The chapter lays out the goal and objectives of the project by introducing the framing of the book, key terms and concepts, and the structure of the argument. A central element of the chapter is to lay out how the growing climate crisis and the impact on cities can be situated within the broader set of challenges the cities have faced with their growth and development. Explicit here is the assertion that to address the current waves of dynamic climate risk affecting cities and their residents, one can benefit from looking back into their collective histories to understand how and why cities were able to address, and in some cases overcome, past environmental trials. The book presents how these narratives of “solving” urban environmental problems can be set and analyzed within a several-step process of stress, crisis, transition, and transformation. The steps are bounded by a range of conditions through which fundamental issues of impact and vulnerability and resilience of environmental policy regimes come into question. How urban environmental crises build and reach significant tipping points with associated policy transitions are specific turn key components of the book’s storyline.