Resilience as a policy narrative: potentials and limits in the context of urban planning (original) (raw)
Related papers
Operationalising Resilience within Urban Planning – Bridging Theory and Practice
plaNext - Next Generation Planning, 2016
Over the past two decades, the concept of 'urban resilience' has gained increasing attention within the field of urban planning. More recently, interest in the concept can be partly linked to the recent global economic crisis, which has stimulated much debate around pre-crisis urban development models, and more broadly around the ability of modern planning systems to adequately adapt and respond to changing circumstances. This paper reviews the scholarly literature on urban resilience and concludes that despite its increasing ubiquity, the concept still lacks precise definition, and operationalising the concept within the planning domain remains a challenge. Specifically, the paper highlights the importance of distinguishing between 'equilibrium' and 'evolutionary' understandings of resilience, with particular focus on the potential of the evolutionary perspective to aid analysis of local planning responses to the recent global economic crisis. In doing so, the paper also queries the potential contribution of new institutionalism, and discursive institutionalism in particular, in enhancing our understanding of the resilience concept in this context, and in addressing some of the common critiques attached to it.
The city politics of an urban age: urban resilience conceptualisations and policies
Palgrave Communications
Around the globe, cities seek to improve their resilience to face the stresses and shocks that are expected from global climate change and other threats. In implementing urban resilience policies, they are guided by different urban resilience conceptualisations. What is meant by the concept differs between scholars, governments, as well as international organisations that seek to study, advise on and implement urban resilience policies and governance interventions. This article presents a review of the urban resilience literature since the 1970s. It seeks to map and interrogate dominant urban resilience conceptualisations, and decipher whether and how different understandings of the concept can result in essentially different policies and governance interventions and outcomes. In contrasting the 'what' of urban resilience (various conceptualisations) with the 'why' of urban resilience policy (bouncing back, falling forwards, persistence) it investigates approaches to overcome some of the key critiques to urban resilience policy and research.
Urban resilience: two diverging interpretations
This paper uses two diverging interpretations of resilience to review and assess current UK policies for urban resilience. Both developed in scientific studies, the first interpretation is based on a mechanistic model of systems that can recover their original state after shocks, and the second is based on an evolutionary model enabling adaptation to disturbances. The literature review demonstrates that at present urban resilience is predominantly associated with the former. By contrast, only few policies and studies are inspired by the latter, although this is better suited to analyse dynamics of urban adaptation and manage cities accordingly. The contribution of this paper to an understanding of urban resilience is therefore twofold. First, an identification of the long-term consequences on the built environment associated with each model is provided, with the mechanical model ultimately hindering adaptation. Second, some approaches to generate effective responses to environmental and societal change are identified. Ultimately, this paper emphasises that the idea of a resilient city is fit for this age characterised by uncertainty, albeit it requires the recognition within planning practice that urban adaptation cannot be attained with current methodologies, and that much can be learned from theories on the resilience of ecosystems.
Title : Urban resilience : two diverging interpretations
2015
This paper uses two diverging interpretations of resilience to review and assess current UK policies for urban resilience. Both developed in scientific studies, the first interpretation is based on a mechanistic model of systems that can recover their original state after shocks, and the second is based on an evolutionary model enabling adaptation to disturbances. The literature review demonstrates that at present urban resilience is predominantly associated with the former. By contrast, only few policies and studies are inspired by the latter, although this is better suited to analyse dynamics of urban adaptation and manage cities accordingly. The contribution of this paper to an understanding of urban resilience is therefore twofold. First, an identification of the long-term consequences on the built environment associated with each model is provided, with the mechanical model ultimately hindering adaptation. Second, some approaches to generate effective responses to environmental...
This paper will focus on the concept of resilience in the urban systems context. Generally, urban resilience is defined as the ability to absorb, adapt and respond to changes in a city or urban system. (Da Silva, 2012). As urbanization expands globally in the face of climate change, natural disasters, and other shocks, resilience has been placed centrally in the planning agenda to tackle these threats. In this paper, two underlying challenges within urban resilience theory discourse and practice will be explored. The first challenge is found in the ongoing tension between viewing urban resilience through the lens of engineering systems or socio-ecological systems (SES). The second challenge is found in the ambiguous aspiration of urban resilience theory and practice to become more “transformative” in nature. While this paper does not offer a complete solution to either one of these challenges, it aims to clarify the debate and further shed light on dimensions that can strengthen application of the concept of urban resilience to the field of planning.
The city politics of the urban age resilience concepts and policies
Around the globe, cities seek to improve their resilience to face the stresses and shocks that are expected from global climate change and other threats. In implementing urban resilience policies, they are guided by different urban resilience conceptualisations. What is meant by the concept differs between scholars, governments, as well as international organisations that seek to study, advise on and implement urban resilience policies and governance interventions. This article presents a meta-analysis of the urban resilience literature since the 1970s. It seeks to map and interrogate dominant urban resilience conceptualisations, and decipher whether and how different understandings of the concept can result in essentially different policies and governance interventions and outcomes. In contrasting the 'what' of urban resilience (various conceptualisations) with the 'why' of urban resilience policy (bouncing back, falling forwards, persistence) it investigates approaches to overcome some of the key critiques to urban resilience policy and research. Abstract Around the globe, cities seek to improve their resilience to face the stresses and shocks that are expected from global climate change and other threats. In implementing urban resilience policies, they are guided by different urban resilience conceptualisations. What is meant by the concept differs between scholars, governments, as well as international organisations that seek to study, advise on and implement urban resilience policies and governance interventions. This article presents a meta-analysis of the urban resilience literature since the 1970s. It seeks to map and interrogate dominant urban resilience conceptualisations, and decipher whether and how different understandings of the concept can result in essentially different policies and governance interventions and outcomes. In contrasting the 'what' of urban resilience (various conceptualisations) with the 'why' of urban resilience policy (bouncing back, falling forwards, persistence) it investigates approaches to overcome some of the key critiques to urban resilience policy and research.
Preface to the Book: Now more than ever, cities are hot spots responsible for threatened global ecological boundaries. Climate change impacts and global environmental change are challenges for urban dwellers, planners, and managers. To develop opportunities for the sustainable development of cities, researchers from multiple disciplines are studying the feedback, dynamics, and behaviour of urban systems in the face of change. During the 2011 Resilience Conference1 in Arizona, USA, a group of young researchers from different countries discussed critically the potential use of the resilience theory in understanding the dynamics and development of cities. Given the highly scattered literature related to ‘urban resilience’ and the different interpretations and applications of the concept, these researchers decided to set up an international urban resilience research network (later named URBNet2, Urban Resilience Young Researchers Network). Eight months after this first contact, the URBNet founders organised the First International Workshop on Urban Resilience, held in Barcelona on 18 and 19 November of 2011 with the support of the Master Programme in Landscape Intervention and Management at the Barcelona History Museum (MUHBA). The aim of the workshop was to share resilience perspectives applied to different urban contexts. The workshop was attended by more than 40 graduate students, researchers and practitioners. This report summarises presentations of the ongoing research of the network’s members that were given during the two-day workshop. The result is a review and discussion of examples showing how resilience is applied to different contexts. As a first step in understanding these contexts, we hope this compilation will inspire readers to create ways of complementing sustainability science with resilience thinking. Contributors to this report are Lorenzo Chelleri (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain), Marta Olazabal (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and Basque Centre for Climate Change, BC3, Spain), Lilia Yumagulova (British Columbia University, Canada), James J. Waters (Tyndall Centre, United Kingdom), Anna Kunath (Helmholtz- Centre, Germany) and Guido Minucci (Politecnico di Milano, Italy). Through this report, URBNet aims to contribute constructively to the discussion on urban resilience and the opportunities and benefits of applying urban resilient thinking in urban environments.
Journal of Environmental Management
Over the last decades 'resilience' has particularly arisen as an attractive perspective with respect to cities. As cities continue to expand, their susceptibility to uncertainties and new challenges, such as climate change, has increased, rendering 'urban resilience' an increasingly favoured concept in the realm of Urban Development, Planning and Management (UDPM). Despite recent reviews, an updated analysis of the concept is required to understand whether there is in fact scientific evidence to support the expansion and favouring of 'urban resilience' in UDPM. The need to understand how the concept evolved is further emphasised by the need to perceive how the distinct sciences have contributed to its development, and which were the focuses and conceptual underpinnings of such evolution. Thus, the objective of this paper is to provide a broader review of the multidimensional concept of 'urban resilience', while understanding how distinct research fields have contributed to its inception and expansion, and how distinct conceptualisations of resilience have influenced its evolution. Supported by a bibliometric analysis of urban-centric publications, this paper highlights the recent extensive growth and expanding application of 'urban resilience' to distinct research fields, as well as an apparent theoretical stabilisation of the concept, which reemphasises the idea of a three-dimensional conceptual resilience perspective in scientific literature: (1) 'engineering', (2) 'ecological', and (3) 'social-ecological resilience'. Consequently, this research emphasises that, if the related conceptual underpinnings are clear, 'urban resilience' can potentially serve as an 'integrative metaphor', adapted by diverse stakeholders, to reinforce UDPM initiatives.
Defining Urban Resilience: A Review
Fostering resilience in the face of environmental, socioeconomic, and political uncertainty and risk has captured the attention of academics and decision makers across disciplines, sectors, and scales. Resilience has become an important goal for cities, particularly in the face of climate change. Urban areas house the majority of the world's population, and, in addition to functioning as nodes of resource consumption and as sites for innovation, have become laboratories for resilience, both in theory and in practice. This paper reviews the scholarly literature on urban resilience and concludes that the term has not been well defined. Existing definitions are inconsistent and underdeveloped with respect to incorporation of crucial concepts found in both resilience theory and urban theory. Based on this literature review, and aided by bibliometric analysis, the paper identifies six conceptual tensions fundamental to urban resilience: (1) definition of ‘urban’; (2) understanding of system equilibrium; (3) positive vs. neutral (or negative) conceptualizations of resilience; (4) mechanisms for system change; (5) adaptation versus general adaptability; and (6) timescale of action. To advance this burgeoning field, more conceptual clarity is needed. This paper, therefore, proposes a new definition of urban resilience. This definition takes explicit positions on these tensions, but remains inclusive and flexible enough to enable uptake by, and collaboration among, varying disciplines. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the definition might serve as a boundary object, with the acknowledgement that applying resilience in different contexts requires answering: Resilience for whom and to what? When? Where? And why?