Andrew Harnik/AP/File

Sen. Ted Cruz's communications director, Rick Tyler (right) helps the candidate prepare to launch his campaign for president at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., back in March 2015. Mr. Tyler has since become an outspoken critic of President Trump.

Max Boot’s life changed the moment Donald Trump announced for president.

Suddenly, the lifelong conservative Republican – historian, author, foreign-policy adviser to three GOP presidential candidates – began to question his place in his adopted home. Mr. Boot, who is Jewish, had fled the Soviet Union as a boy with his family, and here was a major Republican contender tarring immigrants in the ugliest of terms.

“I was outraged when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower, denouncing Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers, and my outrage has not diminished at all since,” says Boot, now a columnist at The Washington Post, in an interview. “Writing is my therapy.”

Boot quit the Republican Party, and now decries President Trump regularly on cable TV alongside Democrats and other elite “Never Trumpers,” some still inside the GOP tent, others in the political wilderness like Boot. The term “strange bedfellows” almost no longer applies; at this point, these one-time ideological adversaries have the on-screen rapport of old friends.

“It’s a very odd place to be in,” says Florida-based GOP consultant Rick Wilson, another vocal Trump critic and cable TV regular.

As the November midterms approach, Trump critics within the GOP orbit are raising their voices, drawing battle lines, and getting organized, if only along the edges. Many speak of their fight in moral terms. They remain a mere slice of the conservative world, elites in common cause with Democrats, in the tradition of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” 

But the famous names attached to Never Trump-ism give their message outsize reach. Some, like columnist George Will, strategists Steve Schmidt and Mary Matalin, and TV host Joe Scarborough, have quit the Republican Party. Some too, like Boot, openly hope the Democrats retake the House, as a check on Trump and Trump-ism.

Others remain Republican, choosing to fight Trump from within, on a case-by-case basis – still applauding the president at times. Trump’s two Supreme Court picks have received high marks among conservatives, including Never Trumpers.

This week, billionaire Charles Koch and his political network entered the mix – not as Never Trumpers, but megadonor Republicans willing to speak out against Trump policies. Mr. Koch, who didn’t back Trump in 2016, warned about protectionism Sunday at his network’s annual summit, and said he will fund or not fund candidates based on where they stand on issues, not party affiliation. Trump’s response – tweeting Tuesday that the “globalist” Koch brothers “are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade” – only reinforced the president’s willingness to further yank the party that elected him away from some of its core principles.

It’s possible, some observers say, that the image of bipartisan elites, fighting Trump arm-in-arm, could actually help him.

“They reinforce that he’s an anti-establishment figure,” says Democratic pollster Mark Penn.

For now, some top Never Trumpers are focused on organizing. In April, neoconservative commentator and Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol launched a multi-pronged initiative, Defending Democracy Together, to defend free trade, immigration, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. Another project, Republicans Against Putin, targeting the Russian president, is in the works.

But do any of these efforts – Mr. Kristol’s, all the cable TV shouting, the ads, the books Never Trumpers are writing, the open letters – have an impact?

Among his base, Trump is Teflon Don. In fact, since December, his overall job approval has risen from an average 37 percent support to 43 percent – with support among Republicans solidly above 80 percent. True, the number of Americans who identify as Republican has declined slightly since Trump took office, but his base of support – which includes non-Republicans captivated by Trump’s populist message – remains a significant force, says polling expert Charles Franklin.

Even when Republican-leaning independents are included among polled Republicans, Trump’s support is high, “and the group isn’t shrinking that dramatically,” says Mr. Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll in Milwaukee.

Ask GOP Trump critics if their anguished writings and televised primal screams are having the desired impact, and they pause.

“Good question,” says Republican consultant Rick Tyler, who rejects the label “Never Trumper” but is often seen nodding alongside liberal Democrats as a political analyst on MSNBC.

“Look at it this way: He should be in the 60s,” Mr. Tyler adds, referring to Trump’s job approval. “We have 4.1 percent economic growth, historically low unemployment across every demographic, and the stock market is doing rather well. At minimum he should be at 50 [percent].”

And, other Trump critics note, the goal isn’t necessarily to win over a majority of the party, but rather just enough to encourage Republicans in Congress who are privately unhappy with the president on key policies to go public and take action. Projects like Kristol’s aim to articulate the conservative principles his group says Trump is flouting.

Ads by Kristol’s group have appeared on Fox News – a rare opportunity for the Never Trump message to reach a conservative audience. Kristol, Boot, Tyler, and others in the Never Trump stable are regulars only on the left-leaning MSNBC or CNN.

Sarah Longwell, a GOP strategist working with Kristol on the Defending Democracy Together initiatives, says the goal is both to provide cover for congressional Republicans and generate enthusiasm for their positions on the targeted issues – trade, immigration, the Mueller investigation, and President Vladimir Putin.

“Everyone seems to have forgotten how much power Congress actually has, for example on tariffs,” says Ms. Longwell. “We’re trying, as a group, to say, ‘We’re all Republicans, let’s serve as a check in areas where the president is moving against everything the Republican Party has stood for.’ ”

Friendships and jobs lost

Being a Never Trumper can be emotionally draining. Some have lost friendships and paid work. Tyler recently lost his gig as a communications adviser to Mississippi Senate candidate Chris McDaniel (R) when the two parted ways over their divergent views of Trump.

Tyler also lost a friendship with a Republican he describes as a well-paid political consultant.

“He used to care which team and which kinds of candidates he worked for, but now is willing to work for anybody, because it pays the bills,” says Tyler. “He calls me a sellout, because I make money going on MSNBC and criticizing Trump. But I’d still go on MSNBC and criticize Trump even if they weren’t paying me.”

Tyler says he argues with his dad, a solid Trump supporter, all the time.

“I’m like, ‘Dad, what’s Trump’s strategy on trade?’ Tyler says. To which his dad replies, “He knows what he’s doing, and he has a strategy, and you’ll see.” Tyler’s response: “That’s not good enough. Sorry.”

In spite of it all, Tyler says his relationship with his dad is great. “He calls me a liberal, and occasionally yells at me,” Tyler says. “But he’s never ended a conversation without saying, ‘I love you and I’m very proud of you.’ ”

Wilson, the GOP consultant in Florida, has also faced blowback from fellow Republicans, but mostly over his work opposing former Judge Roy Moore (R) in the special Senate race last December. Mr. Moore was endorsed by Trump, but still lost to the Democrat, a stunning upset in deep-red Alabama that shaved the Republican Senate majority to just two seats.

“I saw a moral imperative absolutely to put party aside, because of who that man was and what he had done,” says Mr. Wilson, referring to allegations that Moore had sexually assaulted women and underage girls.

For Wilson, the race raised existential questions about the Republican Party. “Can the party back [a man like Moore] and keep its soul?” he says. “I was pretty sure the answer was no.”

Now Wilson is focused on his forthcoming book, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” But despite the downer of a title, Wilson is ever the happy warrior.

“I wake up every day, and I love it,” he says, calling himself a “Republican apostate” in a party that has sold itself to Trump.

“I have these nonsensical beliefs in free markets, personal liberty, the Constitution, all those things that I was told for many years the party stood for,” Wilson says. “Now apparently we stand for trade wars, grabbing [women], and crazy-tweeting ourselves to the brink of nuclear war.”

Wilson also calls himself a “Father Confessor,” fielding calls nearly every day from Republican elected officials who are completely miserable having to defend Trump.

On Capitol Hill, only a few Republicans in Congress battle Trump openly – and all are on their way out, senators like John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker, along with House members who are either retiring or, as in the case of Mark Sanford, lost the primary after defying Trump in public.

“I’m fortunate that my livelihood does not depend on political affiliation,” says Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.

Professor Pitney, a former Republican Hill staffer, quotes Ronald Reagan when he’s asked why he quit the GOP: “My party left me.” He also mentions Trump’s character. When Trump went after Pitney’s former student, Heidi Cruz – Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife – “I took that personally,” Pitney says.

Life outside the GOP cocoon

Books attacking and defending Trump are now all the rage – with Trump allies like Jeanine Pirro, Alan Dershowitz, Gregg Jarrett, and Newt Gingrich releasing tomes at least as fast as the Trump critics.

Among the prominent female Never Trumpers, Amanda Carpenter recently released “Gaslighting America: Why We Love it When Trump Lies to Us,” a deconstruction of Trump’s communication style. Ms. Carpenter, like Tyler, was a top aide to Senator Cruz and is now a CNN commentator.

Boot’s latest book – “The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right,” due out in October – promises to be part memoir, part commentary on this extraordinary political era.

“I used to be part of the Republican cocoon, and I have completely broken from that,” says Boot, who began his career as a reporter and editor at the Monitor. “I left my tribe behind, and am now politically homeless, and forced to really think for myself in a way that partisans often don’t do.”

Still, Boot seems to have found a new tribe – elites and intellectuals who have rejected Trump. He mentions a new group called Patriots and Pragmatists, described by The New York Times as a coalition of “leading donors and operatives from the right and left.” He has also signed on to another nonpartisan effort called the Renew Democracy Initiative, which is releasing a book of essays in October.

The goal of these efforts joining the center-right and center-left, Boot says, is to oppose the “populist threat represented not just by Trump but also [Marine] LePen in France and many other rabble-rousers in the Western world.”

Boot says he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and would even consider becoming a Democrat if the party went in a centrist direction. But with the Democrats heading leftward, Boot looks set to remain politically homeless for now.

Most conservative Trump critics don’t even consider jumping to the other major party.

“I love Democrats,” says Tyler. “I just don’t want them to be in charge of anything.”

AP

President Trump (l.) on July 22, 2018, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Feb. 6, 2018. Mr. Trump tweeted late on Sunday, July 22, that hostile threats from Iran could bring dire consequences.

President Trump’s escalation of anti-Iran rhetoric and increased US pressure against the Islamic Republic have been a boon to Iran’s noisy minority of hard-line, America-obsessed flag burners.

But the US campaign is doing more than strengthen the hard-liners. Amid a broader administration effort to deepen instability among Iranians torn by their own political and social divides, there are signs the Trump-led targeting of Iran may be backfiring, as Iranians coalesce against a foreign enemy.

One result is a newly belligerent anti-American tone from Iran’s centrist President Hassan Rouhani, who has advocated outreach to the West. Another is reconsideration by a sizeable portion of Iranians who – quietly, but unmistakably, for decades – have professed admiration for the American people and have long viewed America as a beacon of hope.

Administration officials say they are “supporting Iranian voices” by abetting anti-regime sentiment and taking advantage of frequent local protests in Iran. But, say Iranians and analysts, the apparent lack of a US strategic vision for a post-regime Iran, and administration officials’ association with the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – an exiled, cult-like opposition group reviled inside Iran – have instead yielded rare levels of Iranian unity.

“If there were some hope [in Washington] that with some kind of pressure from outside that Iranians would be encouraged to go out on the street, Trump is giving the wrong signal: ‘You come to the street and make instability, and we will make the MEK come to power,’ ” says a veteran analyst in Tehran who asked not to be named.

“The hatred, the distrust, the dissatisfaction … toward the establishment is growing here, no question about it,” says the analyst. “People are protesting here and there. But … what Trump is doing” makes the prospect of a popular uprising even more distant.

Citing "current America and these policies," which had shown the US to be "totally unreliable," Tehran dismissed an offer by Mr. Trump Monday to meet Iranian leaders with "no preconditions." The White House later clarified that it has no plans to change its policy of ratcheting up pressure and sanctions on Iran.

Ordinary Iranians have taken to Twitter using the hashtags #ShutUpTrump and #StopMeddlingInIran to condemn US actions.

“Trump’s craziness has no end. But our unity is endless, too. So the more he shows his teeth, the more we will show our fists,” says Saeed, a clean-shaven student of mechanical engineering at Azad University in Tehran who says he supports reformist politicians.

“We have passed all those hurdles in the past and this one, although it is more serious than ever, I’m sure we will successfully leave behind,” says Saeed, who only gave his first name. “It is Trump who will be thrown away or, in the words of the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], will be ‘thrown into the dust bin of history.’ We will stand behind the establishment forever.”

Mutual hostility between the US and Iran has defined the geopolitical strife between these arch foes since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

'Never, ever threaten'

But the Trump administration’s particular animus toward Iran is especially counterproductive, Iranians and analysts say. As the US seeks to check what it calls Iran’s “malign activities” and extensive influence across the Middle East, it is ratcheting up sanctions and explicitly attempting to turn Iranians against their clerical leaders.

Last week, Trump replied to a warning from Mr. Rouhani not to take Iran’s military capability lightly by tweeting, in all capital letters, that Iran should “never, ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before.”

Iran’s Qods Force commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, replied, addressing Trump: “Come, we are ready. If you begin the war, we will determine the end of it.”

After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, several thousand Iranian citizens in Tehran were among the first – and among the very few – in the Middle East to hold a spontaneous candlelit vigil in solidarity with the United States.

Yet today Iranians also are reeling from being included – alongside Somalis and Yemenis – in a blanket seven-nation White House travel ban, even though an estimated one million Iranian-Americans live in the US.

They are baffled by Trump’s unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. And they are feeling the bite of new US sanctions designed to put “unprecedented” economic pressure on Iran by cutting it off from the outside world, forcing all third-country business to withdraw, and blocking the sale of any Iranian oil.

“We have always expected the Americans to come to our rescue, but that has happened only in words and not action,” says Ramezan, a retired teacher in Tehran. “Look at Trump.… He does not even let us visit his country. Do you think we could expect such a fool to save us from a bunch of other fools?”

Solidarity with protesters

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the stakes in a speech July 22 in southern California to a group that included Iranian-American supporters of the MEK – an organization that was on the US list of terrorist groups until 2012. It has for years paid top former officials, including current National Security Adviser John Bolton and Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to shill for its Iran regime-change agenda.

Mr. Pompeo said the Trump administration “dreams the same dreams for the people of Iran as you do,” and pledged solidarity with Iranian protesters while listing cases of corruption and human rights abuses. But he also said the US had “an obligation to put maximum pressure on the regime’s ability to generate and move money.”

That speech brought home to Iranians the challenge of forging detente with this White House, says John Limbert, a former US diplomat who was among the 52 hostages taken at the US Embassy in 1979 and held captive for 444 days.

“What’s striking are these totally insincere and unconvincing professions of how much we support the Iranian people and their aspirations,” says Mr. Limbert, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran and author of the book, “Negotiating with Iran.”

He summed up the Iranian view: “Here is this person [Trump] who says he’s going to kill millions of us, they’re going to strangle our economy… and they are going to support our aspirations for democracy. How stupid do they think we are?” says Limbert.

'A limit to our patience'

Yet, even as Iranians are disparaging of Trump and his approach to Iran, when it comes to their domestic woes, they spread their blame further, to chronic mismanagement and corruption at home.

“Unity has always been our choice against enemies. This time it has to be even more vigorous because we are facing a special one, who has no ethical boundaries,” says Leyla, a soon-to-retire health ministry employee in Tehran.

“But there’s also a limit to our patience,” she says. “Our officials have to see people’s problems. If they need our backing, they must do something for our livelihood.… Things will break down and even unity won’t work when you have no bread.”

Iranians for two centuries have witnessed the negative result of outside interventions, and in the US case it was a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953 that many regard as laying the foundation for the Islamic Revolution, decades later.

“It’s hard to believe that Trump or the American administration is on the side of the people,” says the Tehran analyst. “ ‘By hurting people you can’t be on the side of the people,’ this is what some say.”

“I know some young people who were really disgusted with the regime … but some of them are not so sure about revolution anymore, because the MEK image here is not what these people want as the new leadership,” says the analyst.

“These activities by Trump and his aides to get close to the MEK scared lots of people – indirectly helping people move away from the idea of revolution against the mullahs,” he says.

One of the country’s largest immigrant detention centers blends into a bland industrial landscape on the tide flats of the Port of Tacoma. The warehouses and storage hangars of metal, plastics, and recycling companies surround the facility’s long, low buildings, where on any given day the federal government houses almost 1,600 men and women.

Only the presence of a protest camp outside the Northwest Detention Center disrupts the gray tableau, exposing an enterprise distinct in its function and political dimensions. Activists first showed up in June in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) separating more than 2,500 children from their parents at the US-Mexico border under President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal crossings.

An “Occupy ICE” camp with tents and canopies soon sprouted on a block-long strip of matted yellow grass near the center’s front gate. Protesters hung handmade signs on a chain-link fence – “No Human Is Illegal,” “Abolish ICE,” “Make America Care Again” – and began staging nightly “noise rallies,” banging on pots, pans, and drums as a signal of solidarity with the immigrants inside the facility.

On a recent afternoon, as employees trickled into the center and families arrived to visit detainees, a handful of young men and women chatted beneath a canopy in the camp as one played a guitar. Chico Martinez, a tech worker who lives in Tacoma, described the protest as an attempt to pressure city officials to cut ties with the facility’s owner, Geo Group, Inc., the largest operator of private for-profit prisons in the country.

“A step toward abolishing ICE is driving private prisons out of business,” he says. “The city should stop taking the blood money.”

An activist proposing any measure other than the federal agency’s outright dissolution might surprise those who, based on the “Abolish ICE” slogan alone, assume the crusade has a defined purpose.

In reality, as similar protests percolate across the country, the movement and its intentions remain ambiguous. Even as many involved in the effort favor dismantling ICE, supporters recognize that, as a more practical matter, the motto serves as a strategic gambit and a rallying cry to motivate voters. In that broader view, the campaign can provoke change irrespective of the agency’s survival or demise, explains Hemanth Gundavaram, co-director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at Northeastern University in Boston.

“A political debate is a negotiation, and in any negotiation, you start from your strongest position,” he says. “So abolishing ICE has to be on the table in order to come to a middle ground where reforms can happen.”

Bebeto Matthews/AP

Protesters gather outside federal court calling for the release of Pablo Villavicencio Tuesday July 24, 2018, in New York. Villavicencio was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after making a catering delivery to Fort Hamilton Army Base last month.

‘Occupy Wall Street’ redux?

The federal government created ICE two years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to carry out immigration enforcement and assist with national security. Critics assert the agency has conflated that dual mission and, under President Trump, intensified its targeting of immigrants who lack legal status to advance his political agenda.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, (D) of Washington, has accused the president of turning ICE into a “mass-deportation force.” A progressive in her first term whose district includes most of Seattle, she has co-sponsored a bill that would eliminate ICE within a year of Congress creating a new immigration enforcement system.

The push to jettison the agency has divided prominent Democrats. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts back the idea, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive who upset incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s Democratic primary in June. Those advocating less drastic action include House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Maxine Waters, both of California, who support overhauling the agency.

The caution of some party leaders aligns with a national poll that found a majority of Americans oppose scrapping ICE. As Republicans portray “Abolish ICE” as a radical scheme to end immigration enforcement and open the country’s borders, Democrats intend to emphasize a broad definition of the slogan, seeking to harness the movement’s energy while building consensus for reform. Their strategy appears informed by the “repeal Obamacare” pratfall of Republicans, who benefited at the polls for years by vowing to kill the Affordable Care Act, then failed to deliver in 2017 even with control of the House, Senate, and White House.

“This debate is about more than this singular piece of legislation or just the notion of abolishing ICE,” says Vedant Patel, a spokesman for Representative Jayapal. “It’s about reforming and changing an agency that has not been doing its job. It’s about changing our immigration enforcement to something more humane and fair.”

Immigration advocates believe “Abolish ICE” – despite its uncertain direction – stands a better chance of influencing national politics and policy than the recent “Occupy Wall Street” protests that railed against income inequality.

Their optimism derives, in part, from the campaign taking aim at a clearly defined antagonist in Trump rather than faceless financial institutions. Tim Warden-Hertz, a directing attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a nonprofit legal services group with offices throughout Washington, casts the nationwide protests as proof of a growing aversion to Trump’s zero-tolerance approach.

“What ‘Abolish ICE’ has done is helped make it clear that elections matter and voting matters,” he says. “There may not be agreement right now on how to change the system, but the organizing and activism that’s happening across the country is encouraging.”

The sight of protesters outside the Northwest Detention Center heartened Maria Alvarado and Salvador Meza. The married couple had gathered up their five young children and driven a battered white minivan some 230 miles from Pasco, Wash., to visit Mr. Meza’s father. ICE detained the unauthorized field worker in November, two decades after he arrived in the US from Mexico.

“We wish we didn’t have to be here,” Mrs. Alvarado says. “But protests like this give us a little hope. It tells us that people like my father-in-law haven’t been forgotten.”

The power of ‘Keep Families Together’

A primary distinction between “Abolish ICE” and the original “Occupy” campaign is the new crusade’s connection to a parallel cause, one with a less combative theme than eliminating a public institution.

The outcry over Mr. Trump’s policy that separated parents from children inspired “Keep Families Together” marches and Senate legislation by the same name. The bill authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D) of California, has received unanimous support from her Democratic colleagues.

The administration, after rescinding its policy, appeared to fall short of complying with a court-ordered deadline to reunite families by last Thursday, with federal officials ruling more than 700 children ineligible to return to parental custody. Hiroshi Motomura, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, suggests that the strong opposition to ICE taking children from parents presents an opportunity for Democrats in November.

He contends that, on its own, “Abolish ICE” leaves Democrats vulnerable to inflated charges of promoting open borders and gutting immigration policy. But linking the slogan to the demand that children remain with their parents could unify Democrats while luring independent voters and moderate Republicans.

“The center of gravity of the ‘Abolish ICE’ movement is ‘keep families together,’ ” says Mr. Motomura, the author of several books on immigration. “That’s a deeply resonant message, and I think there’s tremendous potential to get voters who call themselves centrists and even conservatives to say the administration has gone too far.”

Trump’s hard line on immigration has elicited criticism from disparate interest groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Medical Association, Silicon Valley, and higher education leaders. In light of that wide-ranging disapproval, Mr. Gundavaram, who teaches immigration law at Northeastern, predicts the president himself will sustain the anti-ICE campaign more than any other factor.

“Advocates know they can count on the administration to do more harm to more people because its policies are so incendiary,” he says. “So I think the momentum for change will continue to increase.”

Protesters who set up the camp by the Northwest Detention Center drew inspiration from activists in Portland, Ore., who forced the brief closure of the ICE office there in late June. Police cleared out that city’s remaining demonstrators last week, yet, within 24 hours, some of them had relocated to the Tacoma camp, and a new protest took root outside the ICE office in Sacramento, Calif.

A handmade sign on the chain-link fence bordering the detention center reads, “Families Belong Together Not In Cages.” The sentiment cuts to the heart for Alvarado and Meza, who estimate they have spent $10,000 in legal fees trying to free Meza’s father. Before visiting him at the facility, they had last seen him on his birthday in October.

“The president’s new policies are just so cruel,” Alvarado says. “What I want to know is, who is helped by hurting families?”

In 2013, Francis Tolentino, the head of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), sent American best-seller author Dan Brown an outraged open letter.

“We are greatly disappointed by your inaccurate portrayal of our beloved metropolis,” Mr. Tolentino wrote. Mr. Brown’s latest book, “Inferno,” had described the Philippines’ capital as ridden with “six-hour traffic jams” and “suffocating pollution,” no less than “the gates of hell.”

“Truly, our place is an entry to heaven,” Tolentino retorted.  

Many a taxi driver in Manila might disagree. In one of the densest cities in the world, home to more than 13 million, walking can be faster than driving, with traffic jams that cost residents nearly $66 million per day.

When taxi driver Angelo Bertos finds himself stuck in traffic for hours on end, he thinks about the “retirement promise” he made to himself: move to New Clark City.

“It’s a dream for me,” he says.

Sixty miles north of Metro Manila, the Filipino government and private investors are building New Clark City: a $14 billion “smart city” 1.5 times the size of Manhattan, designed to be green and climate-resilient. It’s the country’s first significant effort to build a city to cope with pressing issues many fast-growing economies in Asia face after decades of demographic growth and unchecked urbanization. The continent is now home to half of the world’s megacities, and their environmental toll has grown clearer – while climate change, meanwhile, leaves many of them more vulnerable to natural disasters. 

The main challenge governments in the region have to tackle is developing economically in a way that safeguards the environment, and integrates climate change adaptation and mitigation into long-term plans, says Val Bugnot, a communications officer for ICLEI Southeast Asia, an international network that promotes green development.

For New Clark City, “the timing is just right,” she says. “The private investors are invested and fueling such kind of development projects, the government is pushing and is interested about environmental sustainability, and the people are actually becoming more aware of how their actions are influencing the environment that they’re living in.”

Green grid

By 2045, the Philippines’ population is projected to shoot up to 142 million, roughly 37 percent more than today. Sixty-five percent of Filipinos will live in cities by 2050, compared to 45 percent today, according to the World Bank. But major cities like Manila, like many metropolises in the region, have struggled to keep up, and are growing more vulnerable. The Philippines is among the countries most threatened by climate change, after India and Pakistan, according to an HSBC report released in March. Already, parts of Manila flood every year, and the city has been ranked the world’s most exposed to natural disasters.

New Clark is the country’s most ambitious attempt to date to plan a city able to withstand such calamities. The site, which is just miles from what was once the largest US military base overseas, sits at 184 feet above sea level, protecting it from floods, and mountain ranges act as natural barriers against typhoons.

Contracts for the development of the city’s electric and water infrastructure require that companies use more resilient technologies like microgrids, reducing the chances that an entire system will be affected by storms. Developers are working with Swedish firms to come up with more disaster-resilient features, like earthquake-resistant structures and flood-proof buildings, and road designs will better accommodate pedestrians, bikes, and public transit to reduce congestion. Numerous green spaces will stud a waterway running through the city.

“In a country as vulnerable as the Philippines and where the current cities are really challenged, it is fantastic to set an example of how a good city can work,” says Matthijs Bouw, a Rockefeller Urban Resilience Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania who has consulted on the project as an independent expert for the Asian Development Bank, which is assisting the Filipino government. “New Clark City can as a wholly functioning city continue to function when, for instance, a disaster might strike Metro Manila.”

When completed, it will host an administrative center with backup offices for the national government, an academic district home to elite universities, a business district, industrial parks, urban farms, and green open spaces, with the latter two making up for two-thirds of its area.

“In the Philippines we haven't done a really good job at developing cities,” says Vivencio Dizon, the energetic president and CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), a government-owned corporation which owns the land where the city will be developed over the next three decades.

“Regular cities are not enough,” says Mr. Dizon, glancing at maps of the future city hanging on conference room walls at his office. With little inspiration at home, planners have looked abroad. Dizon cites Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China, as successful attempts to spur economic growth outside of the “traditional cities” of Beijing and Shanghai. Putrajaya, Malaysia – the country’s federal administrative center, which was designed to decongest the capital – is a model for alleviating traffic jams in Manila. Yokohama, Japan, is widely admired amongst urban planners for its focus on building smart energy management systems.

Model, or exception?

On the construction site, more than 1,000 blue-helmeted workers are toiling in the scorching heat, broadening existing roads and laying concrete for new ones. At lunchtime, they walk along paddy fields to get fried noodles from food stalls in a neighboring community of rice farmers. Standing in the sun, amid countless metallic poles and mounds of dirt, a dozen cranes are building a 2,000-seat aquatic center ahead of the 2019 edition of the Southeast Asian Games, hosted in New Clark City. A 20,000-seat stadium and an athletes’ village should follow.

This opportunity to build a city from the ground up may not come twice, Mr. Bouw says, but numerous lessons can be applied again. “How do you design a functional transit system? How do you create, let’s say, a more robust energy network?” he asks. 

But to some critics, the project is more of a flashy one-off than a model. Paolo Alcazaren, a veteran urban planner and architect, calls New Clark City “low-hanging fruit”: building a city from scratch is easier than helping the Philippines’ 145 cities and nearly 1,500 towns “understand how they can better expand.”

Besides climate change and massive urbanization, another urban issue too often overlooked, he says, is inclusivity. Indeed, in Capas, a town of more than 100,000 that borders New Clark City, some residents worry the future hub might prove a bane rather than a boon. Land prices have multiplied as much as five times, according to its mayor, rice farmers have been displaced, and the cost of living may be next. “Is there enough diversity in terms of people who live there?” Mr. Alcazaren asks.

Too often, warns Ms. Bugnot of ILCEI, social issues like “hunger, poverty, displacement and migration” are seen as separate from climate change.

“The way forward for cities to become smart and sustainable cities is to look at climate change as one of the most effective ways to address other social problems,” she adds.

Mr. Dizon, of BCDA, says that all communities can benefit from New Clark City. “We don’t want to create an enclave of prosperity in that green area, and then poverty everywhere else,” he says. But while economic growth is one aim of the city, planners also say it can provide a template for other Filipino cities to replicate.

“That is our hope,” Dizon says. “That if we can do it right with this one, other cities will follow.”

Eduard Rodriguez

Members of the Skate Brothers skating club in Honduras, founded in 2011, gather together with their bikes and skateboards in the skate park. Skate Brothers aims to help keep young people from joining gangs.

The bike rider makes a silhouette in the air before landing on the ground and undertaking a few complicated acrobatics. You can clearly see the satisfaction on his face. He is one of many young people who, in a troubled area of Honduras, have swapped misdemeanors for sports thanks to the Skate Brothers.

“I do these tricks on bikes, but I am also a skater. I was on the wrong track for six years; I was looking for an adrenaline rush on the streets and found one here that doesn’t put my life at risk. Here we are one big, happy family,” says Gendrik Torres, 19, before jumping his bike onto a multipurpose track that many others are enjoying.

When the sun sets, a swarm of children and young people come together every day to demonstrate their skills on the track, while others show off their singing and dancing talents in a room next door. Some speed off on roller skates like arrows, others do tricks on their skateboards, and still others take to the track with their bikes. 

“Pain is temporary, but satisfaction is forever. I love coming here because there is a family atmosphere and it stops you from thinking about getting into gangs or things like that,” explains young skater Bayron Rodriguez, 13, with the wisdom of an adult. 

He and Mr. Torres are just two of the many young people who gather every afternoon to take part in this program in Cofradía, a community south of the city of San Pedro Sula, one of the most violent places in Honduras. At the end of 2017, the country’s homicide rate was 42.8 killings per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world. 

The inspiration to create the program came from Jessel Recinos, a Honduran who traded crime for skating and founded Skate Brothers to keep young people away from gangs.

“I joined a gang when I was 15, but in 2005 my life changed after I was shot with a 9-millimeter pistol. The last bullet went through my back and came out above my heart,” describes Mr. Recinos, unbuttoning his shirt to show the scar. “I promised God right there and then I would leave this dark world behind. The doctors didn't understand – I survived by miracle.”

That vow to “become a good person” led him to start Skate Brothers in 2011, a nonprofit skating club that has become a model for young people tempted by drugs, crime, and maras, or gangs. “We have prevented many people from falling into vandalism; we are the antivirus to this problem,” says Recinos. 

The project was initially located within Cofradía’s outreach center, a Catholic Church aid center for children and young people in high-risk areas. Funding came from a donation of 24,400 Honduran lempiras ($1,020) from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2017, also thanks to donations from USAID and the Catholic Church, Skate Brothers was able to open its own facilities, which include an office, a gym, a meeting room, football and basketball courts, a multipurpose track, bathrooms, a cafeteria, and locker rooms. 

“When we cut the ribbon, I sat down on the track, looked at my ‘sheep,’ and it brought tears to my eyes to see how many young people were already safe,” says Recinos, who in 2016 was chosen by the US State Department as one of 10 Emerging Young Leaders across the world.

Today, about 70 children and young people come to have fun for free at a place where they can practice rollerblading, skateboarding, acrobatics, modern dance, rap, and football. “Some of them used to belong to gangs, and Skate Brothers has changed their lives. We don’t just teach them different disciplines, we are also mentors because we have become friends,” says Recinos.

The club goes beyond sports. This year, some 2,000 inhabitants of the region will benefit from a nutritional program sponsored by USAID. “We have a direct link with the public. Every September 15th, Honduras Independence Day, we take part in parades, put on shows at streets fairs, and go to every event that the community invites us to,” says Recinos.

The institution makes ends meet thanks to meeting room rentals, a gym, sponsorships, raffles, and other activities. “We do it out of love,” says the founder, but adds that they need further financial support.

Among their current objectives are obtaining legal permission to process any aid that comes to them, and reaching out to other parts of the country. “One of our goals is to expand into parts of Honduras where there are conflicts. If we can find an organization to support us, the project will keep on flourishing, because we want more young people to be reached by Skate Brothers,” says Recinos.

This story was reported by El Heraldo, a news outlet in Colombia. The Monitor is publishing it as part of an international effort by more than 50 news organizations worldwide to promote solutions journalism. To read other stories in this joint project, please click here.