Climate Readiness As a Driver of Urban Transformation: Lessons From the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Cycle 2023–2024

The document argues that climate-readiness initiatives can serve as entry points for wider urban transformation by addressing compounding pressures such as inequality and infrastructure gaps. Analysis of five finalists from the 2023–2024 WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities demonstrates that these initiatives provide benefits across governance, mobility, and community cohesion that extend beyond climate goals. The paper identifies seven types of 'infrastructures' or enabling conditions that facilitate the scaling of these actions into routine governance and proposes six priority actions for cities to strengthen climate readiness and guide systemic change.

• Climate-readiness initiatives can function as entry points for broader urban transformations, delivering benefits that extend beyond climate goals to include improvements in safety, mobility, ecology, public space, community cohesion, and governance.
• The influence of climate actions increases through scaling processes that allow them to expand into new areas, attract partners, and integrate into everyday life and routine governance.
• The development of initiatives and their contribution to long-term systems change are shaped by seven types of enabling conditions, which the authors term "infrastructures."

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Climate Readiness As a Driver of Urban Transformation: Lessons From the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Cycle 2023–2024. https://www.wri.org/research/climate-readiness-driver-urban-transformation-lessons-wri-ross-center-prize-cities-cycle

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Climate Readiness As a Driver of Urban Transformation: Lessons From the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Cycle 2023–2024. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/climate-readiness-driver-urban-transformation-lessons-wri-ross-center-prize-cities-cycle.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Climate Readiness As a Driver of Urban Transformation: Lessons From the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Cycle 2023–2024 |url=https://www.wri.org/research/climate-readiness-driver-urban-transformation-lessons-wri-ross-center-prize-cities-cycle |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendclimate, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Climate Readiness As a Driver of Urban Transformation: Lessons From the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Cycle 2023–2024}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/climate-readiness-driver-urban-transformation-lessons-wri-ross-center-prize-cities-cycle}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }