The climate justice pillars vis-à-vis urban form adaptation to climate change: A review

Indications point to exacerbated socio-economic inequalities and/or the emergence of new ones from climate-adaptive interventions in urban form, such as green and blue infrastructure (GBI), adaptive land uses, and urban design measures. We combine a systematic review and content analysis to review 136 peer-reviewed articles (published between 2008 and 2020) on urban climate justice in adaptation in order to: (1) review the emergence of the discourse on climate justice's pillars (i.e., distributive, procedural, and recognitional justice) vis-à-vis urban climate adaptation; (2) investigate the correlations between climate justice and the adaptive urban form interventions (GBI, adaptive land uses, and urban design measures); and (3) identify the spatial and scalar connections between the climate justice pillars and the adaptive urban form interventions. The findings reveal several trends, including: a deficit of empirical studies that deploy the climate justice pillars for assessing adaptive urban form interventions; an overemphasis on normative suggestions and/or critiques without clarifying “how” to advance climate justice; a dearth of urban design discussions on climate justice; a particular lack of connections between recognitional justice and urban form; and last, a dearth of studies that investigate the justice outcomes of adaptive urban form interventions across multiple spatial and temporal scales.