ABSTRACT
Rapid urbanisation is often associated with both prosperity and new challenges in improving the well-being of low-income urban residents. Although cities are often conceived of as engines of economic growth and cultural development, more than one billion urban residents worldwide live in conditions of inadequate shelter, poor access to basic services, insecurity of land tenure and uncertain livelihoods. Climate change will bring gradual change and extreme events that compound the existing risks facing these people. Dominant responses to climate change in urban areas have tended to focus on the role of municipal or national governments, sometimes in association with private sector partners (Bulkeley and Betsill 2005; Anguelovski and Carmin 2011; Corfee-Morlot et al. 2011). However, in recent years a growing number of development NGOs and international organisations have started to engage with efforts to assist towns and cities to adapt to climate change, with increasing interest in the potential of community-based adaptation (CBA) to build adaptive capacity among low-income urban residents. These approaches draw on aspects of governance, such as local decision-making and ownership, and utilise a range of tools and approaches intended to integrate community participation into urban planning. However, there has been relatively little discussion about the ways in which the particular nature of urban societies and economies might shape the implementation of CBA, or how to scale-up lessons learned within and across cities.
