Cape Ann
Cape Ann Project
The Harvard GSD Office for Urbanization has engaged in a multi-year scenario planning design research study on Cape Ann to examine the region’s vulnerability to climate change. The work is made possible through partnerships with local organizations, including Town Green, Water Alliance, Cape Ann Climate Coalition, the City of Gloucester, and the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea. The project is entering its third phase of work on climate adaptation that builds directly upon previous tranches of work, including (phase 0, 2020) Cultural Landscapes Survey of Cape Ann; (phase 1, 2021-22) Great Storm of 2038 and Near Future Adaptations; and (phase 2, 2023-24) Regenerative Landscapes: Beyond Conservation to Adaptation. In Phase Three of the study (2024-25), Cluster faculty Diane Davis and Jason Beckfield are contributing to the ongoing initiative to build local capacity to anticipate, prepare for, manage, and recover from extreme weather events associated with rising sea levels as well as increased frequency and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes. Davis is working on Governance & Policy to enhance the capacity of Cape Ann’s municipal governments to develop effective policies and governance practices to manage the challenges and threats of increasingly frequent and intense tropical storms and hurricanes, and adapt the region’s regenerative landscapes. Beckfield is working on Engagement & Communication to strengthen the capacity for Cape Ann’s municipalities to communicate and engage with civic and community leaders as well as the public in decision-making in relation to extreme weather events and ecological resilience.
External partners:
Resources:
People
Jason Beckfield (he/him/his) is the Robert G. Stone Jr. Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, where he is also the…
Amelia Linton (She/Her) is a Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, working on the Strengthening Communities…
Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Before…
Samantha Wyman is a Doctoral Student in Sociology at Harvard University. During her graduate career, she is eager to explore…
Divided We Drown: Exploring Cross-Municipal Cooperation for Climate Resilience in Cape Ann
This initiative has been undertaken in collaboration with the Harvard GSD’s Office for Urbanization, which is a partner in a NOAA-funded research project titled Developing Local Capacity for Managing Extreme Weather Events Across Community Engagement, Governance, Finance, and Infrastructure. In this subset of the project, we have conducted fieldwork and interviews with residents and officials across the four municipalities that comprise Cape Ann. Our aim is to assess the financial, political, and social barriers and enablers to cross-municipal cooperation in the face of increasing climate disasters. This material will lay the groundwork for a series of recommendations about new region-based strategies that can be piloted or activated through horizontal mobilization of key stakeholders across municipalities. Our aim is to provide evidence for how and why working both within and across existing municipal borders will make it easier for residents and authorities in Cape Ann to manage and recover from livability disruptions set in motion by extreme weather events associated with rising sea levels and the increased frequency and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes. Beyond showing how and why cross-municipal efforts may help to more equitably distribute the benefits and burdens of adapting to or mitigating climate change, we will specifically argue for the importance of cross-municipal cooperation in the infrastructural development and management of water and sewage infrastructure. We not only draw evidence from other successful region-based initiatives already undertaken in other parts of Massachusetts, ranging from those unfolding around the Ipswich River to recent developments in Cape Cod. We systematically assess who in each of the four municipalities would or would not support cooperative efforts around water infrastructure, how and why. Such analysis will build on a deeper understanding of the socio-economic composition, ecological landscape, financial capacities, and local political dynamics within each municipality, using this information to identify barriers or enablers to shared action around water infrastructure. In terms of deliverables, we a) identify particular leaders, organizations, agencies, issues, locations, events, cultural identities, or historical references that might serve as fertile starting points for robust and productive conversations about the importance of regional cooperation and how to get it; and b) offer a proposal for how to jump-start conversations across municipalities, built on a commitment to bringing move voices into the picture, including youth, that allow for frank and deliberative dialogue about what has separated municipalities in the past and how they may work more collaboratively in the future. Our aim here is not to impose or offer top-down policy recommendations about how to act regionally so much as to offer a set of strategies that will help a larger number of Cape Ann residents collectively ponder whether cross-municipal connectedness around water challenges could or should be a high priority and to give them, and to offer some ideas about how to best inspire Cape Ann residents to work together to secure their future through bottom-up commitments and dialogues.
External partners:
Essex County Community Foundation
Local organizations spread across Gloucester, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Rockport, and Essex County.
People
Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Before…
Master in Urban Planning ’25, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Master in Urban Planning Student, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Master in Urban Planning/Master in Public Administration Student, Harvard Kennedy School & Harvard Graduate School of Design