Green Dreams, Concrete Realities

With the coming of a second Trump administration, local action on climate change will be vital for making progress towards both mitigation and adaptation goals. One under-appreciated potential engine for this progress are mid-sized U.S. cities, which fall between the large cities (New York, LA), whose climate plans dominate the news and the small rural communities that are the focus of much of existing research on the green transition. Over the last two years, I’ve focused on the factors that shape climate policy outcomes in mid-sized cities and what they can teach us about local climate policy more broadly.