Judd Schechtman

The climate crisis is no longer a distant threat; it is shaping the daily realities of cities around the world. In July 2025, unprecedented flash floods in central Texas killed more than 135 people and displaced thousands more, as the Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet in under an hour. Just months earlier, in March, wildfires tore through Los Angeles, fueled by extreme drought and record-breaking winter heat. From New York to New Delhi, from the Hill Country to the Sahel, climate-related disasters are intensifying. Heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, and coastal erosion are accelerating, not only as isolated weather events but also as systemic, compounding threats to infrastructure, housing, public health, and human mobility. This course investigates how cities around the world are adapting to the growing pressures of climate change. We will explore a range of climate impacts and adaptation strategies: managed retreat from coastlines, floodplain buyouts, urban greening, migration planning, and resilient infrastructure design. We’ll examine how governments ranging from municipal agencies to international bodies are responding to displacement pressures and what it means to plan for mobility, not just mitigation. The conversation around climate adaptation increasingly demands that we consider social vulnerability, racial justice, and the lived experience of both sudden displacement and slow-onset change. Cities are now appointing heat officers, rewriting land-use codes, and confronting the limits of 20th-century infrastructure in a 21st-century emergency. Students will complete a hands-on, project-based conference project focused on climate and urban crises in a neighborhood of New York City or another global city. This course is open to students with a wide range of interests, including environmental studies, urban planning, engineering, public policy, geography, and sociology. Whether you’re an aspiring planner, designer, analyst, or advocate, you’ll leave with a deeper understanding of the challenges and possibilities facing global cities in a warming world.

This course will explore the intersection of environmental law, justice, and power in the United States, tracing how legal frameworks have shaped the distribution of environmental harms and protections across different communities. Focusing on both historical patterns and contemporary challenges, students will examine how environmental law functions as both a tool of justice and a mechanism of exclusion. In the first third of the course, we will focus on urban environmental justice, exploring how redlining, housing policy, and infrastructure planning have contributed to environmental inequality in cities. Topics will include access to clean air and water, waste siting, heat vulnerability, and disparities in exposure to pollution and green space. The second third will introduce key environmental statutes and legal principles, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, Superfund). Students will analyze how these laws govern pollution, land use, and environmental review while critically assessing their ability to address structural injustice and unequal enforcement. The final third of the course will turn to energy systems, climate policy, and the emerging challenges of the energy transition. We will examine legal and environmental conflicts surrounding fossil-fuel infrastructure, lithium and mineral extraction, and renewable energy siting. Special attention will be paid to the legal and sovereignty struggles of Native American communities impacted by mining, pipelines, and nuclear waste. Students will engage with case law, policy analysis, and community-based struggles and will conduct a semester-long project focused on an environmental justice site or legal case. Fieldwork in industrial and postindustrial areas of New York City will provide a grounded perspective on the legal, social, and environmental dynamics of environmental injustice.

This course examines the intersection of law, environmental policy, and justice, focusing on the legal frameworks that shape the right to a clean and healthy environment—particularly for historically marginalized communities. The first part of the course explores urban environmental-justice issues, including the history of waste management, housing policy, food justice, access to green spaces, and the legacy of redlining and its ongoing effects on access to resources in urban areas. Students will also address infrastructure challenges and pollution in urban settings, as well as the social and legal dimensions of environmental inequities in cities. In the second half of the course, students will turn to more traditional environmental-justice topics, including the impacts of hazardous and nuclear waste, industrial pollution, energy generation, mining, agriculture, and the long-term effects of environmental disasters. Special attention will be paid to the environmental and legal challenges facing Native American communities, particularly in relation to mining and nuclear waste disposal. Through a study of key environmental legislation—including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), alongside relevant federal and state case law—students will critically assess how environmental laws and policies have shaped the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, particularly in relation to marginalized communities. As part of the course, students will work on a conference project focused on either an environmental-justice neighborhood in a US city or a historic environmental-justice case study and participate in field trips to industrial and polluted communities in New York City, which will provide firsthand insight into the legal, social, and environmental challenges that these communities face. By the end of the course, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of how environmental law—through both statutes and case law—has addressed disparities and how legal tools can be used to promote more equitable environmental outcomes.

Cities are at a crossroads, facing both significant challenges and unparalleled opportunities. From Napoleon's Baron Haussmann's remaking of Paris in the 1800s to climate change and the increasingly severe risk of flooding from hurricanes and sea-level rise, this course explores the evolution and future of urban environments with a focus on sustainability and resilience. We will examine the historical development of cities, including key movements like the City Beautiful movement and Garden Cities, and then explore the impacts of postwar growth, suburban sprawl, and the rise of the automobile on communities and the natural world. The course delves into the contributions of modern architects, such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, and examines the historic battle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, which epitomizes the conflict between community-driven urbanism and top-down planning. Late 20th-century trends such as New Urbanism and Transit-Oriented Development will also be discussed. Students will analyze how segregation, economic and racial justice, and historic preservation shape urban spaces, with a focus on the environmental justice movement and the equal right to a healthy environment. We will also study the intersection of human settlement and natural systems, including water, wastewater, and solid-waste management, before turning to the pressing issue of climate change and urban resilience. By investigating the increasing severity of climate events and their impacts on infrastructure and communities, students will gain the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to the development of sustainable and resilient cities in a rapidly changing world.

The way people move through cities is undergoing a transformation across the globe. As urban populations surge, particularly in developing countries, Millennials and Gen Z are gravitating toward central cities with robust public transportation systems. The rise of cycling, micromobility, and the expansion of bike-sharing and electric scooter systems are reshaping urban mobility. Despite plenty of controversy, we cannot ignore Elon Musk's electrification innovations, as well as sharing economy disruptors such as Uber, offering new possibilities for sustainable urban travel. Cities, however, still grapple with severe congestion, the alarming toll of traffic accidents, and escalating carbon emissions—all of which pose serious threats to our planet. We will delve into key topics such as the design and planning implications of urban sprawl versus compact cities, congestion pricing, transit-oriented development, cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and public transport systems from light to high-speed rail. We will also address urban design for sustainable streets, such as traffic calming measures and plaza development, as well as emerging technologies including drones and aviation technology. Throughout the course, we will focus on examples from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, analyzing how global transportation trends influence local communities and contribute to the development of sustainable cities. We will also have field trips within the metro region to explore some of these innovations in New York. You will have the opportunity throughout the semester to conduct research on the transportation history and innovation in a global city. The goal of the class is to equip students with the knowledge and skills to foster green, healthy, sustainable transportation systems and cities for the future.