Multiplied Displacements: The Climate-Housing Nexus

Tulane University, School of Architecture and Built Environment, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 15–17, 2026.

Multiplied Displacements: The Climate-Housing Nexus is an international conference jointly hosted by University of Toronto School of Cities, Boston University Initiative on Cities, and Tulane University Center on Climate Change and Urbanism.

In this conference we are seeking to discuss research, policy, and practice at the nexus of climate change, housing, and human mobility in cities around the globe. Displacement is at the very core of both urban studies and migration studies—yet these fields of study usually work with separately developed frameworks and understandings of displacement. Emerging research highlights that climate migration and urban displacement overlap when we follow the movement of people moving into and within cities, where they face multiple displacements, as they find, make, and then lose their homes again.

This “multiplied displacement” is the starting point for a deeper exploration of the relationship between domestic and international migration into and within cities and receiving zones. The conference seeks to explore how human mobility is shaped by climate change impacts, crowding-out from climatic and non-climatic-driven in-migration, and/or the broader mechanisms of the global housing crisis. The combination of the precarious legal and economic status of the displaced, exclusionary and racialized housing policies, fiscal public austerity, the adaptation of market economies, poor quality and hazard-exposed housing stock, and uneven or non-existent urban climate adaptation policies and plans produce conditions and outcomes that are increasingly shaping the state of housing. We seek to make the unseen connections of displacement processes visible by directing our lens on the experiences of losing, attaining, and maintaining housing in global cities, so as to enable policy makers, planners, and support services on the ground to understand the complex intersections between climatic and non-climatic factors shaping housing. For more information, please see the Global Research Network on Climate-Induced Displacement, Resettlement, Adaptation and Resilience for Cities (CIDRARC) and the conference website for additional programming and logistics information. 

Participation: We welcome registration among attendees through January 1, 2026. There are no conference fees or other charges. We are no longer accepting conference paper/abstract submissions.

Conference co-chairs: Karen Chapple, Director of the School of Cities and Professor, Geography and Planning, University of Toronto / Jesse M. Keenan, Director of the Center on Climate Change and Urbanism and Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning, Tulane University School of Architecture and Built Environment / Loretta Lees, Director of the Initiative on Cities and Professor of Sociology, Boston University.

Additional conference sponsors: Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connections Grant

Please contact CCU@tulane.edu with inquiries.