Environment
In the future, cities that survive climate change could be full of green spaces, smart buildings, and compact neighborhoods.
ByStephen Starr
Published November 13, 2023
• 8 min read
For decades Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne have been lauded as some of the most livable places on the planet.
But in recent years, thousands of ‘mainlanders’ have been relocating to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, with climate issues being cited by many as the number one reason.
Adi Munshi, who moved from Perth, is one.
“Summers were just really, really, hot. I’m a mountain person—you can’t go out hiking in [104°F] degrees,” he says.
Munshi was considering a move to New Zealand to escape the heat. “But people asked me: ‘Why don’t you think about Tasmania?’” he says. Now, he and his wife live in Kingston, a suburb of Hobart.
“It’s been absolutely amazing. Within 90 minutes you can be in several national parks. There’s plenty of opportunities for hiking.”
Home to around 250,000 people, Hobart enjoys a temperate climate year-round fueled by its southerly latitude and maritime surroundings. Around 45,000 people are set to move there over the next decade alone, with many drawn to the comfortable temperatures.
Hobart isn’t alone.
Around the world, rising waters, prolonged droughts, extreme weather, and higher temperatures are poised to make whole regions unlivable. And yet some cities are set to emerge as havens from these extreme changes, and are proactively taking steps to prepare for an unstable future.
(These are the U.S. cities vying to become climate havens.)
Building havens for future refugees
The Middle East, large parts of Pakistan, and other regions of the world prone to hot temperatures and high humidity may be at particular risk. Research published last month found that humans are more vulnerable to hot, humid temperatures than previously thought as our ability to thermoregulate—cool ourselves down—is now understood to top out at a lower temperature than earlier estimated. If temperatures continue to rise as expected, swaths of the planet in the tropical and subtropical zones could become unlivable.
The World Bank estimates that as many as 216 million people could be displaced by climate change within their own country by 2050.
But by luck of geography, some parts of the world will be less impacted by climate change.
Located at the heart of continental Europe, Vienna, the capital of Austria, boasts world-renown public spaces and a water supply directly from the Austrian Alps. While the country will still experience climate impacts like unpredictable weather and searing summer heat, it’s actively adapting to a changing climate.
Vienna adopted its first “climate protection” program way back in 1999 and boasts a major flood-mitigation system that protects residents from the River Danube’s rising waters. In 2020, it initiated its first “climate protection” areas, where new buildings are only allowed to be constructed using climate-friendly heating and water systems. Today, more than half the city consists of green spaces.
The city’s housing infrastructure also finds Vienna well-placed to cope with an influx of migrants fleeing the effects of climate change. In recent years, Vienna has enacted a strict immigration policy, but the country still experiences undocumented migration. Many residents are also foreign-born, which tends to lead to movement called chain migration in which relatives join already settled family members in a new country.
In the early 2000s, Vienna doubled the number of affordable housing units it built to around 10,000 a year.
“Today, the stock of subsidized housing is almost 200,000 units. Therefore, half of the Viennese population lives either in public or subsidized housing,” says Amila Širbegović, an architect and housing expert with the City of Vienna.
(This is what your city could look like by 2070.)
Adapting at home
And yet, reports suggest the overwhelming majority of climate refugees around the world will be unable to relocate to faraway metropolises such as these.
A combination of a lack of resources, richer countries’ strict immigration policies, and an absence of international laws protecting climate refugees means that for many, solutions for coping in a hotter, less stable environment will have to begin and end right at home.
That’s exactly what’s happening in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Last year, catastrophic floods killed more than 1,700 people, and the region was temporarily home to a quarter of the world’s displaced people.
“People can’t move,” says Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female architect and the founder of the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan. “Once the water receded, they had to resettle in the same area; they have no choice.”
But Lari has enacted a plan to help many of Pakistan’s worst-off people. Since the floods hit, her foundation has helped build more than 6,000 climate-resilient bamboo homes on stilt platforms in 13 villages in Sindh province and beyond.
She says these structures are proven to work. In 2014, about 1,000 similar homes were built in the city of Kot Diji on the Dhoro River in upper Sindh province. “We went and visited after the water receded (last year) and they all survived,” she says. “Everything was safe, everything was OK when the water receded.”
Singapore’s urban jungle
Some cities will face both climate disruptions and an influx of refugees.
As the world warms, Singapore is vulnerable to extreme weather and rising seas, but it is also likely to become a climate haven for many in southeast Asia. Singapore’s economic opportunities and high quality of life already attract immigrants—nearly half its residents were born abroad. The city’s ambitious climate policies are poised to increase its appeal.
Here, a massive effort to turn parts of the city-state into an ‘urban jungle’ means that 46 percent of the city has been developed into green space. This reduces the dangerous heat island effect fueled by concrete and asphalt, and acts as a natural air conditioning system. Singapore is also spending tens of billions of dollars on seawalls and ocean defense systems.
However, what’s clear, say observers, is that no place on Earth will escape the effects of a warming planet.
No haven is perfect
With Hobart’s popularity as a so-called climate haven already partly responsible for the city’s population growth, urban planners there are preparing for thousands more residents in the years to come. The city says it needs almost 30,000 more homes, and experts believe targeting unused urban spaces to keep the city compact will have environmental, social, and economic benefits.
“The Greater Hobart Strategy seeks to accommodate 70 percent of the population growth within the existing urban footprint,” says Jason Byrne, a professor of human geography and planning at the University of Tasmania. “Concentrating density within the existing growth area is common sense.”
But Tasmania’s average temperatures are anticipated to rise nearly 5.2°F by 2100. Its winter sports industry has already been affected by warm winters, while wildfires and drought are growing in impact. “Hobart is one of the most fire-prone cities in Australia,” says Byrne.
As more climate migrants move there, traffic has worsened, and housing costs have skyrocketed. That many of the city’s buildings are ill-prepared for rising temperatures is a concern.
“Our living room becomes a furnace the minute the temperature hits [68°F], and in winter it’s frigid,” says Adi Munshi.
“It’s going to continue to get worse, unless we make major changes.”
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