The City of Thousand Trees (Manifesto for a Climate-Resilient Urban Future)

This book explores how renaturation and rewilding strategies can transform cities into adaptive, inclusive, and ecological environments.

Through several situated case studies in Madrid and Leuven, it highlights the power of citizen participation and design to advance Climate change adaptation in cities. The City of Thousand Trees is both a cultural manifesto and a practical tool for implementing nature-based strategies and scenarios in cities. The book examines how urban renaturation can enhance climate resilience, biodiversity, and social cohesion, while fostering new forms of collaboration between science, art, and civic participation.

Drawing on the EU-funded LIFE People-Driven Adaptive Cities project (LIFE PACT), it combines scientific data, human narratives, and design reflections to demonstrate scalable, replicable strategies for adaptive urbanism. More than a catalogue of projects, the book proposes an emotional and inspiring vision of cities where every tree and every regenerated space becomes a step toward environmental justice.