I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on an episode of The Urban Political podcast on the topic of urban climate finance, alongside friends and colleagues Dr. Zac Taylor (KU Leuven), Dr. Sage Ponder (Florida State University), and Dr. Sarah Knuth (Durham University), and moderated by Dr. Hanna Hlbrandt (University of Zurich), who kindly invited us all to convene on this topic.
The Urban Political provides a new forum for reflection on bridging urban activism and scholarship, where regular features offer snapshots of pressing issues and new publications, allowing multiple voices of scholars and activists to enter into a transnational debate directly.
In the episode, we discuss “ the financial and socio-material limits to the viability of urban financialization in the context of climate change. When climate disasters increasingly destroy financial assets and erode returns, how much longer will it take until some financial strategies become unviable? What are the multiple mechanisms finance and state actors use to push these limits into the future and continue to profit from climate change? Which places are indispensable to finance? And what happens when financial strategies become unviable (if that happens at all)?
Bringing together research from Jakarta, Miami and Puerto Rico, amongst other cities, we discuss risk management practices that mine value from rising waters, wildfires, or hurricanes, and open up new markets on the back of urban decay. Thinking through wider questions about disaster capitalism, we delve into the inherent challenges to that system. Talking across multiple research sites, we discuss geographical differences in state interventions ranging from forced evictions to fiscal policies. In conclusion, we reflect on contestations on the ground and possibilities for urban research to support these struggles.”
You can listen to the full episode below.