Time and Tide: Temporal Inequality in Residential Decisions Around Climate Change

How do resource inequalities and governance arrangements shape residential decisions in an era of climate change? In the coming decades, climate change will alter coastal cities, widening disparities between and within locations. Residents encounter difficult choices about staying, moving, and adapting to changing environments. Marginalized and minoritized communities unequally bear the costs and risks of climate change, often do not have the resources to cope with these risks and have contributed the least to carbon emissions. Although scholars describe how access to resources constrain climate decisions, they have not adequately theorized a major non-renewable resource — time. This article theorizes temporal inequality, the disparate degree to which individuals have agency over their time and control over the time of others. In situations of uncertainty, agency over time means being able to withstand disruption, act swiftly if one chooses, and imagine and shape one’s own future. I examine residential decisions around climate change, with a focus on flooding in Mumbai and Miami, two cities that are among the most vulnerable to flooding, globally. My analysis draws on almost three years of ethnographic research and 80 interviews with residents of flood-prone neighborhoods. This article argues that residential decisions are mediated by temporal experiences, shaped by resource inequalities and state support (or its absence). I identify three temporal experiences: stalled time for those who are stuck in place waiting and face uncertain futures; compressed time for those who intend and can act with urgency; and relaxed time for those who have the luxury of time to defer deciding. I leverage the comparison between the cities to show that in Mumbai residents experience an unpredictable state — one that may or may not provide for them. In contrast, in Miami, the state provides more dependable safety nets, though these are inequitable.