Urban Policy

Americans live predominantly in cities, and it is in U.S. cities that many of the impacts of China’s rise are manifest. This is certainly true for climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Reducing CO₂ emissions in cities is challenging because there is no single or unified decision authority. Instead, hundreds of millions of city dwellers make individual lifestyle decisions that, in the aggregate, determine the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted. Cities and other non-federal actors are stepping forward to address this challenge, especially during an era when climate change denial is increasingly prevalent at the federal level. Because climate change is intrinsically global, there is scope for U.S. cities to collaborate directly with their counterparts in China and elsewhere, to work out equitable and efficient arrangements for burden sharing. To the extent that global climate change continues to mount, it is within our cities that we will be obliged to adapt. The rise of China also impacts U.S. cities physically through the movement of traded goods that pass through U.S. urban port complexes and their surrounding metropolitan regions. Changing employment patterns in the United States due to the rise of China will also alter the economic landscape and viability of U.S. cities. The face of U.S. cities, literally and figuratively, is also being changed directly as increasing numbers of Chinese reside here.