Introduction:

• Urban resilience is the capacity of urban systems, communities, individuals,

organisations and businesses to recover maintain their function and thrive in
the aftermath of a shock or a stress, regardless its impact, frequency or
magnitude.
• Resilience has been defined as the amount of disturbance a (urban) system
can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction, and
the degree to which the system can build and increase its capacity for learning
and adaptation (Folke et al 2004).
• Cities are homes to the future. With more than 60% of world population living
in cities, the focus is on how to make them more sustainable in terms of
consumption, living conditions and socio-environmental footprint
• Since the pandemic is largely an urban phenomenon – over 95% of cases have
been in cities. The coronavirus has indeed exposed grave problems with our
cities. Starting with their extreme fragility. Because cities are the main
thoroughfares of our economies and key nodes in our global system, they
amplify and spread rather than absorb risks which percolate across tightly
interconnected economic, energy, food, water, and health systems. Almost
70% of city dwellers lack access to reliable core services – water, electricity,
transport, and affordable housing.
• More than 880 million people live in densely packed informal settlements where
social distancing is not option. Up to 80% of urban employment in cities across
the global South is in the informal sector, often beyond the reach of formal social
safety nets and employment protection programmes. Informal workers in these
sectors underpin urban economies across cities of all types yet they lack the
resources to ride out a crisis. Thus, inequity is a major driver of systemic
vulnerability.
• we need to change the way our cities are built, run, and governed. For the
recovery to be green and resilient, you need to build resilience where it is most
needed, in the world’s cities.
• As in every disaster or crisis- whether floods, cyclones or this pandemic- area
with dense concentrations of the urban poor are impacted more that the rest
of the city. These are the places where infrastructure and amenities are poor
even in normal times.
• The pandemic has highlighted again the need for building spaces that are not
ghettos, but non- segregated mixed class, mixed-use neighbourhoods that
allow people to support each other. Such mixing would ensure that neglect and
poverty is not locked into pockets, that vulnerable populations have access to
the city centres and its resources, and they’re not neglected during a crisis.
• The pandemic drove home forcefully how we are only as strong as our weakest
link, underscoring the need to build resilience in urban environments where the
impacts and responses to future pandemics will be most dramatically felt and
where responses and recovery measures can be the most potent.
• Recognising and addressing the stark reality of urban inequality is essential for
addressing this and future pandemics. Closing the urban services divide can
help cities build back better and more equitably to better withstand the next
crisis.
• “Cities are petri dishes not just for communicable diseases, but also for
breakthrough solutions, innovations, and audacious ideas”.

• The (positive) transition to the urban resilience represents the focus of studies
and analyses and cities to work towards resilience in cities that includes mainly
four urban domains: -
1. Urban landscape, urban ecosystems also referring to supply and enjoyment of
ecosystem services,
2. Infrastructures including structures and services,
3. People, the communities and their capacities to recover, thrive and innovate,
4. Institutions and governance including but not limited to adaptive governance,
collaborative decision-making and behavioural change.

• As cities shift from crisis response to recovery, engagement with national

governments will be key therefore to shaping large-scale investments in
infrastructure for water, sanitation, housing/slum upgrading, and transport
which are needed to build back better and provide growing urban populations
with essential services.
• “Resilience is greatly influenced by the quality of urban governance and the
level of infrastructure and services provided by the government.” Prasad et al
2009, p.33, The World Bank.

• A resilient city is able to bounce back from shocks – be they social,

economic, environmental or institutional. At the same time, the Coronavirus
opens the opportunity to make our cities more resilient to this kind of health (or
sanitation) challenge that urban planners have not been considering as a
priority for a long time.