Climate change and economic inequality pose immense and inextricable challenges to the United States: How to reimagine the American way of life to address the impacts of global warming, and how to build a new and robust economic structure that offers viable and sustainable livelihoods and lifestyles across the income spectrum for all Americans.

The Five Thousand Pound Life—an Architectural League initiative of public events, digital publications, and a planned design study—is a contribution to what must be a collective effort spanning geographies, generations, occupations, disciplines, and ideologies to address these challenges.

The above video documents one segment of the Architectural League’s 2018 Ground Transportation and Climate Change conference.

Bruce Schaller, in an interview, discusses what is happening on New York’s streets today, including how the advent of services such as Uber and Lyft, the decline in dependability of mass transit, and cultural attitudes about who should control the streets affect the way we move in New York now.

Next, Jennifer Roberton discusses the transportation work of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, including efforts to increase the electrification of transportation and increase the share of city trips made using sustainable modes. Mimi Sheller examines a variety of alternative transportation futures, and suggests the critical questions we need to ask to ensure that new modalities do not simply continue the inequities of existing arrangements.

Daniel Aldana Cohen, who works on the political sociology of climate change, introduces Townsend, Roberton, and Sheller.