Planning and Climate Change

This is my first blog post on this network and I'm happy to be here. For 1.5 years, I've been blogging by myself at greeneconomics.blogspot.com and this is the first time that I've been a "team" player. I'm hoping that debates and discussions on important policy issues take place here and I'll try to do my part to not be boring! I am an economist though and we are rarely the life of the party!

I teach at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and my research focuses on environmental and urban issues. Right now, I'm starting to do some research on how climate change will affect different cities' quality of life. If planners are forward looking and anticipate these changes, then urban planning can certainly be a force for helping urbanites adapt to climate change. While I know that this is a vague, optimistic statement --- I'm starting to work on the specifics of fleshing this out.

I will return to this theme again and again.