Sustainable development and urban resilience are dominant urban planning paradigms that have become buzzwords in urban planning and policy domains over the past 2–3 decades. While these two paradigms have been analyzed and scrutinized in different studies, the interconnection between them in policy realms is understudied. Compact development policy is expected to contribute to a variety of sustainability goals. However, these goals’ alignment with the principles and goals of urban resilience is under question. This research tries to shed some light on this issue. A critical review method is employed to understand how compactness as a sustainable urban development policy relates to different principles and dimensions of urban resilience. First, the conceptual and theoretical relationship between urban resilience and compact city is established. Next, the resulting framework is used to critically analyze 124 articles to understand how the compact city policy relates to urban resilience from different dimensions and principles. Densification and intensification, mixed land use and diversity, and spatial connectivity and public transportation are identified as principles of the compact city. Finally, the interconnection between compact city policy and urban resilience dimensions and principles is explored and assessed through examining the selected literature. The results of the review show some alignments between compact city policy outcomes and urban resilience. However, the level of alignment may vary depending on the context, scale, or dimension. In other words, while compact city in one scale/dimension can increase urban resilience to a specific adverse event or stressor, it might increase vulnerability to others in another scale/dimension. From the policy perspective, compact development policy and urban resilience principles should clearly be defined a priori to reach favorable outcomes.
While there is a large body of research on sustainable development and urban resilience, the interaction between urban densification and urban resilience remains understudied. This study aims to investigate several facets of urban resilience and densification before analyzing their mutual relationship. Focusing on ecological, social, economic, and physical elements of urban resilience on the one hand and population density, residential density, built-up area ratio (BAR), and parcel density on the other, a combination of spatial and quantitative methodologies is applied. Our empirical investigation revealed that the spatial distribution of all resilience indicators is varied. In other words, the cumulative form of urban resilience indicators has a different significance than the individual version. Similarly, different types of density have varying orientations and degrees of connection with measures of resilience that should be evaluated in empirical investigations. In addition, our research revealed that density has a stronger relationship with social and physical resilience than with ecological and economic resilience. The findings drawn from this research have the potential to inform the design of secure, resilient cities across a range of spatial dimensions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.