Urban resilience projects are all well and good, but how do we actually implement them? This episode focuses on the financial aspects of getting projects off the ground and different financing options for cities to consider. Joyce Coffee leads the discussion as our two guests, Shalini Vajjhala and Stacy Swann, bring their expertise from the world of finance to help shed some light.

Vajjhala is the founder and CEO of re:focus partners, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, and a former USEPA Special Representative leading the US-Brazil Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability.

Swann is the founder and CEO of Climate Finance Advisors, the Vice-Chairperson of the Board for the Montgomery County Green Bank, and a former senior advisor on climate finance to the US Department of the Treasury.

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What does social equity look like in a resilient city? In this episode, graduate students and postdocs reflect on the relationship between 'green' projects and processes of displacement and gentrification. In particular, we talk about our own roles in addressing environmental justice, as we embark in research on urban resilience to extreme weather events.

If you have questions or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us or follow us on Twitter.

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The Future Cities Podcast is dedicated to exploring the ways that cities are making themselves more resilient to extreme weather events.

In this episode, our hosts – Stephen Elser, Jason Sauer, and Vivian Verduzco – introduce themselves and the work that they do as a part of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network. We also hear from other members of the network about topics that we'll discuss more in later episodes.

If you have questions or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us or follow us on Twitter.

Listen on iTunes , Stitcher or Buzzsprout

Future Cities is a new podcast created by UREx graduate students and postdocs. We hope to use this podcast as a way to communicate our own research with a broader audience, to share stories from across the network, and highlight some of the challenges that cities face when planning for future extreme events.

We want this podcast to be accessible to a large audience and we will aim to have one third of our podcasts in Spanish since one third of our network cities are Spanish speaking.

Episodes that we already have in production cover a range of topics including innovation in cities, scenario workshops, and heatwaves in Hermosillo. We are always looking for new episode ideas, so please contact us if you have an idea or want to produce your own episode.

The podcast will debut this Fall and can be listened to on the Future Cities YouTube channel. Follow on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod for updates and contact us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com if you want to get involved!

– Stephen Elser