Willcocks-Musselman, Baird, Foster, Woodhall-Melnik and Sherren reframe managed retreat as a mobility-based form of climate adaptation shaped by attachment, disruption and continuity. The iconic idea of the article is that relocation cannot be understood only as risk reduction or spatial movement; it must also be read through the affective and identity bonds invested in place. Its theoretical contribution is to complicate place attachment beyond rootedness, showing that attachment may constrain relocation, prompt movement, structure recovery or provide stability during transition. Methodologically, the article operates as a conceptual synthesis between managed retreat, mobility studies and place-attachment research, extracting lessons from adjacent fields for climate adaptation. Its conceptual operation is dynamic attachment: place is not a fixed container of belonging but a process that can be reorganised under hazard, loss and movement. It bridges climate adaptation, environmental psychology, disaster studies and mobility theory by showing that mobility is always also a transformation of memory, identity and place continuity.
URBANISM MEETS ART