Justice, democracy and climate change subject of conference

Architects, planners, scholars, artists and others whose work involves the challenges of planning for climate change will gather at a day-long conference March 29 at the River and Coastal Center of Tulane University.

Titled “Democracy in Retreat? Master Planning in a Warming World,” the conference will explore how climate change raises questions of justice and democracy.

The conference is sponsored by Tulane, the University of New Orleans and the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University. It is free and open to the public and will take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1370 Port of New Orleans Place, home of the Tulane ByWater Institute.

“Some people are moving in the face of rising seas and extreme weather, and others are redesigning the places they live. But those making such plans and those most affected by them are not always the same.”

Andy Horowitz, assistant professor of history at Tulane

“The climate crisis is changing the world,” said assistant professor of history Andy Horowitz, who studies disasters and their impact on race, class, and community. “Some people are moving in the face of rising seas and extreme weather, and others are redesigning the places they live. But those making such plans and those most affected by them are not always the same.”

Together with Fallon Samuels Aidoo at the University of New Orleans and the staff of the Buell Center at Columbia, Horowitz organized the conference with Carol McMichael Reese, a professor of architecture and urban studies at Tulane and director of Tulane’s City, Culture and Community PhD program.

“The challenges posed by climate change thus force architects, planners, engineers, and others charged with imagining the future of their communities to contend with enduring questions of democracy and justice,” Reese said.

The conference will feature experts from Louisiana and across the country, who will weigh in on such topics as “Defining and Managing Risk,” “Evacuation, Eviction, and Emigration,” “Greenwashing,” and “Is This Democracy?”

For more information on the March 29 conference, contact Naomi Englar of the Tulane  School of Architecture at nking2@tulane.edu.

A related symposium titled “Heritage at Risk: Climate Changes to Historic Preservation” will take place March 30 at the University of New Orleans. For more information on this event, contact Fallon Samuels Aidoo at faidoo@uno.edu.