Cities occupy just 3 percent of the Earth’s land, but account for most of the global energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Many cities are also more vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters due to their population densities and interconnected infrastructure. To avoid the most harmful impacts from climate change — including human, social and economic losses — we know building climate-ready cities is crucial. However, recent studies indicate that we are far from reaching global goals set out for making our cities more resilient.

A 2022 assessment released by the United Nations paints a stark picture of progress, describing a sense of “grave jeopardy.” So, what is the best way for cities to make the changes needed to meet global climate and development goals that would ensure a sustainable and inclusive future? The scale of this challenge calls for intense systems-level urban transformations.

WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Applications Are Now Open
The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities celebrates urban transformations like the cities featured in this article. Now in its fourth cycle, the 2023-2024 Prize aims to elevate cities around the theme “accelerating momentum for climate-ready communities.” Visit the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities for more information on how to apply.

This means moving beyond narrow approaches that only focus on a single issue, such as transportation or housing, and embracing bigger solutions that demonstrate life-changing impacts on people’s lives and have ripple effects on institutions and the wider city. Systems change in cities involves transforming multiple components of a particular urban system to create a holistic positive shift of the entire system.

Urban transformation is difficult to achieve in practice. There is often a distance between the kinds of solutions that are needed and how cities actually work. Limited resources and the difficulties of coordinating many stakeholders, among many other barriers, limit the ability to make meaningful systemic changes.

However, there are cities around the world rising to the challenge. Here, we highlight three innovative urban projects that are demonstrating how cross-sector solutions can achieve systemic change to make cities more sustainable and inclusive.

1) Rosario, Argentina: Transformation Through Urban Agriculture
Since 2001, Rosario, Argentina has evolved an urban and peri-urban agriculture program to become a key part of the city’s resilience to flooding and heat events.

The city was experiencing a major national economic crisis compounded by record-breaking rainfall and flooding. Thousands of people in Rosario faced food insecurity, unemployment, displacement and poverty.

Rosario’s initial interventions were launched in the early 2000s to equip people with the resources to grow produce on vacant and under-utilized land and sell it at local markets in response to the economic crisis. Following major floods in 2007, the city identified flood risk zones that could be developed into “Vegetable Garden Parks” for urban agriculture.


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