The city politics of an urban age: urban resilience conceptualisations and policies

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 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.

Conflicts in the functioning process urban communities: current state of research

“…Исследователями признаётся значительная роль сообществ в создании полицентричной структуры городской политики, основанной на гражданском участии и обеспечивающей устойчивость и адаптивность городов. В то же время такая структура призвана способствовать преодолению конфликтов [33]. С этой проблемой сталкиваются все города, в которых социально-экономическое развитие приводит к росту гражданского самосознания и, как следствие, росту конфликтов, в первую очередь основанных на уже упоминавшейся идее NIMBY.…”

Co-production and Resilient Cities to Climate Change

“…This discourse is based on the notion of nature stability and, consequently, the implicit desire of returning the system to its original state. Such dominant approach, however, has been highly criticized from a human development point of view (Evans 2011;Jabareen 2015;Sánchez et al 2018). Part of these critiques highlight that the prior state to the disturbance can often perpetuate inequalities between social groups.…”

“…Part of these critiques highlight that the prior state to the disturbance can often perpetuate inequalities between social groups. Other critiques point out that such approach only provides emergency responses to crisis and questions if this is sustainable in the long term (Sánchez et al 2018). Further, it is argued that this mainstream discourse provides adaptation responses resulting from top-down decision-making processes and, consequently, does not include the voices of those more vulnerable and marginalized (Jabareen 2015).…”

“…This alternative discourse also highlights the need to question whose resilience, that is, who takes part in the decision-making process because has the power to do it, including power issues among the members of a community, and who will be the winners and losers of the resulting adaptation measures and actions (Colding 2007). The implementation of such alternative approach to the conservative discourse, however, implies challenges related to overcoming existing top-down governance structures, building enough capacity for adaptation through learning or defining what is acceptable and for whom (Sánchez et al 2018).…”

Social cohesion revisited: a new definition and how to characterize it

“…This fact renders the process of understanding to be delicate, as the failure of shaping fitting resilience threatens the ability of cities as a whole to function economically, socially and politically (Vale 2014). Multiple understandings may result in organizations cherry picking specific aspects and leaving other unaddressed, polemic turf-wars that will not result in action, and, most challenging, a lack of cohesion in attempts to achieve meaningful resilience in and across cities (Sanchez, van der Heijden, and Osmond 2018). The opposite is true as well, as interventions based on such understandings can promote crisis on social cohesion at various levels (Kearns and Forrest 2000).…”