What Is Urban Resilience?
Urban resilience is the ability of cities to survive, adapt, and thrive amid disruptions like natural disasters, climate change, and economic or political crises. Climate resilience is a key component, as urban settings are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures and other climate change effects. Measuring urban resilience requires a tailored, interdisciplinary approach, addressing evolving risks and local contexts.
by Aria Tzamalikou
By 2050, cities – long celebrated as hubs of resilience and innovation – will be home to more than two-thirds of the world’s population. Precisely because they host a large concentration of people, services, and infrastructure, urban areas have evolved into complex and, as such, inherently fragile systems. In fact, cities are encountering multiple and intersecting pressures that severely test their infrastructure, social structures, and institutional arrangements [1]. Under these conditions, it is no surprise that the concept of ‘urban resilience’ is becoming increasingly relevant with time.
Originally derived from physics, ‘resilience’ describes the ability of an object to recover from deformation under an external force [2]. A ‘resilient’ city is one that has the capacity to survive, adapt, recover, and thrive in the face of various types of shocks and stresses — be it a sudden shock from an earthquake or a flood, or a gradual pressure, such as climate change, social inequalities, or economic downturns [3]. It may also be more or less predictable, depending on whether it is natural (extreme natural events like floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes), man-made (such as financial crises or geopolitical tensions), or hybrid (arising from interactions between natural and human factors, like climate change and pandemics) [4]. Regardless, a city’s resilience is tested by its ability to handle a series of disturbances that threaten to destabilise the system’s equilibrium [5].
In terms of what is at stake, ‘urban resilience’ extends beyond preserving physical space and infrastructure, crucial as they are, to encompass the ‘city’ as a dynamic system of relationships and interconnected structures, including its communities, economy, and governance. In this broader view, resilience also involves maintaining essential societal functions and identities [6].
Climate-resilience at the forefront of ‘urban resilience’
Climate change has become a major destabilising factor for urban areas, posing critical additional risks to these already challenging settings [7]. For example, the ‘Urban Heat Island (UHI)’ effect demonstrates how city centers are especially vulnerable to rising temperatures due to the temperature difference between urban areas and the surrounding rural regions [8]. Hence, with climate resilience being central to its definition [9], urban resilience is not just about enduring or absorbing disturbances; rather, it emerges as ‘the measurable capability of an urban system and its inhabitants to sustain continuity through all shocks and stresses, while actively adapting and evolving toward sustainability’ [10].
Assessing urban resilience: challenges and considerations
Why does this conceptual analysis matter for urban planning? In practice, reflecting a city’s preparedness for crises, the ‘resilient city’ label provides a benchmarking tool for urban development and management. It sets the ground to shape the principles and elements of resilience, to identify vulnerabilities, and develop the appropriate toolkits for resilience systems and strategies [11].
Yet, if resilience is indeed perceived as a ‘measurable’ urban attribute, is it possible to measure it accurately? As outlined earlier, ‘urban resilience’ is a multifaceted concept; it not only involves planning for various types of risks but also covers different aspects of the lived urban environment. Therefore, measuring resilience requires a holistic approach that integrates all these factors. Such an approach necessitates interdisciplinary assessments across the fields of urban planning, engineering, social sciences, and environmental studies to set up a comprehensive assessment framework [12].
At the same time, the dynamic nature of urban ecosystems makes resilience a feature that evolves over time. The effectiveness of resilience measures is subject to change with the emergence of new risks, technological advancements, and shifting social dynamics, thereby complicating efforts to establish fixed metrics and benchmarks. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic placed great strain on cities, highlighting their fragilities and resilience gaps. Further, the pandemic underscored how critical the local dimension of resilience is, as cities had to tailor their responses to their unique challenges and capacities [13]. Indeed, resilience strategies often vary significantly across cities, depending on local contexts demonstrating different needs and specific vulnerabilities. In Tokyo, for example, earthquake preparedness is a top priority, reflected in its strict building codes and advanced early warning systems [14]. Another city, Amsterdam, has placed a strong focus on water management to combat the risk of flooding due to its low-lying geography [15]. Hence, what works for one city may not be effective or even applicable for another, making it challenging to develop universal urban resilience measurement standards.
Conclusions
Our century has been heralded as the century of the city [16]. It is also an era of high risk and uncertainty. With cities encountering pressures of growing frequency and intensity, ‘urban resilience’ is being established as an essential tool for building not only livable urban environments but also conditions that promote the well-being of their inhabitants. Yet, setting ‘resilience’ standards and assessing a city’s performance with regards to its resilience requires a tailored approach that addresses local contexts and evolving risks. In this context, climate resilience is crucial for alleviating additional pressures on cities, while, in a broader perspective, cities can also prove instrumental in advancing climate adaptation efforts [17].
References:
[1] Economist Impact. Resilient Cities Index 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2024, from https://impact.economist.com/projects/resilient-cities/en/whitepaper/the-resilient-cities-index/
[2] Yang, Q., Yang, D., Li, Peng, L., Shilu, Z., Zhenghu, Z. (2021). Resilient City: A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization, Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, Retrieved September 7, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5558497
[3] Resilient Cities Network. What is Urban Resilience? Resilient Cities Network. Retrieved August 31, 2024, from https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/what-is-urban-resilience/#:~:text=Urban%20resilience%20is%20the%20capacity,and%20acute%20shocks%20they%20experience
[4] Cao, Y., Wilkinson, E., Pettinotti, L., Colenbrander, S. and Lovell, E. (2021). A Decade of Urban Resilience: An Analytical Review. UNDP. Retrieved September 7, 2024, from https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2021-12/UNDP-ODI-An-Analytical-Review-A-Decade-of-Urban-Resilience.pdf
[5] Ribeiro, P., Gonçalves, L. (2019). Urban resilience: A conceptual framework. Sustainable Cities and Society. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101625
[6] Brokalaki, Z., Comunian, R. (2021, July 6). Beyond the hype- Art and the city in economic crisis. City. Retrieved October 14, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2021.1935766
[7] Dookie, D., Gannon, K. (2022, August 31). Why is climate change adaptation important for cities and how are they adapting? LSE Explainers. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/why-is-climate-change-adaptation-important-for-cities-and-how-are-they-adapting/
[8] Euronews. (2023, December 29). 2023 was the hottest year on record. How are Europe’s cities planning to adapt for even warmer 2024?. Euronews. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/12/29/no-city-is-truly-prepared-for-the-heatwaves-that-lay-ahead-heres-what-can-be-done-about-it
[9] Resilient Cities Network. Climate Resilient Cities. Resilient Cities Network. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/climate-resilient-cities/
[10] Cao, Y., Wilkinson, E., Pettinotti, L., Colenbrander, S. and Lovell, E. (2021). A Decade of Urban Resilience: An Analytical Review. UNDP. Retrieved September 7, 2024, from https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2021-12/UNDP-ODI-An-Analytical-Review-A-Decade-of-Urban-Resilience.pdf
[11] Resilient Cities Network. Our Urban Resilience Planning Tools. Resilient Cities Network. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/urban-resilience-planning-tools/
[12] Kapucu, N., Ge, Y., Rott, E., Isgandar, H. (2024). Urban resilience: Multidimensional perspectives, challenges and prospects for future research. Urban Governance. Retrieved October 14, 2024, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2664328624000408
[13] Hunter, M. (December 2021). Resilience, Fragility, and Robustness: Cities and COVID-19. Urban Governance. Volume 1, Issue 2, Pages 115-125. Retrieved October 14, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ugj.2021.11.004
[14] World Economic Forum. (2023, September 15). Japan’s pioneering early warning system offers blueprint for climate adaptation efforts. World Economic Forum- Forum Institutional. Retrieved October 14, 2024, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/09/japans-early-warning-systems-blueprint-climate-adaptation-efforts/
[15] PreventionWeb. (2021, September 28). Netherland’s flood management is a climate adaption model for the world. Retrieved October 14, 2024, from https://www.preventionweb.net/news/netherlands-flood-management-climate-adaption-model-world
[16] Economist Impact. Resilient Cities Index 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2024, from https://impact.economist.com/projects/resilient-cities/en/whitepaper/the-resilient-cities-index/
[17] European Environment Agency. (2024, April 29). Cities are key to a climate-resilient Europe, stronger adaptation targets can boost progress. European Environment Agency- Press Releases. Retrieved September 7, 2024, from https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/cities-are-key-to-a-climate-resilient-europe