UTIP studies how pressures trigger urban tipping points and highlights pathways to resilience.

Urban Tipping Points (UTIP) is a research initiative led by the Urban Systems Lab at New York University in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Utrecht University, and a global network of interdisciplinary scholars. Spearheaded by Dr. Timon McPhearson, the initiative aims to identify, model, and understand positive and negative tipping points in complex urban systems—where small, incremental changes may lead to profound transformations. These transformations may be positive, catalyzing sustainability and equity, or negative, triggering systemic failure and deepening urban vulnerability and inequity.

At its core, UTIP examines how climate change, ecological degradation, social inequalities, and infrastructure dynamics converge to generate tipping points across urban landscapes, while also identifying positive social, ecological, and technological tippings points that have potential to drive forward sustainability and resilience transformations in individual and connected city systems. Through an integrative systems lens, the project develops tools and frameworks that allow cities to better anticipate, adapt to, or leverage these tipping points toward more resilient, regenerative, and just futures.