Title: Antagonisms of Adaptation: Climate Change Adaptation Measures in New Orleans and New York City
Abstract: This chapter identifies climate change adaptation measures implemented in post-Sandy New York City and post-Katrina New Orleans and examines their conflictual and contradictory dynamics and impacts. Climate change adaption measures aim to reduce existing and future climate change risks and enhance adaptive capacity. The chapter begins with an introduction to the concepts of risk, resilience, mitigation, and adaptation. We then use a comparative-sociological approach to examine similarities and variation in adaptation dynamics in the two cities. We develop a dual argument that the decentralized and fragmented structure of policy-making and implementation in the United States both (1) frustrates and discourages the formulation and implementation of comprehensive climate change adaptation measures and (2) fosters spatially distinct locations for different types of climate change adaptation measures, a condition that buttresses local distinctiveness and innovation. The chapter focuses attention on the social structural challenges of reducing climate change risks, the various policy options in the two cities, and the facilitative and contradictory roles of the federal government in the local implementation of climate change adaptation measures.