New York City is not alone in facing sea level rise: half of US residents live in coastal counties. In ten years, close to a billion people worldwide will live in low-elevation coastal areas. These numbers are growing. What does it mean to call a water-edge city home in a time of rapid sea level rise? How can we accommodate the radical challenges climate change poses to our infrastructure—and our broader sense of safety, belonging, and place?

At this Climate Week event, we examine these questions with a focus on New Orleans. First we will screen the documentary short Station 15, which ran on PBS and won “Best Audience Award” at the 2017 New Orleans Film Festival, in its NYC premiere. Station 15 follows a New Orleanian teenager, Chasity Hunter, as she investigates her city’s water system, embracing the uncertainties of the future. Hunter has developed a poetry practice and spoken out on water issues in both creative and civic realms.

Following the film and audience reflections, a panel will discuss the changes ahead and what Hunter’s experiences and choices reveal about the need for:

• cultural transformation as well as technical design strategies;

• intensive collaboration across sectors, with community

• engagement and city policy operating as a feedback loop; and

• the inclusion of diverse voices, particularly those of low-income

• communities and communities of color most vulnerable to rising seas, in decision-making.