Acting local, thinking global: Globalizing resilience through 100 Resilient Cities

Zebrowski, Chris R.

doi:10.1177/2336825x20906315

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Indeed, in assessing north-south knowledge transfer and city to city cooperation, Mayer and Long note that these initiatives were "more likely to support than challenge entrenched practices which can weaken sustainable development governance" [120] (p. 1). For instance, technocratic approaches that often drive urban sustainability and resilience agendas [121] are by and large beholden to prevailing 'best practice' governance logics and status quos that may themselves create conditions for crisis [122,123]. Moreover, a focus on 'best practice' can reinforce a unidirectionality of knowledge flows without appreciation for "translocal geographies of knowledge production and circulation" [124] (p. 10).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Can We Learn from Urban Crisis?

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The irreversible transition towards urban living entails complex challenges and vulnerabilities for citizens, civic authorities, and the management of global commons. Many cities remain beset by political, infrastructural, social, or economic fragility, with crisis arguably becoming an increasingly present condition of urban life. While acknowledging the intense vulnerabilities that cities can face, this article contends that innovative, flexible, and often ground-breaking policies, practices, and activities designed to manage and overcome fragility can emerge in cities beset by crisis. We argue that a deeper understanding of such practices and the knowledge emerging from contexts of urban crisis may offer important insights to support urban resilience and sustainable development. We outline a simple conceptual representation of the interrelationships between urban crisis and knowledge production, situate this in the context of literature on resilience, sustainability, and crisis, and present illustrative examples of real-world practices. In discussing these perspectives, we reflect on how we may better value, use, and exchange knowledge and practice in order to address current and future urban challenges.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Can We Learn from Urban Crisis?

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is expected that the process of ''building'' city resilience is overseen by the efforts of local governments-but this ''overseeing'' is problematic. Here we need to consider the origin of the frameworks: they are largely created by the private sector (Zebrowski 2020), making consultants potentially politically powerful as they dictate what happens on an urban scale by fostering ''appropriate'' urban policies and indices (Vogelpohl 2018). Knowledge has become one of today's most important means of production, thus making ''expert'' advice indispensable in political and economic decisions.…”

Section: What Is Being Measured?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Resilience in the Assumed City

Cheek

Chmutina

2022

Int J Disaster Risk Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The malleable nature of both the idea of a city and the idea of resilience raises an important question—why measure? Resilience is assumed to be located in the physical infrastructure of specific places or as a quality of the people located there. For disasters, we are often trying to conceptualize, measure, or render legible resilience in physical structures. But what is it that we are trying to measure, and is the idea of a city reflected in these measurements? If cities are organized around something other than resilience, is resilience their natural by-product? What is necessitating the need for increased—and measured—resilience? Using interpretive policy analysis, we explored five well known disaster resilience frameworks (UNDRR’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign, UN-Habitat’s City Resilience Profiling Programme, The World Bank and GFDRR’s Resilient Cities Program, Arup and The Rockefeller Foundation’s City Resilience Index, and The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities) to identify the working definition of “city” and of “resilience.” We conclude that if the demand for cities to become more resilient is an acknowledgment of the risk produced by globalized urbanization, then the call itself is an indictment of the current state of our cities.

show abstract

“…In total, the cities designed 51 actions with a primary focus on flood risks (either through a flood event or sea-level rise) and only 8 actions with a primary focus on some aspect of their coastal location outside of the context of a flood event. Miami, New York City, New Orleans, and Honolulu each had the most actions with a primary focus on flooding (13,8,6, and 6 actions, respectively), while Seattle had no actions relating to flooding. Seattle had four actions (1 primary focus, 3 partial focus) relating to non-flooding related aspects of the coastal environment related to the economic importance of their maritime lands and redoing their waterfront.…”

Section: Coastal Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Analysis of Resilience Planning at the Nexus of Food, Energy, Water, and Transportation in Coastal US Cities

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate change poses increased risks to coastal communities and the interconnected infrastructure they rely on, including food, energy, water, and transportation (FEWT) systems. Most coastal communities in the US are ill-prepared to address these risks, and resilience planning is inconsistently prioritized and not federally mandated. This study examined the resilience plans of 11 coastal US cities to understand 1. How FEWT systems were considered within resilience plans and, 2. How nexus principles or elements critical to a nexus approach were incorporated within resilience plans. A “Nexus Index” was created to examine the incorporation of nexus principles, which included partnerships and collaborations, reference to other plans or reports, discussion of co-benefits, cascading impacts, and inclusion of interdisciplinary or cross-silo principles. These principles were used to score each action within the resilience plans. Results showed that only eight actions (1% of all actions across the 11 plans) focused on the connections among FEWT systems within the resilience plans. The transportation system was associated with the most actions, followed by the energy system, water system, and the food system. While FEWT systems were not consistently included, there was evidence from the Nexus Index that the plans included elements critical to a nexus approach, such as the inclusion of partnerships and reference to co-benefits with the actions they designed to build resilience. The heterogeneity among the systems that each plan emphasized reflects the heterogeneity among the challenges that each city faces. While context-specific differences in resilience plans across cities are expected, some consistency in addressing certain infrastructural needs and their nexus interactions may greatly benefit and improve the implementation of resilience planning.

show abstract

Acting local, thinking global: Globalizing resilience through 100 Resilient Cities

Cited by 11 publications

References 42 publications

What Can We Learn from Urban Crisis?

What Can We Learn from Urban Crisis?

Measuring Resilience in the Assumed City

An Analysis of Resilience Planning at the Nexus of Food, Energy, Water, and Transportation in Coastal US Cities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About