Small towns taking different climate change adaptation paths: challenging the dominant leadership paradigm

Mainstream discourses on urban climate adaptation leaders have focused on large and medium-sized cities. Drawing from the urban governance literature, we identify four leadership characteristics: (1) structural advantage, (2) high levels of institutionalised climate policy, (3) showcase projects, and (4) visibility of adaptation actions to the outside world (domestic and international). To develop a leadership typology for small towns, we systematically compare these characteristics with climate adaptation efforts in two small towns in Germany. The chosen municipalities developed adaptation approaches within the scope of a third-party-funded project. A mixed-methods design was developed to examine their adaptation activities. Our findings reveal that small towns, despite the lack of structural advantage, were successful in pioneering participatory adaptation action that is anchored in the everyday lives and lived experiences of residents. Some institutional mainstreaming did occur into existing administrative structures, whereas showcasing was not as important. Instead, exchanging knowledge with other small-town peers over challenges and how to develop hands-on solutions were considered more important. In this sense, small towns have proven highly creative in their efforts to implement adaptation action with few formal resources. Small towns take very different paths to tackle climate adaptation locally than mainstream adaptation leaders, who often follow a more institutionalised strategic path of adaptation planning. Given the growing need for mixed adaptation (a combination of planned and self-organized adaptation), small towns could serve as catalysts for initiating this process from the bottom up, anchoring it in everyday adaptation. In the context of imperfect conditions, small towns have the potential to significantly enhance our understanding of what constitutes “leadership”.