoom and um so, you have questions, please do so. Um so, I wanted to get right into the discussion here and um um first of all, I wanted to talk about the opportunities here that uh that Matt Matt had mentioned and and uh Baxter had had sort of showed like all the sprawl that's happening around Syracuse. Is this concept of of receiver cities if we're going to have changes uh in our in our demographics in in America in in a significant way, is this a chance to kind of get growth right the next time? Uh to like not do the sprawling growth that we've done for the last 70 years, but actually reverse that. You can start Baxter and I'll I'll I'll sort of follow up. Great, thanks Matt. So, yes, this is this is a way to get growth right this time in in many ways. That that's one of the the many aspects of this project. We need to get growth right. Um uh for um uh for equity uh purposes, we need get growth right for um the internal viability of communities and sustainability, um for supply chain issues that can happen from climate change for local agriculture, um for for so many reasons. And then also, this project is also for resilience, um uh in terms of things that aren't directly associated with growth as um uh challenges uh into the future will increase from climate change, whether communities are growing or not. And uh one one one additional thing there there, Rob, since you asked about, um you know, the changing demographics, uh is the the the principal section on good governance, um and good governance and representation uh and and sort of changing that process is also an important piece of this, right? Because as our communities change, uh we should be changing towards being more responsive and representative to to the local populations, towards integrating um ideas of subsidiarity, to to finding finding ways to ensure that um both the existing communities are supported and that that new folks uh coming in have uh economic opportunities, but also a uh a path to um uh to making uh decisions in their own communities. So, all together, it's very important. I want to back up a little bit and um uh just ask you a little bit um it was mentioned, I think by Baxter, that the the the principles guide is probably the most important thing that that you've done. Um However, the first uh report is the geography guide, and uh um if you had just released a a set of principles, another set of principles, I don't think that it would have gotten quite the attention that it has gotten, but you actually you know, also put put a framework around this whole concept by um you know, putting together a list of what are real you know, what you think are real potential um uh receiver places. And so I wanted to ask you a little bit about that your decision to uh to put that geography guide together and and and you know, do that make a list. So our decision to put that geography guide together was sort of twofold. But before I get into that, I want I want to stress that the geography guide is not definitive and we're continually reassessing and updating it to add new places and new counties. Um uh taking extra looks at our data. But the initial reasons to put together this guide um first was we want to limit the scope of our projects in order to work with climate receiver places to prepare for incoming migrants and refugees of the future. We have to determine where are the safe places or safer places I should say that climate migrants or refugees uh may head to to escape the worst worst impacts of climate change. In order to identify communities we want to work with, we we had to um uh create a list as a starting point for ourselves. But the other aspect of why we created this document is because it frames the project in a way that a typical um uh set of principles or metrics on how to create sustainable and equitable and urban communities um uh doesn't do, right? Um it's I it it essentially um frames the project in a way that um that creates um it extra incentive and timeliness for certain communities to uh finally um start implementing um principles of sustainable urbanism that maybe I have been progressing a little bit slowly and and now that it they can really begin to do the real work that that's needed for the future. Um so if your city is on this uh geography list, um you know, what um what should they do now? Um what what um what policies should they look at? How can they make use of this report? So, I think that the way that they can make use of this report is um I first, you know, reading through the report, seeing all of the various principles, um I getting in touch with us, um uh asking questions, um and then uh in my presentation, I I discussed some of the next steps communities can take with the pre-assessment and assessment and um and all of the other steps in the process and involving community members and and and making change. Um uh in terms of specific policies, um that's one of our next steps uh in this project is creating the um is creating a database, the um receiver places toolkit, which will have particular policy recommendations as well as case studies and other resources. Uh for now, we don't have specific policy recommendations, but our documents do raise key issues um that get into a lot of detail in ways that communities may not be considering those issues today. Well, and like you know, Robbie you mentioned the the next on the park benches FBCI and you know, there's a perfect partnership with with with an organization that's making policy change that is in support of of of this work, right? And it really does, you know, to to to take the framework on takes a strong and interested and enthusiastic local champion to to begin to pull together the the pieces but it doesn't necessarily have to start with the municipality. It can start with the municipality. It can start with with interested organization. It can start with community activists. Right? It's really about having an interest in in seeing a more sustainable and prosperous future for for your place. And then really starting to figure out how to do the work to to build the ground game to to make that happen. Great. What are the concerns about receiving cities or towns, places, terminology, whatever terminology you use. What are the you know, what are the issues that they are going to face as they get they may you know, receive migrants from other places. They may their population may begin to come back. You know, what are the the main issues that you see them facing going forward? Some of the main issues that they may face include local climate risks. Um The communities that we've mapped out in the receiving geography guide seem to have a lower climate risk than must much of the rest of the country, but um every community still face faces risks. No community entirely escapes the risks of climate change. So, each community will have to manage the several major risks that they do have. Um in addition to that, um there there's uh a lot about sort of creating um uh the services and systems um uh that are adaptable and urban um and really preventing um uh sprawl and squandering of uh resources. Um and of course, there's there's major equity and affordability issues that come with uh such rapid uh growth and change and the influx of of refugees from places that um some of which uh may have reduced viability in the near future. Well, um I look, if if places if most places grow today, the policies that they have in place, we know are going to create, you know, just more acres and acres of sprawl that's going to be unsustainable in the future, not only physically uh and environmentally, but also financially unsustainable. It is, you know, as our friends like like Joe and and and and and Chuck have have really put forth. So, we want we want to get out ahead of that and and say um we we need to put better policies in place. We need to rethink what even what economic development means, right? Because economic development most places today is not building local wealth in in the way that it should. Um but but also uh in in in terms of uh of future affordability, um there's there's a lot of migration that is that is likely, and we need to get out ahead of this with uh with land banks, uh with uh affordable housing nonprofits. We we need to start start the process of protecting those places and and their affordability because the first people that will be able to move are going to be the ones who can, you know, afford it, right? Uh and and and that's going to drive up prices in in places. So, there's a lot of great things that can happen, but we also need to put in place protections for those populations that are most vulnerable. Um some of the cities on the list, you know, some of the the bigger cities are included like Buffalo, St. Paul, Cleveland, Des Moines, Kansas City. And many of these places have lost substantial population in the last 60 years, 70 years. Some of them less than half of the population they were in 1950. Um do you see that likely to reverse? Do you um this is kind of speculative, but uh are these cities going to be regaining the population they had in 1950? I think eventually many of them probably will regain the population they had in 1950, but uh at some point, but um this project isn't necessarily trying to speculate when will these various places um regain their populations, which ones will will grow the fastest. It's more about identifying which places will likely be the safest from uh from climate uh from the worst effects of climate change, and then how can we protect and preserve the viability of these places so that people who need somewhere to go have somewhere that's at least somewhat of a safe haven to to go to. Um so, it's it it's more about preserving those options than trying to project exactly where um migration patterns will fall in the future. Uh there may be many other places not on our list that receive climate migrants before the places on our list receive before the places on our list do, but but eventually um I we believe they will be the places that people will have to go to. There's a There's a lot of complicating factors in the world, right? That we have no control over. The Climate Receiver Places Project is based on principles and identifying um least risk places um that are most likely to be resilient under the impacts of climate change, but this is not a model. We're not trying to predict where people are going to move. And in particular, um you know, climate migration is very complicated. Uh a lot of migrants um only move as far as they have to move to get out of direct harm's way. Um think of after Katrina in Louisiana, a lot of migrants just moved from the marsh that was flooding north of the highway to um to higher ground that wasn't actually wet, right? They weren't moving um from from Louisiana to Detroit uh all of them, right? Some did, um but a lot didn't. And so, that's that's an interesting thing to think about with climate migration is that, you know, no one really controls where people move to and nor do we want to. Um and and one of the big factors is international migration. We have no control over um United States border policy, right? Um if United States border policy were to change to allow international migrants um from from countries that are really experiencing the worst impacts of climate change right now, um that could be that could completely change the ball game. And then you get If that were to change, if we were to say, "We're going to let, you know, half a million people in uh a a year or a half a million people in a month um to um to to help do our part in the world to provide a safe haven for for people who are experiencing the worst impacts of the climate change that we caused, the United States ones who've been pushing fossil fuels on the world for the past 100 years" as some sort of uh reparations project for for the world, do you know, or something like that? That would be a game-changer. Then you of course you would see cities like Detroit bounce back and start to grow again because they would be receiving all these international migrants just as New York City has for all these years or Los Angeles. Um you know, but so so something like that a context changer could change and could influence the course of what places grow and what places don't. But short of that, um people tend to move to where um they know people, where they have family or network connections. Um and so if if a lot of people are already living in in Los Angeles uh from international computing communities and then those international communities get hit, um new migrants are probably going to move to Los Angeles because that's where their networks are, where they know people, right? Even though it's not a very resilient place. In fact, it's quite the opposite of a of a resilient place. Um it's likely to continue to receive migrants unless something changes. So, you know, again, we're not predicting where people move. Um but if those people were to move to the places where we identified, um they would certainly be at less risk. And so that's the point of this project is we're talking about the the the least-risk places that um and we're putting out principles. The the principles that we're putting out are a lot like the policies of a municipal comprehensive or general plan. Right? They're they're not zoning. Um they're they're a little bit more higher-level of top-level um uh principles. That's why we called them that. Um for allowing for equitable growth. And one of the things that we haven't talked about yet, but that the equity part of Place Initiative and of the Climate Receiver Places project is looking both at the push and the pull of climate migration. Um that um often um the the people who are able to migrate in the face of disaster are those with more means, the ability to pay for a move, to pay for shipping their stuff, to pay for rental cars and rental trucks and all that stuff that it takes, the ability to land on their feet in a new community and and exist for a while until um you know, economic circumstances can get up to speed. Um the people that left behind are the most disadvantaged, right? And so we also talk uh to some degree about um some potential strategies to help those who otherwise might be left behind. But it's something that we need to think a lot more about as well as it's not just about creating better places for people to move to that are going to be resilient and least risk, but also what about people who are left behind, who are often in black and brown, low-income communities who have already been subject to environmental justice and environmental racism and other policies and that's part of contributing to those circumstances. So there's a lot of work that we have to do to look at both sides of this equation and to give a handout to uh folks who may actually want to be migrants but don't have the economic means to to to migrate in the face of risk. Uh and so that's something that we're thinking about in this project as well. I'm going to get to some Q&A from from the audience. Um uh Scott asks uh that um uh the goals and the principles don't directly state equity, inclusion, affordability. Could you please comment? And this kind of follows on what Garland was saying, um uh how this effort integrates climate and equity. So I I want to start with saying that um uh within the community principles guide, the first um the first of the principles that we uh go over in our document is equity uh equity, affordability, and access. We're very um focused on the equity and affordability elements uh of the Climate Resilient Places Project. And in addition, um even though it's not directly stated uh uh under the um under the goals and and maybe it should be, we're we're constantly updating these documents and and reassessing how we're framing things and and what we include and what we don't. Uh but within um uh within the goals section, uh once you read into a description of each of the goals, um for example, thriving communities, uh we state that, you know, a community can't be thriving unless it's equitable. So, it's really baked into every part of this project. Um Matthew uh talks about how um um this this is going to evolve and and change for the better when when the city actually uses it. Is there any example of receiver places that we're already working on explicitly climate um uh you know, code reform efforts or other efforts uh um to become um you know, better receiver places. Uh absolutely. I mean, look at the C40 cities project, right? There are 40 cities around the world who have banned together to work on climate. There are there are many many places that are already you know, realizing the situation that we're in and and trying to do something to act on it. Are they doing enough? That's the open question. Are they implementing every last one of the principles in our community principles guide? Probably not. We haven't done the work to dive into each one of the C40 cities, much less the rest of the 600 on the list, to do an audit of their um their existing policies and plans and programs and conditions on the ground against the principles. That would be a lot of work. And without doing that sort of audit and place-by-place assessment, it's a little bit hard to answer uh the question uh of individual place is uh um you know, doing something and and is it effective uh in terms of climate action or doing more to to create climate resilient places. Well, we we are starting the audit process uh and and using that as as a means to uh to to update um the the approach, the documents, the the the recommendations. And and a big a big piece of uh guarding what you bring up is is related to the the the database of of recommendations um that is also in process, right? Which is to to learn from those places both, you know, here and and and abroad uh in in terms of what has been successful in in implementing these principles. Are you working And in addition to that, um uh our our documents and our approach, it's constantly updating and changing. For example, uh the community principles guide, um we've already published the the second edition of that document after uh discussing uh with folks at CNU, and we want to continue updating all of our documents um and our approach um as we continue to work with communities and and we learn with them through that process. Are you working with any communities now? And if so, which ones? Uh we just started a a a couple of actually you can go over it. You you can go over it uh that. Well, I mean just the the the the beginning work um is uh starting uh first with uh with some folks in in Flint, Michigan, who are um focused on on change there and starting to to do some pre-assessment and looking at um at ways to begin building a coalition uh to to move forward on that. Um so, that that is uh beginning uh its process. Um we're also uh from a a slightly different approach um connecting with the CNU Black Caucus and um their work in in in Tallahassee um and putting together an approach there as well. We've connected with Simone Davis and her work with the Black Towns Movement Management. So you talk about how these principles overlap with um with not only Tallahassee and and Oklahoma but other other historically black towns across the the country. And and then there's there's a a few others that Baxter's really been in in more contact with that you know if you want to mention anything on those. Yeah, we I'm not going to name specific communities yet because nothing's really officially started in others but we have probably maybe five other communities that we're actively emailing back and forth discussing next steps with and then maybe a 10 10 additionals 10 additional communities that that that we've connected with that that are also looking into potential pilot projects. So there's a number of communities that could move forward. So Mark asks what is the existence I mean what what what role does regional transit play in in the receiver places criteria? So in terms of the receiving geography guide we did not look at regional transit. Um to determine which communities can be viable for the future. And the reason for this is we we don't want to um uh limit communities that have good urban form at their cores that don't yet have that regional transit but are willing to implement it. Um, with the community with the um, receiving geography guide, we're really trying to look at which communities are um, uh, most uh, uh, well situated in terms of climate risk factors to sort of narrow down to the places that can escape the worst effects of climate change. And we did include a few local factors there to eliminate the communities that are just full of absolute sprawl, but ultimately um, I we're willing to work with any communities that um, that are uh, well situated enough that um, have the uh, um, have the motivation and will to um, uh, and ability to implement things like regional transit um, and other policies and systems that so may not exist yet, but uh, but but where the region is is well set up to to have it. Well, let's just be honest. I mean, if you look across uh, America and I work in a lot of places that are that are big and small, most places don't have any transit whatsoever. Uh, does that mean that they're not places that are low climate risk? Absolutely not. And and in fact, probably most of places that are low climate risk don't have regional transit because we have very a very poor national system of of regional transit. So, yeah, we we we may have we may have goals, but that is that is not the only um, means of uh, of addressing this uh, this change. We did talk about uh, well connected infrastructure in in your report. And did you mean mainly uh, by that uh, you know, walkable mixed use uh, good urban form, or was it more than that? It it was mainly walkable mixed use urban form. Um, we want to ensure that uh communities have at least somewhat of a decent um uh infrastructure and and street grid um to uh be um viable uh urban places in the future. Um, we were trying with that criteria criteria to rule out um sprawl essentially. Paul asked about the um the timelines. Did you all discuss a timeline for migration? Uh when you expect that to occur? What um are we talking So are we talking about? So I see I see Paul's question. Um, it it names uh uh particular places um and uh and I want to say that in terms of the the receiving geography that there were a lot of places that um that in the data that we used had um unexpected risks. Um that uh may, you know, intuitively seem like uh safe um receiving geography, but ultimately as the climate changes may have, for example, east drought risk. I mean, increased um increased drought risk east of the Appalachian Mountains, for example. And um uh in terms of timeline when people will migrate, um once again, we're not trying to um project when people will migrate, but we are trying to be proactive with these communities that are potentially safest from climate change risks to um protect these communities and to ensure um uh sustainable urban um development patterns as early on as possible uh because uh these things take a long time to change. And we don't know what the timelines are, um but it's it's really the safest to start now with these places. Um that that's not to say that some of those intermediate receiver places that people might go to uh before the safest receiver places shouldn't be considered. Um uh there's other projects out there uh that can um that that can address those and other people can address those. Um we just really wanted to limit the scope of our project to where we feel that uh we can have the uh the most and the longest-term impact. I want to ask what kind of reactions you've gotten from communities who are on your geography guide. Have you had any feedback? I think one of the um most interesting reactions we've had um which was um something we presented as part of the initial intent for creating this project is that the project, while it doesn't necessarily create uh groundbreaking new ideas about urbanism in in many ways, it repackages um and uh frames uh uh quality urbanism in a way that um creates a sense of urgency and uh creates a sense of urgency for many communities, for the ones that we have on our list, and um and makes um the project about specific communities uh such as the ones that that are criteria, and um the people we've talked to in some of these places feel that the way that we've framed this project uh can make it easier um for these communities to ultimately implement um uh ideas of quality urbanism that otherwise may have taken longer to put into place. It's It's enthusiasm, Rob, you know? You know, some so especially places that that have had a hard a hard go at it are saying like, yes, yes, we we love our place. We we want to be successful and and we see the opportunity and we have the hope and let's move forward with that hope. Is there a flagship place that you can name as a a really good example of a receiver city? And why? I don't know that there's a flagship place that's doing the right things to change yet, but in terms of a place that has um not necessarily that this place is is better than others in terms of its potential to be a receiver place, but in terms of the the place that has the potential to house a lot of climate migrants and refugees um due to years of decline is is Detroit. Michigan is one of several states with some of the lowest climate risk that that we've seen in our data at least um in the country and Detroit has a lot of space to um to grow inwards and not outwards and we think that city and lots of other legacy cities like it presents great opportunities for safe haven's for climate refugees. So, Detroit. Um Well, I wanted to thank everybody. Thank this panel for a really good show. Really appreciate you coming on on the park bench and I wanted to thank all the participants from being here and asking such great questions. So, with that I'm going to say goodbye to everybody. Have a great day and look forward to future seeing you on future on the park bench. benches. Thanks everyone. Bye for now. Thank you.
