Small and mid-sized cities at the centre of climate adaptation in the global South: planning and policy responses

This viewpoint draws attention to growing evidence of forced out-migration from climate-vulnerable coastal regions in the resource-constrained global South. The process of this out-migration by affected people is not linear, but rather a complex linkage of various social, economic, environmental and political factors. Most of the previous research has primarily focused on large metropolitan areas (e.g. Bogotá, Cairo, Dhaka, Johannesburg, Karachi, Lagos, Mumbai and Shanghai). However, the majority of climate migrants from vulnerable coastal regions will end up living in nearby small and mid-sized cities. There has been limited research to address this migration phenomenon, which has always been overshadowed by in-migration of rural–urban migrants in large cities across the world. This viewpoint draws attention to the unique challenges that small and mid-sized cities face due to growing in-migration from vulnerable coastal regions. It also highlights what policies and initiatives can improve sustainability outcomes in the destination cities, particularly in terms of improved inclusion, integration and access. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0 .