The societal implications of climate change, apparent early in the discovery of global warming, spurred scientific research and intergovernmental cooperation to grasp the extent of the problem. The foundational idea of climate adaptation — as a societal imperative — emerged in the scientific community. And widely adopted conceptions of adaptation as a practice of systemic adjustment reveal a bias toward systems science. In design and planning practice, ground-up responses to escalating climate risks (and their uneven impacts) challenge this conception, often invoking environmental justice, sustainable development, and the myriad dimensions of societal transformations. As we adapt our cities, one site at a time, a new and fundamentally different paradigm of adaptation has materialized in design practice.
