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Urban Innovation: Cities Adapting to Climate Change
Abstract
This dissertation explores factors influencing urban innovation, using climate adaptation as the innovation example. It isn't easy to foster innovation without understanding the stimulus for it. Urban innovation is defined as cities attempting to solve problems using new or unused approaches. Examples of innovation not linked to technology are rare; therefore, only a few studies are available. The literature identifies four factors influencing innovation: need, motivation, learning networks, and resources.
Climate adaptation has been slow and is still in the early stages, with the primary literature focusing on barriers. However, more than removing obstacles is needed to ensure adaptation success. The central goal of this study is to explore the factors influencing urban innovation, focusing on climate adaptation, since the field is a prime example of innovation in its early stages. The study is an opportunity to explore innovation theory and provide meaningful inferences for cities to stimulate an environment that encourages innovation. Also, it contributes to climate adaptation with suggestions on how cities can initiate and advance in the field, not as reproducing frameworks but by creating conditions that prompt such policy.
This research uses 2011 MIT-ICLEI Survey results augmented by secondary data from the local government, Yale Climate Opinion, FEMA, and the Census. As analytical methods, the research uses binary logistic regression. The dependent variable is structured considering the climate adaptation stage in cities in 2011 and 2021 and the independent variables operationalize the innovation theory factors.
The results suggest differences between what influences cities to initiate and advance innovation and give insights into what simulates innovators. Finally, this research concludes with suggestions of how understanding climate adaptation through the lenses of innovation theory may have implications that suggest how cities can initiate and advance in the field.
Citation
Da Silva Matos Sharifan, Melina (2023). Urban Innovation: Cities Adapting to Climate Change. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /198986.