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ENERGY: Cities can navigate surging electricity demand and rising risk by aligning demand growth and power planning—requiring early utility consultation and synchronized timelines—to unlock grid capacity for electrification while containing costs and reliability risks. More: National League of Cities To affordably scale up electrification, clear interconnection queues and invest in transmission, which is needed to drive low‑cost clean generation and improve reliability. More: RMI Cities can meet rising electricity load at lower system cost and higher reliability by pairing building and transportation electrification with demand flexibility through tools like demand response, managed charging, and dynamic rates. More: NYISO CLEAN AIR: Cities are shifting to dense, low‑cost sensor networks, AI/ML analytics, satellite–ground data fusion, and dynamic dispersion modeling to target interventions and meet tightening standards. More: Airscan While nationwide long‑term declines in criteria pollutants continue, regional ozone and fine‑particle challenges persist, necessitating stronger pollution control strategies, interstate transport measures, and community‑scale monitoring. More: AAPCA Aligning AQI breakpoints to stricter WHO guidance improves risk communication and triggers earlier public‑health protections at the regional and city levels. More: Airscan WILDFIRE SOLUTIONS: Warming‑driven aridity is escalating wildfire disasters, requiring communities to pair emissions cuts with adaptation measures such as home hardening, defensible space, evacuation planning, prescribed fire, and ecosystem restoration. More: University of Maine Climate Change Institute State legislatures around the country are seeking to advance equitable, community‑scale resilience through wildfire home‑hardening and defensible‑space programs, heat protections, and flood‑readines. More: NCEL Federal policy can catalyze local wildfire resilience by funding retrofits/home hardening, expanding prescribed‑fire capacity, supporting planning, and reforming insurance and disaster relief to reduce risk before rebuilding. More: CDES Safeguarding communities from intensifying wildfire threats demands scalable solutions for home and community hardening, land‑use planning, prescribed burns, and public‑health protections. More: Stanford Comprehensive resilience planning, backed by funding and technical assistance, equips governments to identify emerging risks and prioritize infrastructure and nature‑based projects that reduce disaster losses. More: Pew HOMELESSNESS SOLUTIONS: Rising rents, stagnant incomes, and inequities are pushing need beyond system capacity, requiring cities to expand deeply affordable housing, speed rehousing throughput, and target prevention to reduce inflow. More: National Alliance to End Homelessness Municipalities should institutionalize prevention infrastructure, especially eviction diversion, legal aid, flexible financial assistance, problem solving, and benefits access, backed by data sharing across systems. More: U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness Evidence favors targeted, light‑touch prevention (e.g., short‑term cash assistance, eviction prevention) scaled via rigorous evaluation, predictive targeting, and fidelity to proven models. More: Homeless Hub As the population of older adults who are homeless grows, key areas of focus should be Housing First, permanent supportive housing for chronic homelessness, rapid rehousing and rent subsidies for many households, and integrated health care. More: The Journalist’s Resource INTERDISCIPLINARY PLANNING: The supply‑focused approach to water of the last 120 years has landed us in crisis. It’s time for a fresh, modernized approach. The necessary change isn’t as complicated as you might believe. More: Big Pivots A practical statewide strategy to support community resilience will fund local defensible‑space programs, upgrade public alert and evacuation systems, and deploy nature‑based flood projects. More: Washington Dept. of Ecology To accelerate climate action, make policymaking more participatory while building and incentivizing the workforce to deliver the solutions. More: Democracy Journal Most people care about climate change and want climate solutions, even though it doesn’t feel that way. More: The Society for Personality and Social Psychology
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