Hayes Buchanan is a Class of 2021 graduate of the Masters of Science in Urban Planning Program at Columbia GSAPP. Originally from Atlanta, GA, Buchanan was highlighted in the Columbia News article “Meet 12 Columbia Graduates Taking on the Climate Crisis,” in which he spoke about his desire to work on infrastructure provision and disaster risk management in developing nations following graduation. View Buchanan’s work in GSAPP’s student work archive.


GSAPP: Is there a defining public or private moment that led you to pursue your degree?

HB: My desire to become a planner arose from many experiences, but the election of Donald Trump was a sea change for my vision of the future. Before that day I was not a politically engaged person, and I had a nebulous trust in a well-functioning government that now seems laughable in hindsight. That election kick-started a years-long journey for me towards understanding how power shapes the world we live in and upholds status quos predicated on continued dependence on fossil fuels and exploitation of the poor.

GSAPP: Who is someone you admire who is really making a difference in climate change and its related challenges? And why?

HB: I hesitate to identify an individual person who is having a disproportionate impact on climate change. No person works on this issue alone, and even highly visible leaders of the movement have teams of staff who themselves depend on research and organizing at the grassroots. It’s about the collective, not the individual.

One activist I wish more people were aware of is Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was a poet and TV producer from the Niger River Delta region of Nigeria who led a nonviolent movement against the neocolonial oil extraction and profligate petroleum dumping in the region. He was executed by the Nigerian government on trumped-up charges in 1995, but his story is emblematic of the lengths to which international oil companies will go to maintain low prices for their products. Our way of life, so dependent on cheap oil, is contingent on unspeakable violence and exploitation, and I wish more climate activists would emphasize that. Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people witnessed the destruction of their ancestral land, their way of life, and the health of their children, and when they spoke up about it they became the targets of lethal violence. When I think of climate advocacy, I don’t imagine sanitized images of high-speed trains rushing past wind farms, I think of the bravery and sacrifice of Ken Saro-Wiwa.

GSAPP: What do you hope to do with your degree?

HB: I would like to work on infrastructure provision and disaster risk management in developing nations. Moments of crisis are so often exploited by the powerful to enhance their control over marginalized groups and redistribute wealth upwards, and I want to be a part of rectifying that pattern. The Flint water crisis or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are prime examples of this form of disaster capitalism. I think it’s an area where urban planners can center environmental justice and provide a counterbalance to the default logic that protects the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

GSAPP: What’s one climate change initiative you feel strongly about and why?

HB: I already alluded to this a bit in a previous question, but the importance of the intersection between Indigenous sovereignty and climate change really can’t be overstated. Resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline in the North American context or opposition to Royal Dutch Shell’s activities in the Niger River Delta throw what is usually a pretty abstract topic into sharp focus. The framing of environmental justice not only makes climate change more concrete as a concept, but it also imbues it with a narrative of good versus evil that is both more accurate to political reality and more accessible than talking about the comparative merits of hydroelectric power versus offshore wind.

GSAPP: Name someone at Columbia who motivated you to pursue your degree. Can you explain how that person motivated you?

HB: One professor of mine who teaches two classes I’m in (and happens to be my thesis advisor) is Hiba Bou Akar. While her classes don’t have a climate focus per se, On Spatial Exclusion and Cities in Crisis: Planning in Comparative Perspectives both deal with aspects of planning that will only become more salient as the knock-on effects of climate change start to come into focus. Themes of conflict, migration, and exclusion reemerge in her research and pedagogical approach, enhanced by an intersectional and philosophical approach to the production of cities that emphasizes global perspectives, which I find to be really valuable. Further accentuating that framework, professor Bou Akar also brings anecdotes from her days practicing planning in contexts that don’t have such progressive aims, her responses to which I find very inspiring as I contemplate entering professional practice myself after graduation.

GSAPP: Do any examples come to mind of how your work with GreenSAPP or particular studios will extend beyond Commencement, whether through relationships with other members of the GSAPP community or lessons that you will carry forth into your professional life?

HB: I do plan on working with GreenSAPP members to develop a sort of climate crash course which could be presented to first-year students early in the Fall semester, the goal of which is to ensure all students are working from a baseline of knowledge around climate - while GSAPP does discuss climate change in many classes, no class provides a general overview. Another goal of this project is to situate climate change sociopolitically - the focus of class discussions is often technocratic in nature, which misses key aspects of why the issue has been so intractable for so long.