Join the Weitzman School of Design from Thursday, March 16, 2023 — Friday, March 17 as they contend with our moral and ethical responsibility for the wellbeing of people and the planet in the Housing Justice Futures Symposium where they will consider housing design and policy at the intersection of race and climate change.

The “poorest” large city in the United States and one of the most segregated(1), Philadelphia has nearly one in four residents living in poverty and residents of color are far more likely than whites to be impoverished.(2) More than a third of Philadelphia renters are paying over half their income on housing and another 4,400 households are without a place to live.(3) At the same time, Philadelphia remains at risk to climate change, most notably extreme heat and inland and coastal flooding. As in other US cities, low-income, non-white Philadelphians are disproportionately vulnerable to these effects. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded decades of policies that continue to perpetuate racial inequities and health disparities in black and brown communities.

The event will engage researchers, and practitioners, and community stakeholders, to examine the historical inequities that precipitated the housing crisis in Philadelphia and other US cities while considering actionable strategies for housing justice in the future.