An urban resilience fix: resolving waterfront development and flood risks in Boston’s Seaport District

Climate change resilience is increasingly becoming a policy priority in cities, but the impetus to reduce future climate risks may conflict with existing economic priorities shaping urban development. This study examines how Boston, Massachusetts responded to future sea level rise by adopting a set of policies promoting climate resilience of its waterfront while simultaneously overseeing the rapid development of the Seaport District, a neighbourhood highly vulnerable to flooding. Drawing upon previous scholarship on environmental fixes in entrepreneurial cities, I argue that Boston's policy decisions represent a resilience fix in which policymakers selectively adopt climate adaptation strategies that respond to growing evidence of climate-related risks but also perpetuate existing economic growth patterns. This case study contributes to an emerging understanding of resilience fixes by highlighting how they embody political decisions that can ultimately undermine the aims of urban resilience, including long-term adaptation and social equity. The resilience fix framing extends scholarship on the multidimensional nature of urban resilience to highlight how selective interpretation of resilience across spatial, temporal, and social dimensions in urban policy may result in positive changes across some dimensions but create maladaptations along others.