Marcus Yee

Despite a vast colonial history of tropical climates, little has been written about how rapid postwar urbanization and urban inequality transformed cities in South and Southeast Asia into some of the most climate vulnerable places in the world. This dissertation is a multi-city biography of the urban tropics that traces postcolonial trajectories of urban microclimate change across Bandung, Bangkok, Delhi, and Singapore. Using a multidisciplinary mix of historical GIS, climatological analysis, archival research, and oral history methods, the research positions tropical cities as crucibles of localized climate change, foregrounding urban histories and urban memories of local residents as guides for urgent climate adaptation in a warming world.