The Routledge Handbook

of Urban Resilience

This volume provides a comprehensive discussion and overview of urban resilience, including socio-​
ecological and economic hazard and disaster resilience. It provides a summary of state of the art thinking
on resilience, the different approaches, tools and methodologies for understanding the subject in urban
contexts, and brings together related reflections and initiatives.
Throughout the different chapters, the handbook critically examines and reviews the resilience con-
cept from various disciplinary and professional perspectives. It also discusses major urban crises, past and
recent, and the generic lessons they provide for resilience. In this context, the authors provide case studies
from different places and times, including historical material and contemporary examples, and studies
that offer concrete guidance on how to approach urban resilience. Other chapters focus on how current
understanding of urban systems –​such as shrinking cities, green infrastructure, disaster volunteerism, and
urban energy systems –​are affecting the capacity of urban citizens, settlements and nation-​states to respond
to different forms and levels of stressors and shocks. The handbook concludes with a synthesis of the state
of the art knowledge on resilience and points the way forward in refining the conceptualization and appli-
cation of urban resilience.
The book is intended for scholars and graduate students in urban studies, environmental and sustain-
ability studies, geography, planning, architecture, urban design, political science and sociology, for whom
it will provide an invaluable and up-​to-​date guide to current approaches across these disciplines that con-
verge in the study of urban resilience. The book also provides important direction to practitioners and
civic leaders who are engaged in supporting cities and regions to position themselves for resilience in the
face of climate change, unpredictable socio-​environmental shocks and incremental risk accumulation.

Michael A. Burayidi is Professor of Urban Planning in the Department of Urban Planning at Ball State
University, Indiana, US.

Adriana Allen is Professor of Development Planning and Urban Sustainability at the Bartlett
Development Planning Unit at University College London, UK.

John Twigg is an independent researcher and Honorary Professor at University College

London, UK.

Christine Wamsler is Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University Centre for Sustainability
Studies (LUCSUS) and former co-​director of the Societal Resilience Centre, Sweden.
The Routledge Handbook
of Urban Resilience

Edited by Michael A. Burayidi, Adriana Allen,

John Twigg, and Christine Wamsler
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Michael A. Burayidi, Adriana Allen,
John Twigg, and Christine Wamsler; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Michael A. Burayidi, Adriana Allen, John Twigg, and Christine Wamsler
to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​58359-​7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​0-​429-​50666-​6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
 Contents

List of figures  ix
List of tables  xiii
List of contributors  xv
Foreword by Allan Lavell  xxix

1 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience  1

Michael A. Burayidi, John Twigg, Christine Wamsler, and Adriana Allen

PART I
Critical review from different disciplinary perspectives  15

2 Urban resilience and urban sustainability  17

Christian Kuhlicke, Sigrun Kabisch, and Dieter Rink

3 Against general resilience  26

Henrik Thorén

4 Urban resilience: A call to reframing planning discourses  35

Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

5 The being of urban resilience  47

Christine Wamsler, Lynne Reeder, and Mark Crosweller

6 Data gaps and resilience metrics  59

Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

7 Urban open space systems: Multifunctional infrastructure  71

James A. LaGro, Jr.

v
Contents

PART II
Urban systems under stress  83

8 Climate justicescape and implications for urban resilience

in American cities  85
Chingwen Cheng

9 Assessing urban vulnerability to extreme heat-​related weather events  97

Sanglim Yoo

10 Critical infrastructure and climate change  117

Suwan Shen

11 Policies and practices on urban resilience in China  130

Quan Yuan

12 Building urban resilience to climate change: The case of Mexico

City Megalopolis  143
Fernando Aragón-​Durand

13 Resilient urban water services  158

Åse Johannessen, Christine Wamsler, and Sophie Peter

14 Resilient shrinking cities  172

Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

15 Land bank formation: Reorganizing civic capacity for resilience  184

John West

PART III
Dimensions of resilience  195

16 Assessing socio-​ecological resilience in cities  197

Marta Suárez, Erik Gómez-​Baggethun, and Miren Onaindia

17 Disaster volunteerism as a contributor to resilience  217

Samantha Montano

18 Green infrastructure and resilience  229

David Rouse

19 Latino revitalization as “blight”: generative placemaking and ethnic

cultural resiliency in Woodburn, Oregon  243
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

vi
 Contents

20 Gendered invisible urban resilience  260

Hanna A. Ruszczyk

21 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities  272

Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

22 Energy dimensions of urban resilience  298

Antti Silvast

23 Climate resilience, mitigation, and adaptation strategy: Case studies

from the Middle East and West Africa  310
Adenrele Awotona

24 Resilience, reconstruction, and sustainable development in Chile  320

Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene

PART IV
Resilience building in practice  329

25 Urban risk readdressed: bridging resilience-​seeking practices

in African cities  331
Adriana Allen, Braima Koroma, Mtafu Manda,
Emmanuel Osuteye, and Rita Lambert

26 Closing the urban infrastructure gap for sustainable urban development

in Sub Saharan Africa: Moving to scale in building urban resilience  349
Shuaib Lwasa

27 Municipal resilience in Chile: From willingness to implementation  364

Claudia González-​Muzzio and Claudia Cárdenas Becerra

28 Understanding the fabric of large urban areas to improve disaster

planning and recovery  382
Charles John Kelly

29 The helping hand in increasing Nepal’s urban seismic resilience  394

Amod Mani Dixit, Ranjan Dhungel, Manish Raj Gouli, Ramesh Guragain,
Surya Narayan Shrestha, Suman Pradhan, Surya Bhakta Sangachhe,
Sujan Raj Adhikari, Nisha Shrestha, Kapil Bhattarai, Pramod Khatiwada,
Bishnu Hadkhale, Ayush Baskota, Rita Thakuri, and Hanna Ruszczyk

vii
Contents

30 Roof gardens as alternative urban green spaces: A three-​part study

on their restorative quality in Seoul, South Korea  411
Narae Lee

31 Resilience through nature-​based solutions: Governance and

implementation  430
Bernadett Kiss, Kes McCormick, and Christine Wamsler

32 Social resilience and capacity building: A case study of a granting agency  445
Laura Tate

33 Critical junctures in land use planning for disaster risk management:

The case of Manizales, Colombia.  458
Julia Wesely

34 Urban resilience: State of the art and future prospects  476

Adriana Allen, John Twigg, Michael A. Burayidi, and Christine Wamsler

Index  488

viii
 Figures

6.1 Schematic diagram showing different approaches to measuring risks

covered in this chapter  61
8.1 Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for the continental United States
illustrating decile ranking and HotSpot spatial analysis of counties
with high social vulnerability  89
8.2 Climate change associated hazards by types and frequency in the
United States, 2005–​2015  90
8.3 The number of total hazard events in the United States 2005–​2015
and total economic loss in 2015 million US dollars  90
8.4 Ecological Vulnerability Index for the continental United States
illustrating decile ranking and HotSpot spatial analysis of counties
with high ecological vulnerability  92
8.5 Technological Vulnerability Index for the continental United States
illustrating in decile ranking and HotSpot spatial analysis of counties
with a lack of green infrastructure land covers  93
8.6 Climate Justice Index in decile raking and Climate Justicescape in
American cities illustrating cities that are within HotSpot of counties
with high climate justice index  94
9.1 Typical urban heat island effects in a US city by day and night  98
9.2 Area of contiguous 48 states with unusually hot summer temperatures,
1910–​2015  98
9.3 United States disaster mortality, 1999–​2012  99
9.4 The hazards-​of-​place model of vulnerability  101
9.5 ATSDR SVI 2016, showing overall vulnerability of the
United States  104
9.6 Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) 2010–​2014 for South Carolina
census tract  106
9.7 Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) 2010–​2014 for South Carolina
counties  107
9.8 Extreme heat vulnerability framework  108
9.9 National map of heat vulnerability by census tract  110
9.10 Schematic representation of the disaster resilience of place
(DROP) model  112

ix
Figures

10.1 Urban critical infrastructure inter-​and intra-​dependencies  120

10.2 Factors contributing to critical urban infrastructure’s vulnerability to
climate change  122
11.1 Changes in standardized urban resilience indices of Wuhan during
1990–​2010  134
11.2 Changes in urban resilience indices in cities in the Yangzi River
Delta during 2010 and 2013  134
12.1 Basin of Mexico  146
12.2 Alcaldías of Mexico City  147
13.1 Metro Cebu is located on the eastern side of the island of Cebu
in the Central Philippines  161
13.2 Main risk factors that hamper urban water resilience in Metro Cebu
linked to inadequate spatial planning/​drainage, waste, and water
management  162
13.3 Salinity map for the years 1975, 1985, and 1995 showing salt water
infiltration  163
13.4 A toilet in a poor neighborhood in the upland barangay of
Guadeloupe. Flies can enter this open hole in the ground and
can easily transmit diseases  166
13.5 The barangay of Tinago in the downtown area of Metro Cebu is an
area with insecure tenure. There is inadequate drainage, and jerry cans
containing drinking water, which are sold by the government, are
visible in the center of the photo  167
14.1 Decadal local population change of St Louis, MO, Pittsburgh, PA,
Rochester, NY, Syracuse, NY, and Binghamton, NY from 1970 to 2010  176
14.2 Decadal suburban population change of St Louis, MO, Pittsburgh,
PA, Rochester, NY, Syracuse, NY, and Binghamton, NY from
1970 to 2010  177
14.3 Proportion of residents 25 years or above with at least some college
education in five US shrinking cities, 1970 to 2010  179
16.1 Number of studies published per year  204
16.2 Number of studies by research field  204
16.3 Methodologies to assess urban resilience  205
16.4 Conceptual framework to assess socio-​ecological general resilience
in cities  209
18.1 Norfolk 2010 vision map  235
19.1 Non-​Latino vs. Latino population in Woodburn, Oregon  248
19.2 Woodburn, Oregon, historic downtown  250
20.1 Nepal road network  262
20.2 Bharatpur wards 1–​14  263
21.1 Map of selected counties by Metropolitan Statistical Area  273
21.2 Total employment in major manufacturing and service clusters for
Duluth, Grand Rapids, Racine, and South Bend (MSAs), in 2001–​2016  278

x
 Figures

25.1 DRM decentralization attempts in Sierra Leone  337

25.2 The DRM risk wheel on flooding in Freetown  341
25.3 An online platform created to document and monitor how risk
accumulation cycles materialize over time, where, and why  342
25.4 Community dwellers capturing hazards, vulnerabilities, and
capacities to act using open source mobile phone applications  342
25.5 Mistmatch between the location and density of disaster events
and mitigating interventions in Karonga  344
27.1 Underlying factors, variables, and sub-​variables proposed by ONEMI
to define the Communal Index of Underlying Risk Factors (ICFSR)  368
27.2 Governance dimension of Index of Underlying Risk Factors  375
27.3 Budget intended for risk and emergencies at the municipal
level (2016)  377
27.4 ICFSR and communal category according SUBDERE (2017)  378
29.1a–b Satellite images of Kathmandu Valley show the rice fields being
replaced by urban houses  397
29.2a Progression of building code compliance in BCI municipalities
during 2012–​2016 (compliance checked at site)  403
29.2b Progression of building code compliance in BCI municipalities
during 2012–​2016 (compliance checked in building plans submitted
for building permits)  404
30.1 Intensive roof garden  413
30.2 Extensive roof garden  414
30.3 Semi-​intensive roof garden  415
30.4a Scanpath of one of the participants in the roof garden  422
30.4b Scanpath of one of the participants in the roof garden  422
30.5a View pattern in the roof garden by aggregating all participants’
view patterns  423
30.5b View pattern in the roof garden by aggregating all participants’
view patterns  423
30.6a Scanpath of one of the participants in the park  424
30.6b View pattern in the park by aggregating all participants’
view patterns  424
30.7a Scanpath of one of the participants in the city street  425
30.7b View pattern in the city street by aggregating all participants’
view patterns  425
31.1 Components of the open stormwater system in Augustenborg  433
31.2 Fitzroy Gardens in the City of Melbourne  434
31.3 The Isar River getting back its natural riverscape  435
32.1 Components of agency collaboration  449
32.2 Level of satisfaction of training participants with program  450
33.1 Critical junctures for DRM in Manizales with those examined in
this chapter highlighted in blue  460

xi
Figures

33.2 View from the center towards the east of Manizales. High-​r ise
buildings are constructed on the plateau of the city, while small
residential houses remain invisible from this perspective  462
33.3 DRM institutions related to Manizales  464
33.4 Critical juncture: Land use plan 2001–​2013  465
33.5 Informal housing constructed on the southern slopes around 2010  468
33.6 Critical juncture: Land use plan 2017–​2029  469

xii
 Tables

4.1 Mainstream and alternative discourses  43

8.1 Results of principal component analysis with social vulnerability
variables  88
9.1 US Census variables used to construct ATSDR SVI 2016  103
9.2 Summary of US Census tract level variables used to construct
SoVI 2010–​2014  105
9.3 Variables used for heat-​related vulnerability  110
10.1 Potential impacts of climate change on critical urban infrastructures
in coastal regions  119
11.1 The urban resilience index system  133
11.2 A summary of major urban flooding events in China in recent years  135
11.3 A summary of sponge city related plans and policies in selected
cities in China  137
11.4 Building seismic damage statistics with regard to structural types  139
12.1 Flood and landslides risk in the alcaldías of the Mexico
City Megalopolis  150
12.2 Disaster risk management and climate change adaptation action
in the alcaldías of the Mexico City Megalopolis  151
13.1 Interviewees and their field of work and affiliation  160
14.1 US shrinking cities with stable boundaries in single principal city
metropolitan regions that have lost 25 per cent or more of their
population between 1970 and 2010  175
14.2 Decadal population change of US shrinking cities 1970 to 2010  175
14.3 Shrinking city universities in the Top 100 Richest Universities list by
endowment size (2018)  178
14.4 Ratio of the number of suburban patents relative to the number of
urban patents in five shrinking US cities  180
14.5 Ratio of the number of suburban patents per capita relative to the
number of urban patents per capita in five shrinking US cities  180
15.1 Muncie: Population change  187
15.2 Indiana state property tax cap  188
15.3 Vacant, abandoned and blighted calculations  188
15.4 Land bank model matrix  191

xiii
Tables

16.1 The five Ws of urban resilience  198

16.2 The three major resilience concepts  200
16.3 Analysed variables and categorization  203
16.4 Matrix to guide the process of finding urban resilience indicators
with examples from literature.  211
18.1 Green infrastructure benefits  230
19.1 Retail and services opportunities identified in updated Woodburn
Urban Renewal Plan  244
21.1 Population in the four MSAs, 2010–​2017  277
21.2 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in Duluth, 2001–​2016  279
21.3 Employment in Service clusters in Duluth, 2001–​2016  281
21.4 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in Grand Rapids MSA,
2001–​2016  283
21.5 Employment in Service clusters in Grand Rapids-​Wyoming,
2001–​2016  285
21.6 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in Racine, 2001–​2016  286
21.7 Employment in Service clusters in Racine, 2001–​2016  287
21.8 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in South Bend, 2001–​2016  291
21.9 Employment in Service clusters in South Bend, 2001–​2016  292
22.1 Select planning and design criteria for a resilient urban energy system  303
26.1 A categorization of hybrid and heterogenous water supply systems  355
26.2 A categorization of hybrid and heterogenous water supply system  357
27.1 Main disasters in Chile between 2010 and 2018  365
27.2 Classification of Chilean communes by SUBDERE  369
27.3 Main contents of communal plans of investments in disaster risk
reduction for nine communes in Chile  371
28.1 Livelihood capitals and disaster impacts in large urban areas  388
29.1 Urbanization rates in Nepal, 1961–​2018  395
30.1 Minimum design loads of three types of roof garden  415
30.2 One sample test of preference  418
30.3 Paired t-​test of preference  418
30.4 One sample test of Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS)  418
30.5 Paired t-​test of Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS)  419
30.6 Selected restorative factors in cities, roof gardens, and urban  420
30.7 Selected non-​restorative components in cities, roof gardens, and
urban parks  420
30.8 Materials of the low-​cost eye-​tracker  421
32.1 Summary: ANT contributions to unpacking social resilience
microprocesses  447

xiv
 Contributors

Adenrele Awotona, Professor of Sustainable Urban Development in the School for the
Environment, is the founder and Director of the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities
after Disasters at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He was previously Director of Studies
for the British Council International Seminars (“Reconstruction after disasters”) in the United
Kingdom. He has also organized major international conferences (on Afghanistan, China, Iraq,
Japan, etc.), and hosted a workshop for the US Department of State (with participants from
Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay). A stream of publications has emanated from
both his research and consultancy services.

Adriana Allen is Professor of Development Planning and Urban Sustainability at the Bartlett
Development Planning Unit at University College London, where she leads the research cluster
on Environmental Justice, Urbanization and Resilience (EJUR). She is also the Bartlett’s Vice-​
Dean International and is actively engaged in various initiatives promoting trans-​local learning
and enhanced research capacity, both within UCL and internationally. Originally trained as
an urban planner in Argentina, she specialized over the years in the fields of urban environ-
mental governance and political ecology. Adriana has over 30 years of international experi-
ence in research, postgraduate teaching, and consultancy undertakings in over 20 countries
across the Global South. Through the lens of risk, water, land, food, and health, her work looks
at the interface between everyday city-​making practices and planned interventions and their
capacity to generate transformative spaces, places, and social relations. Her most recent books
include: Untamed Urbanisms (2015), Environmental Justice and Resilience in the Global South (2017),
Urban Water Trajectories (2017) and the Routledge Handbook of Global Urban Health (2019).

Ali Adil is an interdisciplinary urban energy scholar who holds a PhD in Urban Planning and
Public Policy from the University of Texas at Arlington. His research efforts are focused on the
transactional spaces at the intersection of social sciences and energy studies and devoted towards
identifying and examining innovative strategies and creatives approaches to achieve a clean
energy future for all. His research interests include socio-​technical energy transitions, energy and
environmental governance, and local policy studies. In addition to his doctoral degree, he holds
a Master’s degree in Engineering and Management from University of Glasgow and a Bachelor’s
degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Osmania University. His prior work
experiences include ICLEI-​Local Governments for Sustainability and the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory.

Amod Mani Dixit completed his Doctorate of Engineering from the Graduate School of
Science and Engineering, Ehime University. His professional experience of more than four

xv
Contributors

decades comprises stints with the the Department of Mines and Geology (GON), a private
engineering consultancy, and also a visiting professorship of engineering geology in Tribhuvan
and Kathmandu universities. In 2017–​ 2018, Dr Dixit was Visiting Professor with Ehime
University. Dr Dixit is a founder of NSET and is currently serving as its General Secretary.
Dr Dixit also chairs the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN) that
has membership of more than 50 civil society organizations working in disaster risk reduc-
tion from 20 countries in. Asia. Dr Dixit has received several national and international awards
and decorations for his works in disaster risk reduction. Dr Dixit has presented more than 100
papers at national and international conferences and published many peer-​reviewed research
papers and book chapters.

Antti Silvast is a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department
of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture. Previous to this, he worked in Princeton University,
Durham University, and the University of Edinburgh. His main research interests include
Science and Technology Studies (STS), energy infrastructures, risk, and resilience. He is the
author of Making Electricity Resilient (Routledge, 2017) and the first editor of three special issues
on “Energy in Society” (Science & Technology Studies, 2013–​2014). He serves as an editor of Science
& Technology Studies, the official journal of the European Association for the Study of Science and
Technology, and is the coordinator of the Disaster, Conflict and Social Crisis Research Network
of the European Sociological Association.

Åse Johannessen is currently an international post doctorate researcher at the Division of Risk
Management and Societal Safety, Lund University, , based at the Delft University of Technology
(TU Delft) in The Netherlands. Her research focuses on social learning for holistic water man-
agement and governance in relation to various water crisis issues, especially flooding, where she
also engages in knowledge exchange and policy dialogue. Åse has a PhD in Risk Management
(2017) and MSc in Biology/​Systems Ecology (1999) and has worked for about 20 years with
research, education, technical support, managing programs, and policy advice to various water
and environmental initiatives worldwide, for example the Stockholm Environment Institute
(SEI), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Department of Environment and Rural
Affairs (Defra, UK), the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and the International
Water Association (IWA).

Austin Zwick is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Maxwell School of Public Affairs and
Citizenship at Syracuse University. He previously obtained a PhD in Planning from the
University of Toronto and an MPA in Public Finance and Fiscal Policy from Cornell University.
He is interested at how cities and regions economically transform, triggered by technological
innovation.

Ayush Baskota is a civil engineer graduated from Institute of Engineering,Tribhuvan University.

Mr Baskota had joined NSET in 2014 for the USAID/​OFDA funded and NSET implemented
Building Code Implementation support program. After the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, NSET
started providing technical assistance for the earthquake reconstruction through USAID
supported “Baliyo Ghar” program. He is currently working in the program as a civil engineering
professional at head office with a few years of experience as a district coordinator at Nuwakot,
one of the 14 most earthquake-​affected districts. His major works include planning and imple-
mentation of various earthquake risk-​reduction activities including capacity-​building training

xvi
 Contributors

and awareness, structural design, research and study of the Nepal National Building Code. He
has attended several international/​national training programs and conferences on earthquake
risk management. Mr Baskota is a trained instructor and has been involved in various training
courses.

Bernadett Kiss is a postdoctoral researcher at the International Institute for Industrial

Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University. Bernadett, with a background in environ-
mental policy and management, business economics and humanities, engages in action research
in the field of sustainable urban development, with the focus on governance, policy, and innov-
ation in the built environment

Bishnu Hadkhale is a sociologist by profession. He has completed his Master’s degrees in

Sociology & Anthropology and English Literature from Tribhuvan University. Mr Hadkhale
joined NSET in 2013 and worked as a team member for the Community Based Disaster Risk
Reduction (CBDRM) Division. After the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, NSET started providing
technical assistance for earthquake reconstruction through the USAID supported “Baliyo Ghar”
program. Mr Hadkhale joined that program at the beginning. He is currently working as a
senior social development officer for the “Baliyo Ghar” program. In his six years of professional
association with NSET, he has been involved in various community-​based efforts of NSET. Mr
Hadkhale is a trained instructor and has served as course coordinator for Training for Instructors
(TFI) and has been part of various disaster risk reduction training programs as an instructor.

Braima Koroma is Director of Research and Training at the Sierra Leone Urban Research
Centre (SLURC) and Lecturer in the Institute of Geography and Development Studies, School
of Environmental Sciences, Njala University. He has a special interest in urban livelihoods, envir-
onmental management, climate change, and development impact evaluation. Braima has over
10 years’ experience of teaching, research, training and facilitation, and consultancy on a broad
spectrum of interdisciplinary research to examine complex environmental and development
problems. He has worked for clients that have included the African Development Bank, the
World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, the UK Department for International
Development (Justice Sector Development Programme), the German Technical Cooperation
Agency, UNEP, the World Food Programme, the Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the
Environment, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, NASSIT, NaCSA, Plan
International-​Sierra Leone, and World Vision International. He is presently the Science and
Technology Correspondent for the United Nation Convention to Combat Desertification and
Land Degradation. His recent research has been on improving the living conditions of commu-
nities and ecosystems facing land degradation and climate change in Sierra Leone.

Cassidy Johnson is Associate Professor at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University
College London, where she researches and teaches about disaster risk, post-​disaster recovery
and climate change adaptation. Cassidy Johnson’s research contributes to the area of disaster risk
reduction and recovery and to the role of local governments and civil society in this (and to
integrating an understanding of disaster) risk into development. This has encompassed issues of
urban planning, housing quality, building code regulations, informal settlements (and upgrading),
and evictions. Cassidy’s work engages internationally with policymakers as well as with local
communities in more than ten countries across Asia and Africa, including Turkey, Thailand,
Bangladesh, India, Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi.

xvii
Contributors

Charles John Kelly has over 40 years of field experience in disasters, having dealt with com-
pound disasters, droughts, food insecurity, earthquakes, insect infestation, hurricanes, epidemics,
floods, war, and other emergencies, predominantly in developing countries. Mr Kelly has
recently been involved in the development of a risk assessment tool for sand and dust storm.
Earlier work has included contributions to the Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment
process, the Green Relief and Recovery Toolkit, and the Natural and Nature-​Based Flood
Management: A Green Guide. Mr Kelly provides environmental support capacities for the
Global Shelter Cluster and via the WWF Environment and Disaster Management Help Desk.
Mr Kelly is a member of the International Association of Impact Assessment and co-​chairs the
Disasters and Conflict Section.

Chingwen Cheng is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Design School and
Senior Sustainability Scientist at Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.
Her integrated research, teaching, and practice aim to understand social-​ecological-​technological
vulnerability to climate change and investigate the role of green infrastructure planning and
design via transdisciplinary collaboration to enhance community resilience and address climate
justice.

Christian Kuhlicke is leading the working group Environmental Risks and Extreme Events at the
Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental
Research –​UFZ in Leipzig. He is also Professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences and
Geography at the University of Potsdam. His research focuses on environmental risks, extreme
events, and how vulnerabilities, risk, and resilience are produced in governance and management
processes as well as in practices of everyday life.

Christine Wamsler is Professor of Sustainability Science at LUCSUS and former co-​director

of the Societal Resilience Centre in Sweden. She is Research Fellow at the Centre of Natural
Disaster Science (CNDS), Associate of Lund University Centre for Risk Assessment and
Management (LUCRAM), Honorary Research Fellow of the Global Urbanism Research Group,
Global Development Institute (GDI) of the University of Manchester. She is an internationally
renowned expert in sustainable development, integrated disaster risk reduction, climate change
adaptation, urban resilience and transformation, with more than 20 years of experience working
in these fields, both in theory and practice. She has led many international projects and published
over 100 papers, book chapters, and books on related issues.

Claudia Cárdenas Becerra is a senior expert in disaster risk management with 20 years of
working experience in Latin America and the Caribbean regions where she has advised public
and private organizations. She holds a Master’s in Educational Sciences from the Universidad de
Panamá and has specialized in disaster risk reduction, education and gender. Claudia is member
of La Red and founder member of GRID Chile.

Claudia González-Muzzio is a consultant in land planning and disaster risk management 20

twenty years of working experience. She is CEO and partner at Ámbito Consultores Ltd and
founder member of GRID Chile, a Chilean NGO focused on disaster risk reduction and com-
munities. She is an Architect from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and holds an MSc
in Environment, Science and Society from University College London. Claudia is an independent
researcher and her main interests are resilience, urban vulnerability, and disaster capitalism.

xviii
 Contributors

David Rouse is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a registered land-
scape architect with nearly 40 years of experience in community planning and design. He is
the former Managing Director of Research and Advisory Services for the American Planning
Association, where he led APA’s applied research programs, including the Planning Advisory
Service, Green Communities, Hazards Planning, and Planning and Community Health. Prior
to joining APA in 2013, he was a principal at the firm Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) in
Philadelphia.

Dieter Rink is Senior Researcher and Deputy Head of the Department of Urban and
Environmental Sociology at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research –​UFZ in
Leipzig. Additionally he is Honorary Professor for Urban Sociology at the University of Leipzig,
Institute for Cultural Studies. His main research fields are sustainable urban development, urban
governance and social movements, urban nature, and urban ecology.

Elizabeth Wagemann is Assistant Professor, Escuela de Arquitectura, Facultad de Humanidades,

Universidad Mayor, Chile. She is a trained architect with a MArch from Universidad Católica
de Chile. She holds an MPhil in Architecture and a PhD from the University of Cambridge,
where she studied transitional and permanent housing after disaster and developed low-​
cost and post-​disaster housing in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Her
research is focused on resilience and sustainable reconstruction after disasters in vulnerable
territories.

Emmanuel Osuteye is Research Fellow at the Development Planning Unit, University

College London with a broad interest in multidisciplinary approaches to understanding
environmental and sustainable development challenges in sub Saharan Africa. His current
and recent work has focussed on the emergence and activity of indigenous environmental
movements to influence policy, decentralized governance systems of disaster risk manage-
ment and local capacities, and the interplay of formal and informal planning structures on
urban development in Africa.

Erik Gomez-​Baggethun is Professor of Environmental Governance at the Norwegian

University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Senior Scientific Advisor at the Norwegian Institute for
Nature Research (NINA), and a Senior Visiting Research Associate at the University of Oxford.
His research focuses on ecological economics and environmental values. He is President of
the European Society for Ecological Economics and a lead author of the report “The eco-
nomics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” (TEEB) and of the global assessment report of the
Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Eva Lema is as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Geography, Central

Michigan University. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Maritime Studies and an MSc in Shipping
Economics, from University of Piraeus, and a PhD from the Department of Economics and
Regional Development at the Panteion University. In her PhD dissertation, she studied the
economic tools to mitigate shipping emissions. Her research area includes transportation and
environmental economics, and the regional economic development of coastal areas. While over-
seas, she served as General Secretariat advisor at the Greek Ministry of Shipping and a research
associate at the University of Piraeus.

xix
Contributors

Fernando Aragón-​Durand is lecturer at the Posgraduate Program on Sustainability Sciences

(UNAM-​Mexico) and fellow of the LEAD Program at El Colegio de México. With more than
19 years of experience partnering with national, regional, and local institutions, think-​tanks,
and action-​tanks for Mexico, Central, the Caribbean and South America, he also works as an
international consultant and adviser on climate change adaptation, disaster risk management,
sustainable urban development, and policy. Dr Aragón-​Durand is Lead Author of the Special
Report on Global Warming of 1.5C (2018) and the 5th Assessment Report, Working Group
II “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” (2014) for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). He holds a PhD on Development Planning –​Development Planning Unit,
University College London and a Masters on Urban Development –​El Colegio de México.

Gerardo Francisco Sandoval is Associate Professor in the Department of Planning, Public

Policy, and Management at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on the roles of
immigrants in community regeneration, the urban planning interventions of governments
in low-​income immigrant communities, and the transnational relationships that exist within
immigrant neighborhoods. Dr Sandoval’s books include Immigrants and the Revitalization
of Los Angeles: Development and Change in MacArthur Park, and Biking Justice and Urban
Transformation: Biking for All? Dr Sandoval has published in journals focused on urban planning
and community development such as the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Urban Studies,
Community Development, and the Journal of Urbanism. He received his PhD in City and Regional
Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.

Hanna A. Ruszczyk is a postdoctoral Research Associate at Durham University’s Institute of

Hazard, Risk and Resilience and the Department of Geography. She conducts research on urban
risk governance and resilience strategies in medium-​sized, regional cities of the Global South
that are often ignored in academic literature. At the present time, Dr Ruszczyk is working on her
second book, tentatively titled Overlooked Cities of the Global South. She is particularly interested
in how gendered aspects of cities manifest themselves in creating and understanding risk. Before
academia, Dr Ruszczyk worked for two United Nations agencies, the International Labour
Office and the United Nations Development Programme.

Henrik Thorén is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Helsinki at the Helsinki
Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and the Department of Practical Philosophy. He
has an MA in Theoretical Philosophy and History from the University of Gothenburg. He hold a
PhD in Theoretical Philosophy from Lund University, where he worked on philosophical aspects
of interdisciplinarity and scientific integration in sustainability science at the Lund University
Center of Excellence for the Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability
(LUCID). He has written on a range of philosophical and conceptual issues with relevance in
sustainability science including inter-​and transdisciplinarity, the concept of resilience, ecosystem
services, and the value of nature.

Ivonne Audirac teaches City and Regional Planning in the Department of Planning and
Landscape Architecture at the University of Texas, Arlington’s College of Architecture, Planning
and Public Affairs (CAPPA). Her research is theory driven and interdisciplinary. It focuses on the
social, ecological, economic, and policy dimensions of the processes of urbanization and urban
development. She undertakes collaborative international comparative research regarding global-
ization and urban restructuring resulting in shrinking cities –​a twenty-​first century perspective
on urban decline, re-​urbanization, and city resilience. She is founding member of the Shrinking

xx
 Contributors

Cities International Research Network (SCIRN) –​an international group of planning scholars
and urbanists from across five continents. In addition to publishing numerous book chapters
and refereed journal articles in planning and urban studies journals including the Journal of the
American Planning Association, TRB, International Regional Review, International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, Progress in Planning, she published the edited books Rural Sustainable Development
(1997) and Shrinking Cities South/​North (with Jesus Arroyo Alejandre, 2010).

James LaGro, Jr is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional
Planning at the University of Wisconsin-​Madison. His research, teaching, and outreach examine
the public policies and planning and design practices that shape the built environment and
impact community sustainability. His professional experience includes positions in higher edu-
cation, private practice, and public service at local, state, and federal levels.

John Twigg is an independent researcher and Honorary Professor at University College London.
He has worked in the field of disaster risk reduction and resilience for more than 25 years, in the
NGO sector and as a lecturer, researcher, and consultant. His research interests include commu-
nity resilience, understanding disaster institutions, urban resilience, post-​disaster recovery, equity
and inclusion, risk assessment methodologies, and disability and disasters. His research crosses the
disciplinary boundaries between geography, sociology, engineering, planning, and humanitar-
ianism, with the application of academic research to improve operational practice being a par-
ticular concern. He is the author of more than 90 academic and other publications on disaster
risk reduction and is an editor of the journal Disasters.

John H. West has been Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Ball State University since
2015. His current research examines community development practice in shrinking cities with
a particular interest in land banks. His mixed-​method approach explores the how legal and eco-
nomic factors effect land bank efficacy and describes the challenges of creating new institutions
in the context of resource scarcity, population loss, and disillusionment. He is leading an effort
in Muncie, Indiana to create a land banking and working on a national study of land banking
practices.

Julia Wesely is a Research Fellow at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), University
College London, where she is involved in research on co-​learning and capacity building for
urban planners. She recently completed her PhD on integrated disaster risk management, which
analyzed the development of an enabling institutional environment for urban risk management
in the city of Manizales in Colombia. Her work aims to contribute to a better understanding
and promotion of individual, collective as well as institutional capabilities for fostering social-​
environmental justice and urban equality.

Kapil Bhattarai is a civil engineer by profession and currently pursuing a Master’s in Structural
Engineering at the Asian Institute of Technology. He served as Deputy Program Manager for
the USAID/​OFDA funded and NSET implemented program “Technical Support for Building
Code Implementation in Municipalities of Nepal (TSBCIN)” where his major responsibilities
include mobilizing project staff into various municipalities; providing supervision, monitoring
and guidance to implement program activities in respective municipalities. Apart from this, Mr
Bhattarai is also engaged in earthquake risk assessment, community-​based disaster risk reduction
activities as well as seismic vulnerability and damage assessment of buildings. Mr Bhattarai is a
trained instructor and has been involved in various training courses.

xxi
Contributors

Kes McCormick, with a background in political science and environmental science, engages in
a combination of research, education, communication, and innovation activities. He is Associate
Professor at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at
Lund University as well as an Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI) at
Melbourne University. He works in the fields of sustainability, governance, cities, and greening
the economy.

Laura E. Tate is an urban planning lecturer, scholar and consultant with deep interests in how the
social world interacts with material landscapes and objects in planning and policy. She has been
a visiting lecturer at Eastern Washington University as well as at the California Polytechnic State
University. She has co-​edited two books: Planning for AuthentiCITIES with Brettany Shannon,
and Actor Networks of Planning with Yvonne Rydin. Laura has an extensive practice background,
in land use and growth management planning at local and senior government levels, as well as in
community mental health policy and nonprofit funding.

Lynne Reeder is Adjunct Research Fellow in the School of Health and Life Sciences at
Federation University Australia, where she researches the evidence base of empathy and com-
passion. She is a director of Australia21 and, in that role, founded the Mindful Futures Network,
which is mapping how and where mindfulness, empathy, and compassion are being applied in
Australian organizations.

Manish Raj Gouli has completed a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree from the Institute
of Engineering,Tribhuvan University. Mr. Gouli joined NSET in 2017 as a technical officer –​
engineer for the USAID supported and NSET implemented program “Baliyo Ghar”, which
is providing technical assistance for post-​earthquake reconstruction in Nepal to support
Nepal government’s initiative to “Build Back Better”. Mr Gouli is engaged mainly in earth-
quake risk reduction activities including design and implementation in seismic retrofitting
of buildings. He is involved in preparing documents related to post-​earthquake reconstruc-
tion in Nepal with critical comparison among various components as well. He has also
presented papers and participated in various national/​international conferences, training and
symposiums.

Marcello Graziano is Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography &

Environmental Studies at Central Michigan University. Marcello is an economic geographer,
with a specialization in regional economics and energy geography. His recent works focus on
the concept of “Blue Economy”, investigated through mixed-​methods approaches, and through
the framework of the Food–​Energy–​Water–​Environment Nexus. He holds a BSc in Foreign
Trade, and an MSc in International Economics (both from the University of Turin), and a PhD
in Geography from the University of Connecticut. In addition to his current post, Marcello is
Research Fellow at Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis (CCEA) at the University of
Connecticut.

Margarita Greene is Professor, Escuela de Arquitectura, Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y

Estudios Urbanos, Universidad Católica,. She is an architect, holding a Master’s in Sociology
from Universidad Católica de Chile and a PhD from University College of London. Her
expertise includes informal settlements, vulnerable neighborhoods, and heritage. Her research
includes mixed methods and space syntax.

xxii
 Contributors

Mark Crosweller AFSM is a former Director General of Emergency Management Australia

and now Head of the National Resilience Taskforce for the Australian government, where he
provides high level policy advice for the national, state, territory, and local governments of
Australia. Mark is also a PhD scholar at the University of Western Australia.His research is titled
“the ethical premise of leading people through the adversity of disasters”. This research focuses
on how ethics such as compassion influences leadership and reduces the suffering of those who
experience disaster and loss.

Marta Suárez is a predoctoral researcher at UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Development and

Environmental Education at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/​EHU) and at Ecology
and Education for Sustainable Cities Association –​Transitando. Her research focuses on the
study of socio-​ecological resilience and ecosystem services in urban settlements, considering
dimensions of environmental justice. She has been a visiting PhD student at the Norwegian
Institute for Nature Research (NINA).

Matthew Liesch is Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Central

Michigan University. Liesch publishes research on the communities of the Great Lakes Basin,
particularly around Lake Superior. His research involves techniques such as interviews, eth-
nography, archival methods, and geospatial software to investigate the relationships between
people, place, and land use in the Great Lakes Basin. Liesch holds a PhD in Geography from the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, with additional training in environmental history, anthro-
pology, and landscape planning.

Maxwell Hartt is a lecturer in Spatial Planning in the School of Geography and Planning at
Cardiff University. He is a former Fulbright scholar and holds a PhD in Planning from the
University of Waterloo. His research focuses on the intersection of demographic change and
urban planning. Specifically, his work examines prosperity and vitality in shrinking and aging
cities.

Michael A. Burayidi is Professor of Urban Planning in the Department of Urban Planning

at Ball State University, Indiana. He has special interest in downtown resilience, a subject in
which he has authored several books and professional journal articles. Burayidi is also President
of Burayidi Consulting, LLC, a planning and land development consulting firm registered in
Indiana. Through his firm and teaching practise, he has provided consulting services for public
and private sector organizations nationally and internationally in such areas as neighborhood and
downtown revitalization, program evaluation, comprehensive planning, transportation planning,
and housing and economic development, among others.

Miren Onaindia is Professor of Ecology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/​EHU)
and UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Development and Environmental Education. She is director
of the Master’s program in “Environment, Sustainability and Sustainable Development Goals”
of the UPV/​EHU. Her research topic focuses on the study of biodiversity, landscape, and evalu-
ation of ecosystems, with application to landscape sustainable management. She has supervised
15 doctoral dissertations and 30 Master’s projects, and published a total of 70 papers in scientific
journals, books, and book chapters. She has been a visiting professor at several universities: the
University of Oxford,Veracruz, Santo Domingo, Nevada, the National University of La Pampa,
and Universidad Regional Amazónica-​Ecuador.

xxiii
Contributors

Mtafu Manda is Senior Lecturer in Planning in Land Management Department. His research
interests are urban informality, disaster risk management, tenure security, and urban livelihoods.
Through the not-​for-​profit Urban Research and Advocacy Centre (Urac), Mtafu also supports
community-​based organizations including the Mzuzu Urban Farmers Network (MUFNet) and
the Child Development Support Organisation (CHIDESO). He is instrumental in the establish-
ment of the Malawi Urban Network (Malawi UrbaNet), a grouping of civil society, professional
institutes, research organizations and individuals in Malawi.

Narae Lee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban Planning & Public Policy at the
University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on the relationship between the built envir-
onment and human behavior and psychological well-​being. She is interested in using multiple
methods to measure psychological well-​being. Currently, she is working on sentiment analysis of
social media data and building a mood prediction model for better understanding of urbanites’
psychological well-​being.

Nick Revington is a doctoral candidate in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.
His research focuses on housing markets, as inflected by urban policy, politics, and planning, with
particular interest in the transition to a knowledge economy. His current work examines the role
of private investment in student housing in Canada.

Nisha Shrestha is an environmentalist by profession and has more than ten years of experi-
ence in the field of disaster risk reduction. She has been associated with NSET since 2006,
where she has had different responsibilities. Ms Shrestha has been leading the Monitoring and
Evaluation Unit (MEL) at NSET and is involved in designing and implementing monitoring
and evaluation systems and conducting project monitoring and evaluations. Ms Shrestha has
also been involved in various disaster risk management and emergency response training
courses conducted by NSET as an instructor. For Views from the Frontline, a global initiative of
GNDR, Ms Shrestha has worked as Regional Coordinator for South and South-​East Asia and
also National Coordinator for Nepal. Ms Shrestha is a trained instructor and has been involved
in various training courses.

Pramod Khatiwada is a civil engineer graduated from the Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan
University,. Mr Khatiwada joined NSET in 2014 for the USAID/​OFDA funded and NSET
implemented Building Code Implementation support program.After the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake,
NSET started providing technical assistance for earthquake reconstruction through the USAID
supported “Baliyo Ghar” program. Mr Khatiwada served for that program as District Lead for
Dhading, one of the 14 most affected districts. He is currently working at NSET as a program
coordinator/​civil engineer for the NSET implemented consortium program “Nepal Safer Schools
Project (NSSP)” supported by DFID. His major works include planning and implementation of
various earthquake risk-​reduction activities, including capacity building and awareness, struc-
tural design, research and study of the Nepal National Building Code. He has attended several
international/​national training programs and conferences on earthquake risk management. Mr
Khatiwada is a trained instructor and has been involved in various training courses.

Ramesh Guragain has acquired a PhD in Earthquake Engineering from the University of Tokyo.
Dr Guragain has been working in the field of earthquake risk reduction/​management for two
decades. He has worked as team leader for various programs related to seismic risk assessment of
buildings, infrastructures, and settlements in Nepal as well as in the south Asian region. Currently,

xxiv
 Contributors

Dr Guragain works in the position of Deputy Executive Director of NSET and also leads the
USAID supported and NSET implemented “Baliyo Ghar Program”, which is a housing recon-
struction project for the technical assistance on housing reconstruction to support the GON.
He has led teams of NSET professionals in the formulation of various training curricula and
provided trainings to different target audiences. Dr Guragain is a trained instructor and has been
involved in various training courses.

Ranjan Dhungel is a senior civil engineer having a Master’s degree in Risk and Environmental
Hazard from Durham University. He is a mid career professional, since December 2008 designated
as program manager at NSET, with a progressive performance record. Currently, he is leading the
Gorkha earthquake housing reconstruction program implemented by NSET with support from
USAID. Mr Dhungel’s efforts on housing reconstruction have become instrumental to provide
technical assistance on housing reconstruction following the government of Nepal’s (GON)
plan and policies. Mobilization and supervision of the work of around 200 professional staff
and experts highlights the special importance of his work in the aftermath of this disaster event.
He has published and presented more than 15 national and international conference papers,
contributed to writing book chapters, and is active in difference research work with multidis-
ciplinary research teams in Nepal and outside –​for example “Scoping study on Building Rural
Resiliency in Seismically Active Region –​Nepal with Durham university study team-​Durham”
(www.dur.ac.uk/​resources/​ihrr/​nepalresiliencereportFinal.pdf).

Rita Lambert is an urban development planner originally from Ethiopia. She is currently a
senior teaching fellow and researcher at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University
College London, and a co-​investigator on several research projects in Africa and Latin America.
Her current research addresses the relationship between planning and informality with a focus
on the production, manipulation and circulation of spatial knowledge, and the development
of participatory mapping methodologies to expand the room for manoeuvre towards socio-​
environmentally just urbanization.

Rita Thakuri is working as Executive Secretary at NSET and is currently pursuing her Master’s
degree in Crisis Management. In her eight years of professional association with NSET, Ms
Thakuri has been responsible for managing the overall secretarial tasks of NSET Executive
Director and Deputy Executive Directors that includes coordination, communication as well
as providing support to various national and international events, workshop, training programs,
seminars organized by NSET and many other stakeholders. Ms Thakuri is also Manager for
ADRRN, which has as members more than 50 civil society organizations working in dis-
aster risk reduction from 20 countries of Asia. She has 19 years of experience on administra-
tion in various organizations in Nepal. She is currently doing her research focusing on women
masons in earthquake reconstruction in Nepal and has presented a paper at the First South Asia
Conference on Earthquake Engineering (SACEE 2019) in Karachi.

Roanel Herrera is a commercial real estate appraiser at the Flynn Group. Mr. Herrera was also a
Peace Corps volunteer in Panama. He received his BA in Anthropology from UCLA and MA in
Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon.

Samantha Montano isVisiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Management

at North Dakota State University. She has a doctoral degree in emergency management and
specializes in the role of the non-​profit sector and volunteers in disaster.

xxv
Contributors

Sanglim Yoo is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Planning at Ball State
University. She has a doctoral degree in environment and natural resources policy and specializes
in the geospatial analysis of the urban environment and its vulnerability.

Sigrun Kabisch is head of the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology at the
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research –​UFZ in Leipzig. Additionally she is Professor
for Urban Geography at the University of Leipzig. She acts as chair of the Scientific Advisory
Board of the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe. Her main research interests
refer to interdependencies between social, built, and natural environments in urban landscapes,
urban transformations towards sustainability, interdisciplinary approaches, and comparative case
studies.

Sophie Peter is a PhD candidate, focusing on the socio-​cultural dynamics of ecosystem services
at the Department of Social Sciences of Goethe University. Her research is part of the large-​
scale and long-​term German project “Biodiversity Exploratories”. This project connects with
Sophie’s expertise in environmental sciences, policy, and management, concentrating on the
relationship between humans and nature, seen from a social science perspective.

Sujan Raj Adhikari is a geologist by profession, currently pursuing a PhD in Geophysics at the
University of Western Ontario focusing on Seismic microzonation, and 3D velocity model. He
has more than 13 years of local and international experience in the field of geo-​engineering and
geo-​environment. He started his career from ITECO Nepal in 2004, working on road sector and
hydropower projects, where he spent most of his time on borehole logging, geological mapping,
and assessing environmental impacts in addition to landslide mitigation work. He worked in
the National Society for Earthquake Technology Nepal (NSET) from 2011–​2018 as a geologist
during his tenure Mr Adhikari has mostly engaged in earthquake risk assessment, urban and
community-​based disaster risk reduction activities with a focus on natural hazards and risk. He
has published and presented numbers of journal/​conference paper on his areas of works and
expertise.

Suman Pradhan is a structural engineer and has more than 10 years’ professional experience in
Disaster risk management and earthquake engineering in Nepal and abroad. He is working on
the USAID/​OFDA supported program “Technical Assistance for Building Code Implementation
in Nepal (TSBCIN)” as Program Manager from its Phase I –​“Building Code Implementation
Program in Municipalities of Nepal (BCIPN)” in 2013. After the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, Mr
Pradhan worked as team leader to conduct detailed damage assessment of 200,000 buildings
in 15 affected municipalities. He joined NSET in April 2007 as a civil engineer with core
involvement in seismic vulnerability assessment, retrofitting design, and construction. He holds
a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Kantipur Engineering College, Tribhuvan
University and a Master’s degree in Evaluation Control and Reduction of Environmental
Seismic Risk (MECRES) from Sapienza University, Rome, under the EUNICE-​ERASMUS
MUNDUS program. He combines his technical expertise and program management and coord-
ination skills to oversee the delivery of disaster resilience programs.

Surya Bhakta Sangachhe has worked as Senior Technical Advisor for NSET since July 2010. He
is former Director General of Department of Urban Development and Building Construction
(DUDBC), GON. Mr Sangachhe is an architect planner with a Master’s degree in Architecture

xxvi
 Contributors

from the Kiev Civil Engineering Institute (1975) and another Master’s degree in Conservation
of Cultural Heritage from the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies (IAAS), University of
York (1986). Mr Sangachhe served with the Department of Urban Development and Building
Construction, GON (1976–​2008) and led the Lumbini Development Project (1976–​1988) and
urban land development, specially the land pooling projects (1990–​1998) in the Kathmandu
Valley. He is the co-​author of Land Pooling Manual. He led the team of architects, planners,
and engineers, responsible for the Strategic Development Plan of Kathmandu Valley (KV
Development Plan 2020) in 1999–​2000. Mr Sangachhe is a trained instructor and has been
involved in various training courses.

Surya Narayan Shrestha has acquired an MSc in Structural Engineering from the Institute
of Engineering, Tribhuvan University and is now pursuing a PhD at the same university, with
research at teh University of Basilicata. In his two decades of professional experience, Mr Shrestha
has worked as team leader of several programs implemented by NSET focused on earthquake
risk reduction in Nepal and the region. As Executive Director, his main responsibilities are to
lead NSET’s operation to help make “Earthquake Resilient Nepali Communities”, develop and
implement strategic plans, programs, and innovative ideas, provide regular guidance and monitor
implementation of NSET program activities. Mr Shrestha is a trained instructor and has been
involved in various training courses.

Suwan Shen is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at
the University of Hawaii Manoa. She holds an MA and PhD in Urban Planning and MSc in
Civil Engineering from the University of Florida. Suwan’s primary research focuses on the
interaction between critical infrastructure system and the changing environment, with a par-
ticular emphasis on climate change vulnerability. Suwan’s work examines the vulnerability of
critical infrastructures and explores the adaptation options to climate change using transporta-
tion and land use models, spatial analysis, and environment projection and simulations. Suwan
has conducted research to examine the vulnerability of emergency facilities to projected storm
surge, estimate the impacts of sea level rise and changing rainfall patterns on the transporta-
tion network, evaluate the preference and effectiveness of adaptation strategies with stakeholder
engagement, and explore the socio-​economic factors influencing local vulnerability and adaptive
capacity. Currently, Suwan is working on projects investigating the social sensitivity to sea level
rise induced coastal flooding.

Quan Yuan is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of City and Regional Planning
at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. His research interests lie in urban transportation
and land use, particularly in freight, parking, environmental sustainability, urban resilience, and
transportation technology.

Shuaib Lwasa is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography Geoinformatics and

Climatic Sciences at Makerere University. Shuaib is active in teaching and research using inter-​
disciplinary research approaches on disaster risk reduction. Recent works are the fields of climate
change, adaptation, urban environmental management, spatial planning, disaster risk reduction,
and urban sustainability. His works focus on cities in the Global South, adaptation to climate
change, health impacts of climate change, and urban resilience. Shuaib served as Scientific
Committee member of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program and was
the immediate previous chair. Shuaib is also a coordinating lead author on Urban Systems and
Human Settlements in AR6.

xxvii
 Foreword
By Allan Lavell

Predominantly promoted out of a consideration of the reality and complexity, contradictions,

and crises of modern urban growth and the now dominant presence of urban centers as places to
live and work, circulate and consume, enjoy and suffer, be served and serviced, or be marginalized
or excluded, it is both appropriate and necessary that time and critical reflection be dedicated to
the idea of resilience in urban contexts (referred to generically as “urban resilience”).
The present book does this admirably and unabashedly and its wide-​ranging coverage of
definition and understanding, context and application, and the questions as to what, why, when,
who and where, is obliged reading for students and practitioners of urban planning and devel-
opment, as well as the interested lay person. Such a wide-​ranging collection of essays is difficult
to find in any one single place. Written by authors from many parts of the world, it poses and
reflects on the many doubts and hopes for the concept of resilience, and identifies needs for clari-
fication, evolution, and precision in the search to make the concept of resilience accessible and
practical for use in general, and by local governments in particular. What is intuitively suggestive
still needs to be forged into something consensually understandable and applicable.
Resilience, ubiquitous in its use and dissemination in international agency, governmental and
academic circles, came quickly on the scene and seems to be here to stay. And, widescale rec-
ognition now exists that the world is predominantly urban and that this is an irreversible trend.
Faced with long-​standing, on-​going, and even increasing development challenges to cities in the
developing south and accentuated and novel “crises” for many basically well-​organized cities in
the north (from financial to terrorism; climate change to environmental pollution), the linking of
resilience to an analysis of urban problems and their resolution is easily understandable. But this
linking and the bases on which it is forged have elicited different reactions and responses. Doubts
and critique, if not necessarily always articulated in written and analytical form, are probably as
prevalent as enthusiasm and conviction when applying the concept to research or practice. This
is most certainly true amongst southern audiences where a rather rote repetition of the notion is
common, but no real consensus exists as to what is meant by resilience and how such a concept
can be applied. For many. it does not naturally lie in the bed of central southern development
concerns and discussions, although its head now lies on the pillow.
Resilience, paralleling sustainability, is possibly now the most referred to macro condition or
process, in discussions and debates on human, social, economic, and infrastructural development.
Originating in engineering, child psychology, and ecology its “adaptation” to understanding
and promoting positive change is basically a movement of this present century, with important

xxix
Allan Lavell

outliers in the 1990s. It, as sustainability, is underlined by hopes of progress, advance, increased
stability, and rationality. However, it is fundamentally a concept developed in northern aca-
demic circles and “exported” to the south. Written contributions to the debate on concept
and application are not that prevalent from the south, although for some what is now referred
to as resilience has existed for a long time. Moreover, perhaps reflecting this spatial concentra-
tion of academic pursuit, many resilience programs stimulated by international agencies and
organizations are heavily weighted in favor of developed country cities. This is the case of the
in-​transition Rockefeller Hundred Cities program, which includes only some 30 cities are from
the south and these are in general large metropolitan centers, national or regional capitals, not
rapidly growing intermediate cities that could possibly most benefit from close attention.
This is significant, because the way in which resilience can be used in northern and southern
cities, post impact, post crisis, is in many ways very different. In the former, crisis many times
occurs in the frame of basically well-​organized and planned cities with low levels of exclusion
and marginality (this is not to say this is always true as the cases of New Orleans and San Juan
during Katrina and Maria well demonstrated), but challenged by new tends and stressors. In the
latter case, cities are basically socially and economically segregated, constructed on the existence
of exclusion, marginality and poverty, often unplanned and almost routinely affected by more
traditional or common disasters, euphemistically referred to still as natural disasters. Thus, the
notion of resilience with or without transformation assumes a very different stance in one and
the other and the weight of basic underlying structural deficits do so also.Thus, as more than one
observer has commented somewhat cynically, resilience in the north basically refers to if you can
afford insurance. In the south very few can (or it may not be available at all), so progress depends
much more on the opportunities for structural transformation, not on a daily post-​impact basis
but rather through public policy and continued efforts to change the balance of society and the
ways it distributes wealth and opportunity, so all can be “insured” and assured.
Resilience does show a significant difference to such notions as “coping” or “survival strat-
egies”, also essentially engineered in the north decades ago, as concepts and strategic approaches
to provide guidance on paths to increased welfare in the south, when faced with the adverse
impacts of dependent development. Such concepts, in retrospect, seemed to “condemn” the
developing south to a constant struggle, a constant getting by, within the ever-​existing and seem-
ingly complex structural burden of poverty. Resilience, however, can be seen in its intention to
go beyond such “getting on with things as they are”, and has evolved in its original meaning of
“bouncing back” to include ideas on moving on and transformation –​but, a “transformation”
that is essentially very different in its meaning and scope in developing and developed contexts.
Resilience is also many times seen as the opposite of vulnerability and its negative connotations,
a context that led, towards the end of the 1980s, to an increased emphasis on capacities for over-
coming development deficits and impacts, an idea borne in the debates on post-​disaster rehabili-
tation and reconstruction.
Going beyond origins and appropriateness, and the debates around this, it is fascinating to
be face to face with an idea, whether it be seen as a notion, a concept, an ordering principle, a
platform or fulcrum, which exists, is used ubiquitously, seems to be the basis for much work in
development contexts, but which essentially is not understood, agreed on or consensus based,
and is constantly in a process of “definition” and establishment or fixing of its content and limits.
It is widely employed but not consensually concretized, exists but floats in a world of difference
of interpretation.
Definition and constant redefinition, or maybe manipulation, come after use, as has been the
case with “adaptation”. It is what each researcher from a different school of thought believes it
to be, and, while the basic precepts and assumptions of original resilience theory are respected,

xxx
 Foreword

additions and manipulations are all seen to be valid. And, due to this, as Meerow, Newell and
Stults found in their systematization of definitions of urban resilience, dozens of different
definitions exist.
A central question broached wittingly or not, in the sum of essays published in this innova-
tive collection refers to the outstanding question how a macro concept that is so undefined and
contested and that is basically built on the basis of already existing understandings or interpret-
ations of multiple “urban” processes, discussed and debated widely (from urban theories on socio
spatial and economic segregation, poverty and inequality, on urban rent notions through to dis-
aster risk and social construction, to gender studies and ethnicity etc.), can so quickly have taken
a lead in the scene of development debates. This then obliges us to consider its ideological and
political, social interaction and cohesion usage as opposed to direct scientific and practical appli-
cation. Here experience has shown us that much still needs to be done to advance the incorp-
oration of the concept in everyday decision-​making and provide tangible, comparable indicators
of advance if the concept of resilience is to someday have widespread measurable results on the
ground. The book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman asked how long it would take for the
world to return to a “natural” configuration if human society was to disappear tomorrow, leaving
all its artifacts behind. Maybe it is interesting to ask here: if the concept of resilience were to dis-
appear from use and discussion tomorrow, how much would change and where would it change
in terms of advance on the problems that resilience is used to announce and searches to help
comprehend and resolve? This book provides a comprehensive exploration the concept and its
application to urban areas. It deserves to be read by all who are concerned with the development
of urban areas in this century.

xxxi
 1
Introduction
Rethinking Urban Resilience
Michael A. Burayidi, John Twigg,
Christine Wamsler, and Adriana Allen

Tom and Arlette Stuip were enjoying breakfast and relaxing on a terrace overlooking the
beach and the Andaman Sea in Khao Lak, Thailand when the Tsunami hit in 2004. The couple
observed the ocean begin to recede, which at first created a spectacular site for the sunbathing
tourists. Instinctively, however, Tom remembered there was an earthquake earlier in the day and
realized this forebode of a disaster about to unfold, so he took Arlette’s hand and they sought
higher ground. Within minutes a wall of water was coming at them at a speed of 50 miles an
hour. When it was all over many of their friends were either swept away, dead or wounded, and
the hotel and beachfront buildings were destroyed (Ryder and Dafedjaiye 2014).
Alice Jackson is a reporter who for 30 years lived on the coast of Mississippi. Until the advent
of hurricane Katrina in 2005, she had weathered five hurricanes and numerous tropical storms.
When the weather forecast warned of a hurricane that one night, she boarded up her house and
gathered her family to safer ground at a friend’s house. Only later did she realize the eye of the
hurricane was heading their way. Late that night, strong winds walloped the house they were
staying in and woke up the family.When the radio reported that all emergency operation centers
in the area were washed away, the gravity of the storm began to sink in. Suddenly and without
warning, a giant pine tree in a neighbor’s yard crashed through the house, giving way to the
strong winds (Jackson and Lang 2005).
As day broke, what the family saw was worse than they had imagined. Streets and parking lots
were turned into lakes, houses were blown off their basements, dead bodies were strewn on the
streets, and destruction was everywhere they looked. Debris and waterlogged streets prevented
them from getting to her mother’s house to check on its condition. From afar, they could see
what remained of the house, a concrete slab. Reflecting on her experience, Alice remarked; “I
no longer want to live in Mississippi. I no longer want to go to sleep at night in a graveyard.You
know you’ve seen it all when you’ve watched deputies taking ice chests from the local Winn-​
Dixie to store bodies” (Jackson and Lang 2005).
Typhoon Haima hit the Phillippines in 2016 and disrupted the lives of close to a million
people. It is said to have been the third most intense tropical cyclone in the world. As World
Vision communicator, Joy Malujo recounts, Jonas Pagcanlungan, a farmer, lost his farm and
investment following the disaster. He was counting on raising $300 from his rice farm that year
to help pay his medical bills and the education of his two children. Now he has no farm and no

1
Burayidi, Twigg, Wamsler, and Allen

money to pay his bills. Elena, whose house was also destroyed by typhoon Haima, had to live in a
tarp shelter on the side of the road with ten other families but was grateful she made it out alive
with her children (Malujo 2016).
Tropical storm Vinta struck Mindanao, the Philippines in 2017 claiming 30 lives and
causing massive flooding. ABS-​CBN News reported that it caused landslides that killed 47
people in Zamboanga del Norte, and 17 people in Barangay Panganuran in the town of
Gutalac, and floods that drowned 18 people in the municipality of Sibuco (ABS-​CBN News
2017). Maulana Malunay, a 75-​year-​old elder from the village of Panganan counted herself
lucky. She survived the floods and was able to salvage her favorite necklace and a few belong-
ings. Maulana is a member of the Matigsalug tribe who had lived along the Salug river for
generations but have had to evacuate when the flood inundated their farms and washed away
their homes.
Zlata Filipović, Kon Kelei, Grace Akallo, Shena A. Gacu, and Emmanuel Jal are all former
child soldiers from different continents of the world, forced to fight in wars they did not under-
stand. They chronicled their harrowing stories in books and through artistic performances. Zlata
was doing his homework in the evening when he heard the first gunshots in his native Bosnia.
That gunshot interrupted his schooling and took his innocence. His school in Sarajevo was
bombed and eventually closed. Zlata recollects how wars affect the lives of children like him:

We know what emergencies are: we have felt them on our skin, they crept into our lives,
blew them away, sliced them, fragmented them. They stole our innocence, humanity,
childhood, families, our right to education.
One day our pens were dropped, notebooks abandoned, benches deserted. Rooms that
were once covered with our drawings, lingering with giggles and passed notes became
empty. The fear of being called up to the board to solve a math problem and the excite-
ment of discovering the magic of writing were gone. Learning how to play, how to pull a
pen across paper and how to leave a permanent mark in this world was snatched from us.
Instead, our schools became shelters, places where humanitarian aid was distributed. Schools
transformed into bombed-​out ghost buildings, vandalized spaces, storerooms for weapons,
demarcations of enemy zones and front lines.
(Filipović 2009)

These stories speak of the catastrophic events that cause hazards and disasters and disrupt lives.
Many others are just as disastrous although they may be less traumatic in nature. Sea level rise
for example is a slow-​burn phenomenon that may not cause the type of sudden chaotic events
recounted in the vignettes of lives shared above but it is just as pernicious in the long run. Every
day stressors such as extreme urban heat, drought that leads to low crop production, and lack of
access to potable water and adequate sanitation in urban areas eventually build up to a crisis if
they are not recognized and attended to in their incipient stages.
This book is about these and many other types of hazards and disasters that confront urban
residents on a daily basis. Some such as earthquakes are fast-​burn, high impact disasters, while
others, such as fuel poverty and air pollution, are chronic stressors that impact the everyday lives
of urban residents (Allen et al, 2017).
This book also recognizes resilience in its various forms –​such as engineering, ecological, and
evolutionary resilience. The contributing authors therefore discuss urban resilience not only as
the ability to “bounce back” but also to “bounce forward” and adapt, reconstituting themselves
into functional units, as well as their ability to withstand unpredictable catastrophes.

2
 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience

Several international organizations track the number and severity of hazards and disasters.
The data tell us that we should expect more disasters in the future due to climate change. But
we already have far too many hazards and disasters in the world. As we have seen in the vignette
of people stories narrated above, disasters disrupt livelihoods, destroy property, maim and kill
people. Disasters flip people’s lives upside downtown, turn thriving communities into places of
despair, wreak havoc on urban and rural environments, destabilize lifestyles, and create humani-
tarian crisis.The problem is not a lack of information about disasters and their severity but about
how urban areas can more appropriately mitigate disasters and adapt to their new environments
following a disaster. Moreover, there is limited guidance for civic leaders on how cities can avert
both fast burn and slow burn disasters and adapt to both acute shocks and chronic stressors. The
goal of The Routledge Handbook of Urban Resilience is to fill this gap.

Urban development and disasters

Hazards and disasters, being induced by a combination of natural and human factors, con-
tinue to pose a problem to the health and lives of urban residents where the majority (54 per
cent) of the world’s population now reside. The United Nations projects that the proportion of
urban residents will grow to 68 per cent of the world’s 6.4 billion population by 2050, adding
2.5 billion people to the urban population. North America currently has the largest propor-
tion of urban residents (82 per cent) but the fastest growing urban population is occurring in
sub Saharan Africa and Asia, where 90 per cent of the urban population growth will take place
between now and 2050 (United Nations 2018).
Urban areas are especially affected by disasters. There are many ways in which urban devel-
opment can increase disaster risk. Examples are the increasing concentration of people on vul-
nerable urban lands that are prone to disasters. In developing countries, rural to urban migration
continues unabated as inequity in resource distribution, job opportunities (real and perceived),
and infrastructure investment favors cities over rural areas. The most vulnerable populations are
usually but not exclusively concentrated in areas that are of high density and poorly planned.
Other reasons are the expansion of hard surfaces on open spaces and farm land that makes them
impermeable to runoff, thereby increasing the risks of flash flooding and pronouncing the urban
heat island effect, high densities that make it easier for communicable diseases such as Ebola and
cholera to spread easily in the population, and weak political systems that are unable or unwilling
to enforce building regulations (Wamsler 2014).
The problem is not confined to the less developed countries. In the developed countries, the
flight of the middle class from central cities in the United States for example has led to a high
concentration of poverty in these areas. Legacy cities such as Detroit are still reeling from the
effects of deindustrialization and are searching for the coping mechanisms needed to address
the effects of economic restructuring. With limited resources and weak political influence, poor
neighborhoods may be unable to marshal the resources needed to recover from disasters when
they occur. Yet, because residents in these neighborhoods develop strong social networks and
coping mechanisms, they may have the potential to capitalize on these traits to quickly recover
from crisis. Understanding how poor urban residents survive and sometimes thrive in unfor-
giving environments is useful to developing and scaling up such support systems to enable urban
residents to withstand crisis situations (Wamsler 2007).
By contrast, since the Second World War, suburban development in the United States has
increasingly encroached on open spaces and dissected the migration path of wildlife habitats.
The effects of such urban intrusion on flora and fauna in its natural setting has contributed to
changes in wildland vegetation and landscapes and made them less resilient to environmental

3
Burayidi, Twigg, Wamsler, and Allen

stress. Suburban development has also proliferated on fire prone land and exacerbated the
“wildland-​urban interface” that has made residents in such communities vulnerable to wild
fires. It is estimated that 32 per cent of housing units in the United States are in the wildland–​
urban interface (Radeloff et al. 2005) and this is projected to grow. The result is that wildfires
have become more ferocious, difficult to fight, and deadly when they erupt as was the case of
the Yarnell Hill wildfire that took the lives of 19 elite fire fighters in Prescott, Arizona in 2013.
In 2018, the wildfire in Paradise, California was the most destructive and deadliest in California
history, consuming a total of 1.9 million acres and costing close to $4 billion in damages.
The World Bank estimates that by 2050 some 680 million people in urban areas will be
exposed to cyclones and that 870 million will face earthquake risks, up from 310 million and
370 million respectively in 2013 (Lall and Deichmann 2009). With climate change, urban risk
and disasters are projected to increase, particularly in the coastal regions of the world. It is
estimated that already 87 per cent of disasters are climate related as opposed to geophysical in
nature. At the same time, urban settlements contribute to climate change through profligate use
of fossil fuels: “With more than 50 per cent of the world’s population, cities account for between
60 and 80 per cent of energy consumption, and generate as much as 70 per cent of the human-​
induced greenhouse gas emissions primarily through the consumption of fossil fuels for energy
supply and transportation” (UN Habitat, p. 16).
The Routledge Handbook of Urban Resilience is conceived to be a reference manual that will
provide guidance to postgraduates, academics and practitioners looking to get a synoptic over-
view of the state of the art of the field and its trajectory. The book will also be beneficial to
civic leaders and organizations seeking information on how to pursue urban development that is
environmentally friendly, reduces the risk of urban residents to vulnerabilities, show them ways
to the root causes of such vulnerabilities, and the steps needed to respond and recover, should
they be affected by a disaster.

Scope of the book

There are multiple discourses of resilience and from many disciplinary frameworks. This book
takes a broad scope in its treatment of urban resilience. It includes chapters on hazard and disaster
resilience and socio-​ecological and economic resilience. Because urban politics and governance
is critical to the response to disasters and urban crisis, this subject also takes a prominent role in
the discussions in the book.
The book is intended to provide a synoptic overview of the state of the art of the field and
its trajectory. It provides the tools and methodologies for understanding the subject and brings
together current reflections and initiatives on the concept. Contributors to the book include
researchers and reflective practitioners from all over the world, ranging from academic pieces to
case studies. The discussions cover all kinds of urban settlements, large and small, and both per-
manent and semi-​permanent settlements.

Organization of the book

The handbook is organized into four parts including this introduction and a concluding chapter.
Each part addresses a particular aspect of urban resilience. Part I of the book provides a crit-
ical review and discussion of the concept of resilience from different disciplinary perspectives.
Contributors discuss resilience theories and their problems by providing a state-​of-​the art review
of the resilience debate, its relationship with urban development, and environmental and social
justice.This includes chapters addressing the resilient city (resilience theory as applied specifically

4
 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience

to urban contexts), and the convergence and divergence of theories on urban resilience and sus-
tainability. In doing so, the authors point out the void and the need for a more comprehensive
approach to understanding resilience in the urban context.
In urban systems under stress, Part II, contributing authors discuss major urban crises, past
and recent, with the generic lessons they provide for resilience. The authors include case study
discussions from different places and times, including historical material as well as more contem-
porary examples. The urban heat island effects on the elderly, the effects of climate change on
the provision of urban infrastructure, the distribution of urban utilities under extreme weather
conditions and socio-​economic inequities, the effects of deindustrialization in the creation of
urban blight and how cities are building the capacities and the governance systems to address
these problems, are the subjects of discussion in this part of the book.
Part III is devoted to a discussion of the many dimensions of resilience (social, ecological,
and technological). Specific examples and reviews of how urban settlements have been affected
by and/​or adapted to particular shocks and stresses are provided in this section of the book.
Included in this section are contributions that discuss how current understanding of urban
systems such as shrinking cities, green infrastructure, disaster volunteerism, and urban energy
systems, is affecting the capacity of urban settlements and nation-​states to respond to different
forms and levels of stressors and shocks.
Part IV provides lessons on resilience building in practice from different countries of the
world. Examples of local, national, and international initiatives and approaches to promote urban
resilience or tackle particular risks and the lessons learned are discussed. Specific examples and
reviews of how urban settlements have been affected by and/​or adapted to particular shocks and
stresses are also provided in Part IV.

Part I: Critical review from different disciplinary perspectives

The book begins with an exploration of the concept of resilience and its significance to the
development of urban areas and cities. In Chapter 2 “Urban resilience and urban sustainability”
Christian Kuhlicke, Sigrun Kabisch, and Dieter Rink acknowledge the significance of the
leading concepts governing planning thought and practice in urban development and make a
distinction between sustainability and resilience. The authors make a distinction between the
concepts as they are used in the various professions while also acknowledging their constraints
in guiding urban development.
In Chapter 3, Henrik Thorén discusses general and specific resilience, arguing that systems
cannot be designed or expected to withstand all kinds of stresses. Therefore, a decision has to
be made on what is important, so civic leaders and urban scholars have to be deliberate about
the particular resilience that urban areas are expected to withstand. Systems that are designed to
withstand generic stressors, he posits, are bound to fail.
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac in Chapter 4 trace resilience to its ecological roots and its
emergence in the academic literature in the nineteenth century to describe the ability of
timber to withstand pressure without breaking. They then consider its use in the various dis-
ciplines, including urban planning, emergency management, and urban climate adaptation. The
authors contend that despite the concept’s widespread use, it has to date been inadequate in
addressing issues of social justice, equity, and participatory democracy, and therefore call for a
reconceptualization of resilience in practice to broaden its scope and application to addressing
these issues in society.
In Chapter 5, Christine Wamsler, Lynne Reeder, and Mark Crosweller take the argument fur-
ther by noting the near absence of the individual in discussions of resilience and in the privileging

5
Burayidi, Twigg, Wamsler, and Allen

of a systems approach. They seek to bridge this gap by proposing the inclusion of personal well-
being and emotional/​cognitive capacities, such as mindfulness, in resilience discussions and as a
means to improve recovery and call for putting people with their values, beliefs, emotions, and
capacities to be at the center of urban resilience planning.
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye in Chapter 6 discuss ways to gather risk and resili-
ence data particularly in the informal settlements of developing countries and how to use such
data for policy formulation. The three methods identified by the authors are impact and loss
studies, urban resilience frameworks, and community-​generated methods. The authors note that
while loss and impact studies are useful for measuring risks, this method lacks longitudinal
data and has a limited geographic coverage. The urban resilience frameworks method and the
community-​generated data method are obtained from field studies, but these approaches also
have deficiencies that need to be ameliorated to maximize their usefulness.They suggest a scaling
up of the methods of data collection as well as a more intentional and systematic process for
gathering the data to make it useful for disaster planning and for building urban resilience in
informal settlements of the global south.
James A. LaGro, Jr. in Chapter 7 examines the role of urban open systems as multipurpose
infrastructure that can aid in building community resilience, but he observes that the amenity
is often undervalued in urban infrastructure provision. He enumerates the many ways in which
urban design and location of this infrastructure can help decrease community vulnerability to
natural hazards and help restore critical ecosystem services. LaGro, Jr. suggests the need for
a multidisciplinary education and collaboration in the design professions to produce a more
effective approach in the use of urban open systems in decreasing susceptibility to hazards, and
in building resilience.

Part II: Urban systems under stress

In Chapter 8, Chingwen Cheng constructs three forms of vulnerabilities across the United
States to determine where the most vulnerable populations live. Social vulnerability index (SVI)
utilized race, poverty, age, income, and education to construct the vulnerability index. Ecological
vulnerability index (EVI) used climate related hazards caused by heavy precipitation, extreme
cold and heat, as well as floods and hurricanes. Technological vulnerability index considered the
availability or absence of green infrastructure as measured by percent coverage of non-​vegetated
land cover types. Climate justice combines these three forms of vulnerabilities to identify the
most vulnerable areas across the United States. The author suggests this approach can be used
to identify gaps and prioritize resource investment in those areas that are most vulnerable to
enhance community resilience.
Climate change is expected to exacerbate the urban heat island effect, affecting the most
vulnerable urban residents. This is because urban areas contain large surface areas that have been
converted to infrastructure such as parking spaces, buildings, and loss of green space, with little
vegetation to counteract the effects of urban heat. This affects the elderly and lower income
households more so than other population cohorts.Yoo in Chapter 9 argues that the urban heat
island effect caused by heat waves and heat-​related weather events are “slow-​burn” hazards that
receive less public attention than fast-​burn hazards such as hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes,
although their overall effect is more deadly than the fast-​burn hazards. Yoo suggests ways for
decreasing the vulnerability of urban residents, particularly those most susceptible to urban heat
waves and the heat island effect.
Suwan Shen in Chapter 10 points to the significance of critical infrastructure (such as
transportation and wastewater infrastructures), the interdependencies of these infrastructures,

6
 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience

and the cascading effects these have on the functioning of urban areas following a disaster.
Shen points out the goal of urban infrastructure resilience, which is to ensure that critical
infrastructure is maintained and continues to function during and after a disaster so that the
well-​being of urban residents is not adversely impacted. Shen outlines strategies for adapting
urban infrastructure for climate change, including climate change adaptation strategies in
spatial development, increasing infrastructure flexibility, and mainstreaming adaptation in
legislation.
In Chapter 11 Quan Yuan notes that China has a lengthy experience in building disaster-​
resilient cities and towns and that the wisdom of maintaining a harmonious relationship with
nature is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Yuan goes on to discuss current practices to
facilitate urban resilience in Chinese cities, observing that outdated infrastructure coupled with
the rapid growth of Chinese cities make them highly vulnerable to hazards and external shocks.
Quan uses two case studies, one involving urban floods and the use of “sponge cities” to mitigate
the impacts of urban floods, and the other relating to earthquakes and the creation of earth-
quake resilient cities, to show the mismatch between the growing threats of hazards and the
limited capacities of Chinese cities to respond to the threats. Yuan suggests the modification of
the top-​down policy formulation and implementation process in China and greater collabor-
ation between the public and private sectors to improve disaster preparedness and response and
to make Chinese cities more resilient to disasters.
The megalopolis of Mexico City (MMC) has been the urban “laboratory” for testing disaster
prevention measures and policies in Mexico for decades. In Chapter 12, Fernando Aragón-​
Durand takes a closer look at these policies and how effective they have been in making Mexico
City resilient to disasters. He found that whereas the city has emphasized mitigation, it has not
made significant progress with respect to adaptation to climate change. Despite the fact that the
city is constantly exposed to weather-​related hazards (floods, drought, and heat waves) that may
be amplified by climate change, adaptation policy and responses are insufficient and isolated from
urban development planning and policy. Moreover, the prevailing discourse on adaptation in
Mexico City frames climate hazards and risks as unique components of weather-​related disaster
and fails to link these to disaster risk management and development. Aragón-​Durand’s chapter
contributes to our knowledge of resilience building at the megalopolitan scale.
In Chapter 13, Åse Johannessen, Christine Wamsler, and Sophie Peter use Metro Cebu, a city
with a high-​density population in the Philippines, to make a convincing case of how the resili-
ence of cities is threatened by the availability and access to water services. The authors however
contend that current efforts in urban water management in Metro Cebu are siloed in different
agencies and this weakens policy effectiveness and erodes urban resilience. Additionally, vested
power structures and corruption limit organizational restructuring that could bring about trans-
parency, improve urban governance and build more effective public institutions in the country.
The authors suggest a comprehensive approach to redressing the systemic water services problem
that links urban planning, better management of urban water systems, waste management, and
urban governance, rather than the current “crisis-​response” approach.
In Chapter 14, Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington examine the economies
of midwestern cities in the United States, many of which have been shrinking in population
following deindustrialization in the mid-​twentieth century. The authors contend that despite
their economic problems, midwestern US cities have potential and provide opportunities that
could be utilized to revitalize their economies. These include the availability of space, cheap
rent, and as testing grounds for urban innovation. The authors point to the location of anchor
institutions such as universities that are located in these cities that help attract talent to these
places and to investment in research and development that can lead to innovation. Using this as

7
Burayidi, Twigg, Wamsler, and Allen

a lynchpin to test their hypothesis, the authors analyzed patent data as a proxy for innovation in
five US cities and found that indeed cities with large research universities generated high patent
registration. In such cities, the ability of attract talent and innovation has helped to stabilize the
population of the cities and helped transform their economies. Not all cities in the midwest
have such large anchor institutions of course, but those that do may be able to capitalize on
these amenities to bounce forward if they provide the environment that nurtures innovation and
research investment.
In Chapter 15, John West follows the argument made by the authors in the previous chapter
about midwestern cities with a discussion of how civic leaders in these cities address urban blight
and decay by reorganizing civic capacities to create urban resilience. As many legacy cities tackle
the problem of property abandonment in the wake of deindustrialization, West wonders how
these cities can recreate their economies in the context of declining economic prospects, the
recent housing foreclosure crisis, and austere state government policies that cut public sources of
funding. The author discusses the use of land banks in Muncie, Indiana to show how this may
be one strategy for civic leaders to re-​engage civil society and build urban resilience in distressed
cities.

Part III: Dimensions of resilience

In Chapter 16, Marta Suárez, Erik Gómez-​Baggethun, and Miren Onaindia discuss the concept
of resilience and how it is operationalized and measured. The authors observe that resilience has
spatial and temporal trade-​offs that have implications for equity. For example, enhancing resili-
ence in one area or sector may diminish resilience in other areas, and vulnerability to shocks
vary across social groups. After a systematic review of the literature, the authors concluded that
while there are several methodologies in use, engineering and ecological resilience predom-
inate in the literature. The authors argue that socio-​ecological resilience is more appropriate
to understanding the functioning of urban settlements and therefore propose a conceptual and
methodological framework to measure urban resilience from a coupled socio-​ecological systems
perspective.They make a convincing case that socio-​ecological resilience can be fostered through
such factors as diversity, modularity, feedback loops, social cohesion, and learning and innovation.
Samantha Montano examines the role of disaster volunteers in the disaster life cycle in
Chapter 17. Montano observes that accounts of disaster volunteerism have tended to center
on the actions of formal, affiliated volunteers such as those who work with well-​ known
organizations like the Red Cross, but that we can learn a lot more about volunteers than in these
narratives. Synthesizing the findings from different disciplines, Montano provides insights to the
landscape of disaster volunteerism; the role of volunteers in response and recovery, the engage-
ment of volunteers in different types of disasters, the types of activities with which they engage,
and who they work with as well as the challenges and benefits related to volunteer involvement.
Montano’s chapter helps us to better understand how volunteers engage during disaster response,
and how stakeholders, practitioners and volunteer managers can promote and facilitate volun-
teerism during and after disaster.
Building urban resilience requires strengthening a community’s physical, economic, and social
capital, as well as its natural environment and the systems that provide essential services. In this
context, in Chapter 18, David Rouse discusses how green infrastructure can help a community
reduce risk and build community resilience to different types of natural hazards at scales ranging
from the site and neighborhood to the city and region. The author identifies ways for incorpor-
ating green infrastructure into the different scales of planning including site plans, neighborhood
plans, and regional plans, as well as processes such as long-​range comprehensive and land use

8
 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience

plans. Rouse shows how incorporating green infrastructure into urban development can assist in
building community resilience and reduce risks from natural hazards.
Suburbanization has hollowed out the downtowns of many post-​industrial cities and weakened
their downtown economies. Recent immigrants to the United States have taken advantage of
the cheap real estate values and high vacancy rates in downtowns to start their businesses and
invest in the abandoned or underutilized properties. In Chapter 19 Gerardo Sandoval discusses
this process in Woodburn, a town in Oregon’s Willamette Valley that has experienced rapid
Latino population growth over the last several decades. The author critiques the two conflicting
views of the response to “blight” in the city; historic preservation versus Latino placemaking,
observing that the racialized context of revitalization in the city hampers Latino small business
revitalization efforts. He draws from the community capitals framework (CCF) to contextualize
ethnic resiliency and how generative revitalization practices are built upon various forms of pol-
itical, financial, and cultural capital. Sandoval uses this case to illustrate how conflicting cultural
capitals in placemaking efforts hinder generative revitalization efforts by Latino small businesses
in a historical racialized context.
Hanna A. Ruszczyk in Chapter 20 argues that urban resilience should be linked with gen-
dered aspects of the city, particularly the role of women in cities of the Global South. Using a
case study of Bharatpur in Nepal, Ruszczyk showcases the invisible role of women in providing
social, economic and physical infrastructure and how women’s role is limited through the urban
governance structure that prevents women from reworking the urban network systems to suit
their needs. The chapter furthers our understanding of women’s role in supporting urban resili-
ence through the intersection of urban service provision, urban governance, social invisibility,
and gender.
In Chapter 21, Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch and Marcello Graziano discuss the ‘economic
resilience’ taking place in four Great Lakes cities (Grand Rapids, MI, South Bend, IN, Duluth,
MN, and Racine, WI) in the US. The authors show how these cities are transitioning away from
their manufacturing past and initiating strategies for diversifying their economic base, reflecting
an ‘adaptive’ element in the resilience process of the cities. The transformation of the economy
of the cities is examined through economic clusters, with emphasis on the manufacturing and
service-​oriented clusters, and through the use of location quotient analysis of each of the cities’
economies. The authors conclude that economic diversity, availability of skilled labor and insti-
tutional capacity have been important factors in the adaptive resilience of these cities.
In Chapter 22 Antti Silvast makes the case that energy resilience is important to the
functioning of urban areas and thus the ability of the energy supply system to “bounce back”
to delivering energy after a disaster is paramount. However, he contends that the energy sector
is often overlooked in discussions on urban resilience. Antti Silvast provides an overview of this
complex and still emerging sector. He first considers what resilience means in the context of
urban energy supplies, drawing from various commentators from academic research to policy
works on energy infrastructure resilience. He then turns to specific examples of energy infra-
structure resilience to unpack how various urban energy systems have “bounced back” from the
impacts of particular shocks and stresses. Silvast discusses the growing share of renewable energy
in the energy mix, the marketization of energy, and the digitalization of energy infrastructures
and how these enhance or reduce the capacity of urban energy infrastructure to respond to
different stress and shock events and resilience.
In Chapter 23, Adenrele Awotona discusses vulnerabilities to climate change in Iraq and
Nigeria and the implications for human development and national security. Acknowledging that
the two countries are vulnerable to disasters resulting from climate change, he then discusses
how the two countries are responding to climate variability and the effectiveness of these

9
Burayidi, Twigg, Wamsler, and Allen

responses. Awotona notes that, although various UN agencies have provided financial and tech-
nical assistance to Iraq, the country is yet to adopt an adaptation strategy. He attributes this to the
country’s political instability and a divided political system, fractured along sectarian lines, that
prevents it from addressing long-​term issues. On the other hand, Nigeria has a national adapta-
tion strategy but Awotona does not see that it will have a positive impact in helping the country
adapt to climate change because the country is a “failed state”. Nigeria also has a top-​down,
fragmented and uncoordinated governance structure that excludes stakeholder participation in
policy formulation and implementation. Awotona concludes with policy proposals to redress the
stalemate in the two countries and return them to a path of resilience building.
In Chapter 24, Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene explore the transformative poten-
tial of reconstruction through experiences from Chile, aiming at enriching the evolutionary per-
spective of resilience and sustainable development. After discussing different forms of resilience,
the authors note that the dominant view of resilience that expects a system to return to a state
of normality is problematic because “normality” is neither adequate nor desirable, since that state
is what caused the vulnerability in the first place. The authors privilege evolutionary resilience,
which is not based on equilibrium but on the understanding of the world as a complex, chaotic,
uncertain, and unpredictable system. They argue that this vision of resilience allows for a trans-
formative potential, alternative trajectories, and opportunities for adaptation, where the objective
is not to return to “normality” but to evolve. Chile, a country that has faced an array of natural
disasters periodically, is used as a natural laboratory for the discussion on disaster management,
risk reduction, and on the transformative potential of cities.

Part IV: Resilience building in practice

Adriana Allen et al. in Chapter 25 discuss the everyday risks, called “risk traps” that are faced
by the poor in informal settlements in sub Saharan African countries. The authors note that
whereas risk traps are not fast-​burn high impact hazards such as earthquakes, which are easy
to recognize and address, yet their impacts on the poor is just as deadly. Two case studies, one
in Freetown (Sierra Leone) and the other in Karonga (Malawi), are used to decipher how risk
accumulation affects the lives, livelihoods, and assets of the urban poor and their impacts on the
ecology of cities. The authors discuss the resilience-​seeking practices used by residents in these
communities and how they mobilize resources to mitigate, reduce and prevent risks.The chapter
contributes to and adds to our knowledge on the governance of urban resilience and how to
increase the capacity to assist the most vulnerable urban residents who are trapped in risk accu-
mulation cycles.
Building on the previous chapter, in Chapter 26 Shuaib Lwasa considers the heterogeneity of
urban infrastructure provision in Kampala, Uganda by analyzing the diversity and hybridity of
the micro-​scale actors that are involved in the provision of such infrastructure.The author points
to some of the new models that are emerging to fill the infrastructure gap in the city noting that
these alternative forms of infrastructure provisioning are downplayed by the central authorities
because they fail to recognize the potential of the informal sector and how this potential can be
leveraged to leapfrog urban areas to resilience and sustainability. Lwasa suggests ways for deep
scaling and up scaling of these innovative models in African countries and therefore uses the
experiences in Kampala to illustrate the requirements for moving to scale in urban infrastructure
development.
In Chapter 27, Claudia González-​Muzzio and Claudia Cárdenas Becerra discuss resilience
building in Chile at the municipal level. While the authors observe that there is an increased

10
 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience

awareness among municipal leaders about the need to pursue risk-​reduction measures in devel-
opment following several high-​profile destructive events in Chile, they are constrained in what
they can do because they lack technical capacity and financial resources at the local level. The
authors suggest a need for mainstreaming risk reduction and resilience thinking into municipal
planning and development strategies as crucial for risk reduction to be effective and to increase
disaster resilience.
Charles John Kelly acknowledges that the resilience of a city comes from its social and eco-
nomic fabric in Chapter 28. However, this fabric is complex, multifaceted, and not consistent
across locations or social strata. As a result, resilience can vary from place to place and between
residents of the same place. Therefore, knowing the nature and fabric of the urban social struc-
ture is critical to identifying where and by whom disaster damage may be felt most severely,
and where resilience building is most critical. Kelly provides recommendations for a better
understanding of the urban socio-​economic fabric to improve disaster response and for building
resilience.
In Chapter 29, Amod Mani Dixit et al. share lessons from Nepal to show how the country
has evolved and worked to increase its urban seismic resilience. These included the enactment
and enforcement of adaptation and mitigation laws, and requirements for building earthquake-​
resilient structures. The authors share lessons from 20 years of Nepal’s experience that may be
useful to other countries in helping them build resilience.
In Chapter 30, Narae Lee laments the lack of adequate green space in urban areas as most
land is converted to impervious land cover and artificial environments. She notes how such an
environment has a negative effect on mental and psychological wellbeing of urban residents and
contributes to anxiety and depression, violent criminality, and in some cases post-​traumatic stress
disorders. This has led to a growing interest in ecotherapy and nature-​based therapy. Narae Lee
used a three-​part empirical study to test the psychological benefits of green roofs on the psy-
chological health of urban residents. The results show that roof gardens have restorative qualities
and can be used in conjunction with urban parks to decrease psychological stress and improve
resilience of urban dwellers.
In Chapter 31, Bernadett Kiss, Kes McCormick, and Christine Wamsler discuss the potential
of nature-​based solutions (NBS) to enhance urban resilience. The authors note that NBS can be
designed to address multifaceted challenges in urban areas such as enhance biodiversity, improve
environmental quality, contribute to economic vitality, support social wellbeing, and climate risk
reduction. To demonstrate how such an approach can be implemented to increase resilience to
climate change, the authors assess the use of NBS solutions in select cities in Sweden (Malmö),
Australia (Melbourne), and Germany (Munich).The chapter concludes by providing suggestions
for making the adoption and implementation of NBS solutions more effective for realizing its
full potential in urban resilience building.
In Chapter 32, Laura Tate states that the goal of planning for resilience is to position com-
munities to effectively respond to crisis and stresses.To do so, she argues there is a need for more
local initiatives that build community resilience at a social level and for a better understanding
of the processes that make these initiatives successful. Tate uses the lens of Action Network
Theory (ANT) to unpack key collaboration dynamics behind an initiative to promote local
resilience in communities in British Columbia, Canada. The goal of the initiative was to boost
the capacities of various non-​profit and indigenous agencies to foster resilience. The initia-
tive sought to improve the respective groups’ skills for working with larger systems and was
funded by private and public agencies. Following her analysis, the author concluded that to
be successful, building social resilience requires greater awareness of the impact of distributed

11
Burayidi, Twigg, Wamsler, and Allen

agency on resilience-​focused projects and the need to build social cohesion of participating
agencies and beneficiaries.
In Chapter 33 Julia Wesely provides an historical–​institutional analysis of the critical junctures
in the development of a framework for integrated risk management in the context of a medium-​
sized city, Manizales, Colombia. The city has experienced multiple hazard events in its his-
tory and is recognized as an “urban laboratory” and “good practice” case study in disaster risk
management. The chapter examines the genealogy, the path dependencies and the underlying
non-​linear dynamics, which work towards integrated risk management. In so doing the author
seeks to uncover the underlying reasons and capacities that created an enabling environment
for this city to address risks. The author applies a critical junctures framework to identify key
moments and their antecedent conditions and legacies, which triggered significant changes in
Manizales’ approach to risk management.Wesely argues that understanding the dynamics under-
lying the development of integrated risk management has the potential to contribute to our
understanding of resilience building from an institutional perspective.

Conclusion
The concluding chapter of the book (Chapter 34) synthesizes and integrates the discussions in
the book and provides a way forward in building urban resilience.The lessons learnt about resili-
ence from the multiple perspectives and disciplinary frameworks are summed in the discussion
of resilience to what, for what, by whom, and for what purpose. These suggestions are aimed
at helping cities and countries to develop urban governance systems and build the capacity to
withstand shocks and stresses and increase their resilience.

References
ABS-​CBN News (2017). At least 47 dead in Zamboanga del Norte after “Vinta” onslaught. Dec 23 2017
02:50 PM. https://​news.abs-​cbn.com/​news/​12/​23/​17/​at-​least-​47-​dead-​in-​zamboanga-​del-​norte-​
after-​vinta-​onslaught. (Accessed December 19, 2018).
Allen, A., Griffin, L., and Johnson, C. (eds.) (2017) Environmental Justice and Urban Resilience in the
Global South. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (2016). Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2015: The
Numbers and Trends. Brussel: Université catholique de Louvain.
Filipović, Z. (2009). Every surviving war child has two stories: One from the war and one from its aftermath.
UN Chronicle: The Magazine of the United Nations. XLVI 1 & 2. https://​unchronicle.un.org/​art-
icle/​every-​surviving-​war-​child-​has-​two-​stories-​one-​war-​and-​one-​its-​aftermath. (Accessed December
23, 2019).
Jackson, A. and Lang, A. (2005). One survivor’s story. People. https://​people.com/​celebrity/​one-​survivors-​
story/​. (Accessed May 13, 2019).
Lall, Somik V. and Deichmann, U. (2009). Density and Disasters: Economics of Urban Hazard Risk.
Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Lang, A. (2015). One survivor’s story. https://​people.com/​celebrity/​one-​survivors-​story/​. (Accessed
December 19, 2018).
Malujo, J. (2016). 3 survival stories from the worst disaster you never heard about. www.worldvision.
org/​disaster-​relief-​news-​stories/​survival-​stories-​worst-​disaster-​you-​never-​heard-​about.     (Accessed
December 12, 2018).
Radeloff, V.C., Hammer, R.B., Stewart, S.I., Fried, J.S., Holcomb, S.S., and McKeefry, J.F. (2005). The
wildland–​urban interface in the United States. Ecological Applications. 15(3): 799–​805.
Ryder, S. and Helen, D. (2014). Tsunami stories: Your experiences. www.bbc.com/​ news/​ 30462238.
(Accessed December 19, 2018).

12
 Introduction: Rethinking urban resilience

United Nations (2018). 68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN. www.
un.org/​development/​desa/​en/​news/​population/​2018-​revision-​of-​world-​urbanization-​prospects.html.
(Accessed May 9, 2019).
UN-​HABITAT (2016). World Cities Report 2016: Urbanization and Development -​Emerging Futures.
New York: UN.
Wamsler, C. (2007). Bridging the gaps: Stakeholder-​based strategies for risk reduction and financing for the
urban poor. Environment & Urbanization. 19(1): 115–​142.
Wamsler, C. (2013). Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation. London and New York: Routledge.

13
 Part I
Critical review from different
disciplinary perspectives
 2
Urban resilience and urban
sustainability
Christian Kuhlicke, Sigrun Kabisch, and Dieter Rink

Introduction
This chapter delivers an overview on definitions of and the distinction between urban resilience
and urban sustainability. In the first part, we offer the reader a short description of the origins
as well as key understandings of resilience and sustainability in order to open up a comparative
assessment of both concepts.
Based on this, in the second part we draw attention to the specific urban perspectives on
both terms. Using the four topics of instabilities and disturbances, distribution of responsibility,
normative orientation, and space–​time dimension, we discuss commonalities and differences.
In the third part, we offer some critical reflection of how both concepts are utilized in scien-
tific and in more operational urban contexts.

Conceptual foundation of resilience and sustainability

Resilience
The term “resilience” comes from the Latin resilire, resilio (Alexander 2013; Manyena et al. 2011);
it passed into Middle French (résiler) and then into English, during the sixteenth century, as
the verb “resile”. According to Alexander, the word looks back on a “long history of multiple,
interconnected meanings in art, literature, law, science and engineering. Some of the uses invoked
a positive outcome or state of being, while others invoked a negative one. Before the 20th cen-
tury, the core meaning was ‘to bounce back’” (Alexander 2013, 2710). This notion dominates in
different academic disciplines such as physics, textile and material science, as well as engineering
sciences or psychology (de Bruijne et al. 2010; for an overview, see Mykhnenko 2016).
A further conceptual approach was introduced by Holling (1973) in his influential publica-
tion “Resilience and stability of ecological systems”. He rejected the idea of restricting resili-
ence primarily to the ability of ecosystems to bounce back to a pre-​disturbance state. Instead,
Holling proposed to distinguish resilience more clearly from stability. In his view, resilience
would be a much more appropriate concept for understanding and managing the dynamics of
ecosystems, since such systems are defined by multiple states of stability (Holling 1978). Holling,

17
C. Kuhlicke, S. Kabisch, and D. Rink

therefore, attempted to integrate three separate stability properties under the unifying umbrella
term “resilience”: recovery (return to the status quo after disturbance), resistance (buffering the
impact of a disturbance), and persistence (staying intact as an identifiable object/​subject over
time) (Grimm and Wissel 1997).
Another approach to resilience was developed with the analysis of the interaction of social
and ecological systems (Brand and Jax 2007; de Bruijne et al. 2010) by including aspects of
adaptability, learning, and transformation. In this reading, the idea of bouncing back has been
increasingly replaced by the metaphor of “bouncing forward”; an idea that is regarded as more
appropriate since it acknowledges the interplay of disturbances and reorganization, as well as
long-​term societal adaptation processes (Romero-​Lancao et al. 2016, 5).
Whereas resilience was, for a long time, primarily a concept utilized in the academic com-
munity, in more recent years it has also been taken into account on the policy level, in order
to make infrastructures, institutions, and communities more resilient. It is often argued that the
increasing relevance of the concept results from a deep-​seated feeling of exposure and vul-
nerability resulting from “environmental change, threats to national and international security,
and an array of issues associated with international migration and growing global economic
turbulences” (Mykhnenko 2016, 176). A prominent example is the UN International Strategy
for Disaster Reduction (UN-​ISDR) campaign, “Making Cities Resilient”, which was launched
in 2010 (Molin Valdés et al. 2013). This campaign provided a checklist containing principles that
local governments should consider for building resilience. Subsequently, at the World Urban
Forum in Naples in 2012, UN-​ISDR and UN-​HABITAT jointly promoted disaster-​resilient
cities. Complementing international activities at national and sub-​national levels, attempts have
been introduced to make the concept of resilience more policy-​relevant and to include it on the
operational level in disaster risk management, infrastructure planning, as well as urban develop-
ment (for an overview, see Weichselgartner and Kelman 2014).

Sustainability
The term “sustain” is of Latin origin. In a Latin dictionary from 1879, the verb “sustinere” was
translated as “sustain” or “maintain”. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word “sustain” back
to the Middle English period (1150–​1350), and it encompasses a group of meanings: “to keep
in being”, “to cause to continue in a certain state”, “to keep or maintain at the proper level of
standard”, and “to preserve the status of ” (Grober 2012, 19). At the beginning of the eighteenth
century, the Saxonian forest governor, Carlowitz, introduced the concept of sustainability into
forestry with the connotation that no more wood should be felled than grows back (Grober
2012, 81 ff.). In the following centuries, sustainability became a key principle in forestry. At its
core, it emphasizes the restriction of resource use to a level that guarantees a continuous resource
reuse for current and future human generations.
Not surprisingly, the results of a literature search in the Web of Science reveal that the term
“sustainability” appeared for the first time in an article about forestry science (Mykhnenko 2016,
183). However, its prominence goes back to the United Nations (UN) and when it formulated
the principles of sustainable development as a global political statement and leitmotif in the late
1980s.The UN World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable devel-
opment as development “that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, in its report “Our Common Future”
(WCED 1987, 41). WCED has also stressed that “sustainable development must not endanger
the natural systems that maintain life on earth” (WCED 1987, 46). Sustainability represents the
attempt to develop a concept for the long-​term protection of natural resources, the long-​term

18
 Urban resilience and urban sustainability

satisfaction of social needs, and the long-​term conservation of economic resources. Thus, it
goes beyond traditional ideas of environmental protection and nature conservation, which focus
above all on natural resources; it rather demands for intergenerational and intragenerational
justice on a global scale. It is important to note that sustainability, in this sense, is first and fore-
most a normative political expression. However, its wording, understanding, and definition have
been adopted by various scientific disciplines without critically engaging with its normative
political underpinning.
Sustainability was implemented subsequently also on the local level. At the 1992 UN Summit on
Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, more than 170 countries committed themselves
to the idea of sustainable development, including greening the economy and society and calling
for greater equality of opportunity within and between societies (UN 1992). Since the 1992 UN
Summit, sustainability has become a central, perhaps even the decisive, narrative for decision-​making
processes in different spheres (e.g. political, economic, environmental) and was implemented inter-
nationally in a top-down process. The direct appeal to municipalities to consult with their citizens
on ways to achieve more sustainable urban development within the so-​called “Local Agenda 21” also
transferred the political sustainability concept to the urban context (ICLEI 2012).

Urban resilience and urban sustainability: Commonalities and differences

Initial thoughts about the interrelation of resilience and sustainability are provided by Handmer
and Dovers (1996) as well as by Tobin (1999). In more recent years, a series of publications aimed
at unravelling commonalities and differences between both concepts. Studies highlight, amongst
other aspects, the variety of strategies for dealing with unexpected dynamics and disturbances in
urban contexts (Ahern, 2011): they provide reflections about whether resilience complements
sustainability (and/​or vice versa) or whether they are two separate objectives in environmental
management (Marchese et al. 2018) and in urban development respectively (Asprone and
Manfredi 2015; Romero-​Lankao et al. 2016; Zhang and Li 2018).
It is apparent that both concepts are open to multiple, sometimes even contradictory inter-
pretation, which we conceive, on the one hand, as their strength, because they stimulate exchange
and conversation among different disciplines. At the same time, their definitional openness
requires an increased communicative effort to prevent misunderstanding and confusion. Based
on our own research on natural hazards and social resilience (Begg et al. 2017; Kuhlicke 2019),
as well as on urban transformations and urban sustainability (Rink and Kabisch 2017, Kabisch
et al. 2018), we propose a more thorough scrutiny of some of the wider implications both
concepts might have for future urban development. Thus, we structure the discussion along
four key topics we consider as being relevant for achieving a clearer distinction between both
concepts: (1) instability, disturbances and a shifting framing of urban safety; (2) a shifting distribu-
tion of responsibility between public and private actors; (3) the normative basis of both concepts;
(4) as well as their implicit space–​time dimension.

Instability, disturbances and a shifting framing of urban safety

Both resilience and sustainability are underpinned by a strong concern about disturbances
and potentially unstable future developments. However, with respect to the role attributed to
disturbances, the conclusions drawn about their potential occurrence, as well as the relevance of
such disturbances for urban development, both concepts differ quite profoundly.
The actual emergence of the concept of urban resilience is often connected to the experi-
ence of unexpected devastating events, such as 9/​11 and the collapse of the World Trade Center,
hurricane Katrina and the devastation of parts of New Orleans, terrorist attacks in Madrid,

19
C. Kuhlicke, S. Kabisch, and D. Rink

London, etc. But urban resilience has also attracted considerable attention as a result of other
symptoms of crises. These include the financial crisis in 2007/​2008 and its repercussions for
cities’ budgets, as well as rapid urban changes (e.g. population shrinkage and re-​g rowth) and their
enormous impacts on the urban infrastructure. Most definitions of urban resilience therefore
offer suggestions about how to enhance the “generic adaptability, flexibility, or adaptive capacity”
of urban areas (Meerow et al. 2016, 44).
The role that disturbances play in the conceptualization of sustainable urban development is
less obvious. Some researchers even argue that resilience is superior to sustainability, because the
latter would be based on a “static conception” shaped by the idea of a “durable, stable, […] fail-​
safe” urban development and, hence, would be blind towards urban crises and radical changes
(Ahern 2011, 341). However, a closer reading reveals that the concept of sustainability is linked
to potential disturbances in at least two different ways. First, it is based on the assumption that
strong efforts are not only necessary; they are essential to prevent future devastating disturbances.
Because natural resources are limited and not simply reproducible, such limits need to be taken
into account. If they are ignored, the consequences for future generations are potentially devas-
tating as the natural environment is irreparably destroyed.This is also reflected in what one might
label the “urban turn” of the sustainability debate. This is an attempt to solve global problems –​
particularly mitigation of climate change –​on the local level by, for instance, advancing the idea
of a post-​fossil city (i.e. the complete conversion of the energy basis to regenerative carriers).
Second, urban areas themselves should develop in ways that do not merely reflect environmental
concerns, but also consider the social and economic dimension. Particularly with regard to social
sustainability in an urban context, access to resources and inclusiveness, but also social security,
are considered to be decisive components of urban sustainability (Barton 2000; Dempsey et al.
2011). This includes the postulate to be able to live in an urban environment that is safe and
secure.
The concept of resilience implies a different understanding of how to make urban areas
secure. It accepts dynamics and the occurrences of radical surprises (Evans 2011) and demands
anticipating and preparing for them. The aim is to contain and mitigate surprises by no longer
assuming that urban environments are “fail-​safe”, but rather to develop procedures that follow
a “safe-​to-​fail” strategy (Ahern 2011, 341). The concept of resilience thus accepts potential
disturbances and catastrophic events as inevitable and, consequently, pleads in favor of pre-
paring for such events as well as for learning relevant lessons, in order to reduce the respective
consequences. These general characteristics are translated into more specific features of urban
resilience; these include, among others, robustness, redundancy, diversity, equity, decentralization,
flexibility, adaptive capacity, and predictability of failure (Meerow et al. 2016; Ahern 2011). This
also encompasses the view that catastrophes can no longer simply be considered as negative
events that are associated with loss, damages, and trauma. They can also be seen as a “window
of opportunity” to initiate transformations towards a less vulnerable and, thus, more sustainable
development. According to this reading, to be resilient even becomes a pre-​condition for sustain-
able urban development (Romero-​Lancao 2016).
In this view, the move from urban sustainability towards urban resilience is based on a shifting
understanding of urban security, as well as of the risks urban areas are facing. By highlighting the
idea of resilience, risks are no longer easy to detect before they occur, and they are no longer easy
to contain. On the contrary, they can occur everywhere and always, potentially with cascading
effects. The attractiveness of the idea of making urban areas more resilient is thus grounded in
the underlying premise that the concept offers an answer to urban threats by going beyond
established approaches to control, secure, and, in the final sense, on how to govern urban areas
(Pospisil 2013).

20
 Urban resilience and urban sustainability

Distribution of responsibility between public and private actors

With regard to the underlying distribution of responsibility, both concepts are distinctly
different. The concept of resilience tends to dissolve clear responsibilities, whilst the concept
of sustainability is clearly highlighting the relevance and responsibilities of public actors such as
international institutions, states, or municipalities. Consequently, some critics of the resilience
approach have linked its supposed ascendance with the perceived desire of Western governments,
international financial institutions, and bilateral donors to respond to serious challenges finan-
cial and environmental by shifting the burden of responsibility onto individual citizens and local
communities (Mykhnenko 2016).
In resilience-​based governance settings, governmental bodies and administrations tend to devolve
responsibility to local actors, including citizens, by communicating the limits of their ability to protect
citizens and, as a result, make citizens individually and “morally” responsible for future disturbances
and risks (Begg et al. 2016). The role of public authorities is usually restricted to an enabling and
supporting one and, specifically, not to a funding or legally regulating one.As a result, individuals and
communities need to organize themselves, in order to become more resilient (Welsh 2014).
With respect to sustainability, the global community and the national states bear responsibility.
The “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) (UN 2015) are good examples of challenges to
secure natural resources and livelihood globally. As a political expression of complex challenges,
the document needs translation into real-​world contexts by politicians, NGOs, regional entities,
and other stakeholders. Sustainability acts as a framework for prioritized aims of human co-​
existence. Against this background, the recent adoption of the “New Urban Agenda”, including
the 17 SDGs (UN 2016), gives substance to the obligation to pursue sustainability in core sectors
of human life. Cities and urban areas play a key role, which is formulated in SDG No. 11: “Make
cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.This goal can be considered
as a node for numerous other SDGs and sub-​targets because it unites global challenges on the
urban and immediate human scale.

Normative basis of both concepts

We understand both resilience and sustainability as normative concepts. Nevertheless, they differ
in their degree of explicitness about their normative underpinnings: Whilst sustainability expli-
citly reveals its strong, normative expression, the normativity of resilience is more opaque.
Resilience is often positioned as a “neutral” or more “strategic” (Ahern 2011, 342) concept,
which is, at least in the view of some authors, not normative. This is considered as advantageous,
because resilience offers some principles that appear to be more or less naturally given and with
which existing planning and management approaches can be evaluated (fit for purpose) and
adapted or transformed. From this perspective, however, the task of making cities more resilient
is, above all, a simple managerial task that requires adapting the organizational–​institutional
design of existing planning approaches (Cannon and Müller-​Mahn 2010).
Critics argue that such a perspective would lead to a depoliticization of potentially con-
troversial societal questions; resilience is neither a fixed concept nor is it simply a naturally
given idea (Kuhlicke 2019). The question about how to organize a resilient city or how
resilient an urban area should be is intimately connected with normative questions, which
can be answered very differently by different groups. The answer to questions such as which
degree of resilience is relevant or which level of resilience is acceptable does not stem from
ecological principles, but, instead, depends on how multiple actors decide to govern urban
life in the face of potential disturbances, strong dynamics, and respective decision-​making

21
C. Kuhlicke, S. Kabisch, and D. Rink

processes (Cote and Nightingale 2012). Such questions, however, are currently not at the core
of the discussion on urban resilience (Evans 2011).
By contrast, sustainability is based on the normative postulate of inter-​and intragenerational
justice, as mentioned above. At the same time, responsibility towards people living today and
towards future generations are regarded as being of equal importance and as belonging together.
This concept addresses central access problems with regard to natural resources, but also distri-
bution issues with regard to economic goods, income, rights and obligations, etc. (Grunwald
and Kopfmüller 2006). From a global perspective, all people have the moral right to satisfy at
least their basic needs (WCED 1987, 44–​46). This requires a holistic, integrative understanding
of sustainable development, in which economic, ecological, social, and cultural aspects of social
development are to be taken into account on an equal footing. Referring to the urban context,
this normative content of sustainability has to be systematically concretized, spelled out, and
operationalized. There is a need to tailor sustainability efforts according to context conditions in
a given community and to integrate them into the local setting (Hartmuth et al. 2008).

The space–​time dimension

Both concepts have a strong future orientation and are defined by what Anderson (2010) names
a “paradoxical process”: On the one hand, an anticipated future becomes “cause and justification
for some form of action in the here and now” (Anderson 2010, 778); on the other hand the
future can be influenced through these actions (i.e. become more resilient or sustainable).
The concept of urban resilience is more opaque about its future orientation, compared to
sustainability. It makes suggestions on how to prepare for uncertain, surprising, and potentially
devastating events. The concept of sustainability is quite explicit about temporal configurations,
because it stresses the idea that contemporary actions should not negatively influence the cap-
acity of future generations to satisfy their needs. Urban sustainability thus demands urban
decision-​making processes that preserve and improve the urban livelihoods among present as
well as of future generations.
The concepts of resilience and sustainability operate on quite different time-​ scales.
Sustainability is grounded in a long-​term orientation, as it links current actions to the needs of
future generations. Urban resilience, in contrast, highlights the more pressing need to be able to
deal with surprising events, which can, potentially, occur at any time. Similarly, the idea of urban
sustainability is more explicit with regard to its spatial dimension, because it links distant places.
Actions taken in one location should not negatively influence the needs and natural livelihoods
of people living in other locations (i.e. inter-​local justice). On the contrary, these actions should
improve those livelihoods, too. Cities are embedded in their hinterland and/​or urban region and
depend on resources and services provided outside the city borders (e.g. water provision, power
generation, commuter-​infrastructure). This scale corresponds with the city as an entity as well
as a pattern of districts and neighborhoods. All spatial scales, characterized by specific features of
their socio-​economics, environment, infrastructure and land use, require attention in municipal
fields of action and administration (Davies 2015). This perspective is linked with the notion of
the livable city. Its characteristics focus on provision of basic services such as food, water, energy,
housing, sanitation, medical care, and education, as well as income for the entire urban commu-
nity. Furthermore, access and use of ecosystem services to support health care and to adapt to
climate change are essential. In this respect, cities adopt responsibility by orienting their actions
and decisions in urban planning and urban politics to be in line with sustainability requirements.
Local sustainability became vivid in the “Agenda 21”, a global action plan for sustainable devel-
opment to be implemented at local level (ICLEI 2012).

22
 Urban resilience and urban sustainability

The concept of resilience, again, is less broad spatially. It is, rather, a place-​based and, thus,
location-​specific concept, which is less concerned about inter-​or even trans-​local connectivity.
It aims at increasing the capacity of specific locations, communities, neighborhoods, or cities
to adapt to, cope with, and learn from disturbances. Nevertheless, these learning effects can be
distributed to other places facing similar risks.

Conclusions
Urban resilience and urban sustainability have become influential notions providing orientation
on how to deal with major societal challenges.This includes provision of safe and livable habitats,
which should develop in a way that is not based on the excessive use of scarce environmental
resources. Both concepts are often mentioned in close connection and sometimes even inter-
changeably. However, as both terms seem to become more and more interchangeable, the risk of
losing conceptual clarity grows. The emerging debate on whether both concepts complement
each other and which concept is superior is an attempt to bring some clarity to the debate.
However, we argue it makes more sense to draw attention to key characteristics of both concepts,
how they conform and where they differ.
More specifically, we structured our argument, firstly, around the role that is attributed to
instabilities and disturbances. Here, the concept of resilience places greater emphasis on the
very occurrence of disturbing events and how to adapt, cope with, and recover from them.
Sustainability, on the other hand, focuses more on the “root causes” of future disturbance by
emphasizing climate mitigation (e.g. post-​fossil city) and, at the same time, the idea of social
safety. Thus, urban residents should have the right to feel safe in their neighborhood and such
safety standards should be provided equally. Secondly, as a consequence of the previous argu-
ment, the distribution of responsibility is governed quite differently.Whilst it is often argued that
resilience would allow authorities to assign responsibility to the individual and local level, sus-
tainability demands, instead, an egalitarian approach that highlights the right of most vulnerable
groups to be protected. Thirdly, both concepts are quite different with regard to their normative
underpinning. Sustainability is based on the normative postulate of justice between generations
and social groups. By contrast, becoming more resilient is often understood as a more neutral
endeavor that depends mostly on guidance from some general principles derived from ecology
(flexibility, adaptability, etc.), and, to a lesser extent, a task that is based on political and wider
societal debates and decisions (i.e. how much resilience is enough resilience?). Fourthly, and
finally, both concepts differ with regard to their space–​time dimension. Whereas resilience is
more location-​oriented and not very specific with regard to its temporal orientation, sustain-
ability has a long-​term trajectory and a global orientation.
By providing these specifications, we hope to contribute to the conceptual debate. In this
sense, we place attention on the existing terminological imbroglio by stressing the particular foci,
as well as the commonalities and differences of both concepts. We are convinced that pursuing
such a conceptual debate will lead to an increase of the explanatory power of urban resilience
and urban sustainability.

References
Ahern, J. (2011). From fail-​safe to safe-​to-​fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world.
Landscape and Urban Planning. 100: 341–​343.
Alexander, D.E. (2013). Resilience and disaster risk reduction: An etymological journey. Nat. Hazards Earth
Syst. Sci. 13: 2707–​2716.

23
C. Kuhlicke, S. Kabisch, and D. Rink

Anderson, B. (2010). Preemption, precaution, preparedness: Anticipatory action and future geographies.
Progress in Human Geography. 34: 777–​789.
Asprone, D. and Manfredi, G. (2015). Linking disaster resilience and urban sustainability: a glocal approach
for future cities. Disasters. 39: 96–​111.
Barton, H. (2000). Conflicting perceptions of neighborhood. In: H. Barton (ed.): Sustainable
Communities: The Potential for Eco–​Neighborhoods. London: Earthscan, 3–​18.
Begg, C., Ueberham, M., Masson,T., and Kuhlicke, C. (2017). Interactions between citizen responsibilization,
flood experience and household resilience: insights from the 2013 flood in Germany. International
Journal of Water Resources Development. 33: 591–​608.
Brand, F.S. and Jax, K. (2007). Focusing the meaning(s) of resilience: resilience as a descriptive concept and
a boundary object. Ecology and Society. 12(1).
Cannon, T. and Müller-​Mahn, D. (2010).Vulnerability, resilience and development discourses in context of
climate change. Natural hazards. 55(3): 621–​635.
Cote, M. and Nightingale, A.J. (2012). Resilience thinking meets social theory. Progress in Human
Geography. 36(4): 475–​489.
Davies, W.K.D. (2015). Background to sustainable cities. In: W.K.D. Davies (ed.): Theme Cities: Solutions
for Urban Problems. Dordrecht: Springer, 151–​205.
de Bruijne, M., Boin, A., and Eeten,V. (2010). Resilience –​exploring the concept and its meanings. In: L.K.
Comfort, A. Boin, and C.C. Demchak, (eds.): Desingning Resilience: Preparing for Extreme Events.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 13–​32.
Dempsey, N., Bramley, G., Power, S., and Brown, C. (2011). The social dimension of sustainable develop-
ment: Defining urban social sustainability. Sustainable Development. 19(5): 289–​300.
Evans, J.P. (2011). Resilience, ecology and adaptation in the experimental city. Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers. 36(2): 223–​237.
Grimm, V. and Wissel, C. (1997). Babel, or the ecological stability discussions: an inventory and analysis of
terminology and a guide for avoiding confusion. Oecologia. 109: 323–​334.
Grober, U. (2012). Sustainability: A Cultural History. Totnes: Green Books.
Grunwald, A. and Kopfmüller, J. (2006). Nachhaltigkeit. Stuttgart: Campus Verlag.
Handmer, J.W. and Dovers, S.R. (1996). A typology of resilience: rethinking institutions for sustainable
development. Organization & Environment. 9: 482–​511.
Hartmuth, G., Rink, D., and Huber, K. (2008). Operationalisation and contextualisation of sustainablility at
the local level: Stages in the development of a sustainability indicator system. Sustainable Development.
16: 261–​270.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 4: 1–​23.
Holling, C.S. (1978). Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management. New York: John Wiley.
ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) (2012). Local Sustainability 2012. Taking Stock and Moving
Forward. Global Review.
Kabisch, S., Koch, F., Gawel, E., Haase, A., Knapp, S., Krellenberg, K., Nivala, J., and Zehnsdorf, A. (eds.)
(2018). Urban transformations –​Sustainable urban development through resource efficiency, quality of
life and resilience. Future City 10. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Kuhlicke, C. (2019). Risk and Resilience in the Management and GovernanceProcesses, Oxford
Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://​
oxfordre.com/​ n aturalhazardscience/​ v iew/​ 1 0.1093/​ a crefore/​ 9 780199389407.001.0001/​
acrefore-​9780199389407-​e-​299?print=pdf.
Manyena, S.B., O’Brien, G., O’Keefe, P., and Rose, J. (2011). Disaster resilience: a bounce back or bounce
forward ability? Local Environment. 16: 417–​424.
Marchese, D., Reynolds, E., Bates, M.E., Clark, S.S., and Linkov, I. (2018). Resilience and sustain-
ability: Similarities and differences in environmental management applications. Science of Total
Environment: 613–​614: 1275–​1283.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban
planning. 147: 38–​49.
Molin Valdés, H., Amaratunga, D., and Haigh, R. (2013). Making cities resilient: from awareness to imple-
mentation. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. 4: 5–​8.
Mykhnenko, V. (2016). Resilience. A right-​winger’s ploy? In: Springer, S., Birch, K., and MacLeavy, J.
(eds): The Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Routledge, 190–​206.

24
 Urban resilience and urban sustainability

Pospisil, J. (2013). Resilienz: Die Neukonfiguration von Sicherheitspolitik im Zeitalter von Risiko.
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft. 42(1): 35–​42.
Rink, D. and Kabisch, S. (2017). Urbane Transformationen und die Vision nachhaltiger Stadtentwicklung.
In: K.-​W. Brand (ed.) Die sozial-​ökologische Transformation der Welt: ein Handbuch. Frankfurt/​
Main: Campus, 243–​266.
Romero-​Lankao, P., Gnatz, D.M., Wilhelmi, O., and Hayden, M. (2016). Urban sustainability and resili-
ence: From theory to practice. Sustainability. 8(12): 1224, 1–​19.
Tobin, G.A. (1999). Sustainability and community resilience: The holy grail of hazards planning? Global
Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards. 1: 13–​25.
UN (United Nations) (1992). United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Agenda 21.
New York.
UN (United Nations) (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. 17 Goals to transform our world. New York..
UN (United Nations) (2016). HABITAT III. The New Urban Agenda. Quito.
WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) (1987). Our Common Future. New York.
Weichselgartner, J. and Kelman, I. (2014). Geographies of resilience: Challenges and opportunities of a
descriptive concept. Progress in Human Geography. 39(3): 249–​267.
Welsh, M. (2014). Resilience and responsibility: Governing uncertainty in a complex world. The
Geographical Journal. 180(1), 15–​26.
Zhang, X. and Li H. (2018). Urban resilience and urban sustainability: What we know and what do not
know? Cities. 72: 141–​148.

25
 3
Against general resilience
Henrik Thorén

Introduction
In recent discussions on resilience many have found it useful to distinguish between two kinds
of resilience: general resilience and specific resilience. For example, Fiona Miller and colleagues
(2010) consider specific resilience to involve –​in the frequently used slogan of Carpenter et al.
(2001) –​“the resilience of what to what,” whereas general resilience “concerns the resilience of
all aspects of a system to unspecified, including novel and unforeseen, disturbances” (Miller et al.
2010). Brian Walker and David Salt (2012) in a recent volume discuss the distinction as follows:

Specified resilience, as its name suggests, is the resilience of some specified part of the system
to a specified shock –​a particular kind of disturbance. General resilience is the capacity of
a system that allows it to absorb disturbances of all kinds, including novel, unforeseen ones,
so that all parts of the system keep functioning as they have in the past.
(Walker and Salt 2012, 18)

In their recent review Sara Meerow, Joshua Newell, and Melissa Stults (2016) cash out the
distinction in terms of the ability of systems to adapt and note that more than half of the
definitions they include in their review –​they collected 25 definitions of urban resilience –​asso-
ciate resilience with “general adaptive capacity as opposed to adaptedness” (Meerow et al. 2016,
42). Adaptedness is understood as the property of being adapted to specific and “known threats”
(Meerow et al. 2016, 44) whereas general adaptive capacity, on the other hand, is associated with
the ability to adapt to whatever may come; known or unknown.
In what follows I focus on the idea of general resilience more broadly and try to show why
this notion is unhelpful and even obstructive. Any resilience concept applied to a real system,
it will be argued, needs to involve some specification of what that system is, and the kinds of
disturbances involved.

Concepts of resilience
Writing about resilience is in some respects a perilous affair. The concept is famously a mess
of different definitions, and there are wildly different ideas about what the concept does, and

26
 Against general resilience

should do, and what is significant about it. Is it a useful metaphor not to be taken too seriously,
a powerful way to conceptualize sustainability, or a framework that gives scientific legitimacy to
a political agenda? Hence, it is useful to make some preliminary remarks.
There is a considerable literature on the different versions of the concept of resilience and its
historical background (see e.g. Meerow et al. 2016, Thorén 2014, Zebrowski 2013, Olsson et al.
2003) and any attempt at analyzing the concept at this junction is prone to complaints of not
covering all relevant definitions.This chapter will not primarily concern itself with that, but assume
a wide, albeit perhaps somewhat simplified, understanding of the notion: Namely resilience as the
ability to absorb a disturbance or the ability to adapt to a change. Such an understanding of resili-
ence is perhaps somewhat vague, but nonetheless, substantive enough to be subject to analysis, as
well as broadly representative of a range of definitions and characterizations (Thorén 2014).
It is nonetheless good to have some kind of idea about what we might mean by “resilience”.
I have argued elsewhere for an understanding of this concept as the ability of a system to keep
some property fixed through a disturbance (Thorén 2014, Thorén and Olsson 2017). This idea
both highlights the distinction between stability (or engineering resilience) and resilience (eco-
logical resilience) that has sometimes been thought to be important (Holling 1973, Holling
1996), and it is representative of many, although certainly not all, uses of this notion across
disciplinary contexts (Thorén 2014).1 For the present argument, however, it does not matter a
great deal which precise definition of resilience one prefers. The core issues here revolve around
persistence, change, and identity in complex systems in general, and social systems in particular,
and how these notions are to be made operable in scientific practice. Such notions will figure in
most, if not all, concepts of resilience in one way or the other and for this reason I will in this
chapter use notions such as “resilience” and “adaptability” more or less interchangeably (unless
otherwise indicated).

General and specific resilience

Let us begin by setting the stage. As might have become apparent already at the outset there is
more than one version of the distinction between general resilience and specific resilience pre-
sent in the literature. Sometimes epistemological and cognitive notions are highlighted, such as
when Walker and Salt make note of “unforeseen” disturbances, raising issues such as: unforeseen
by whom? At other times the idea is cast in more immediate ontological terms, if you will, as a
straight-​up property of the system. Meerow et al.’s (2016) “general adaptive capacity” might pass
for the latter.
There will be reason later on to return to the epistemological version of the distinction. At
this juncture, however, let us focus on the ontological construal –​that is to say the idea that the
distinction is to be understood as capturing something real about the systems under consider-
ation –​perhaps even a (more or less) straightforwardly measurable quantity.2
Specific resilience is usually defined as involving a number of practical steps. One has to iden-
tify the kinds of disturbances and what (part of) the system they afflict and in what sense they
are absorbed, and so on (cf. Carpenter et al. 2001). General resilience, presumably, involves none
of this but is to be understood as some raw property; an unspecific ability of something to adapt.
So, characterizations of specific resilience often retain an epistemological component potentially
emphasizing the role that conceptualization and system individuation etc. play, whereas general
resilience is seen as something like the “real” property of the “real” system.
There are a number of issues that immediately come to mind, some seemingly more serious
than others. One confounding aspect of general and specific resilience conceived of as real prop-
erties of some system has to do with their interrelation. If system S is (highly) generally resilient,

27
Henrik Thorén

then would it not imply that it is specifically resilient in every way? Or should we understand
the magnitude of general resilience rather as being specifically resilient in many ways? Neither
of these understandings, however, jive particularly well with how the distinction is typically
portrayed. On the official take of the Resilience Alliance specific resilience and general resilience
(see Resilience Alliance 2009, section 1.5) it is claimed that optimizing the specific resilience of
some system may come at the expense of the general resilience. At the very least this interrela-
tionship remains elusive in the literature.
Moreover, and keeping to the issue of trade-​offs, it is clearly the case that for many, if not all
systems –​from the simplest to the most complex –​resilience with respect to one kind of disturb-
ance often comes at the expense of the resilience of that system with respect to some other kind
of specific disturbance. A simplistic example: A tennis ball may be resilient to compression in
the sense that it retains its structural integrity by being flexible. But the rubber construction that
makes this possible may also result in the “system” not being resilient with respect to some other
kind of disturbance, such as being put in an open fire or cut up with a pair of scissors. Although
it is perhaps possible to provide a model of the system and its resilience given a focus on a par-
ticular kind of disturbance, the inter-​relationship between different kinds of resilience has to do
with any number of different qualitative aspects of that particular system, and the specifics of the
disturbance in question, that can be difficult to integrate in a single model.
Here, one suspects, there is more work to do. But then perhaps I am using the concept of
resilience too loosely. After all many, if not most, of those who use the concept of resilience
to begin with are committed in one way or the other to a particular ontology. Namely, that
the systems they are looking at are instances of, or can be described as, complex (adaptive)
systems. This is itself an abstract way of thinking about aspects of reality, but it nonetheless
points to certain ways in which resilience is in fact realized in systems. That is, as a function of
the interrelations and interaction of the components of that system and how they respond to
external or internal disturbances.
So, let us now move to discuss a set of concerns that have to do with identity and persistence
in complex systems and how different ways of thinking about real systems impinge on how
resilience is understood in those systems.

Identity and persistence

Notions of identity and persistence are closely associated with resilience (see e.g. Walker and Salt
2012, 3). Holling was explicit when he said that resilience “is a measure of the persistence of
systems” (Holling 1973, 14).To see this we only have to rehearse an argument that has been made
elsewhere. Resilience as a concept makes little sense without some notion of persistence.That is to
say, the entity that is supposed to be resilient has to be the same entity in some important respect.
The point is conceptual, and to some extent trivial, but important nonetheless: for S to be resilient
with respect to disturbance D it has to be the same system through a disturbance (Thorén 2014,
Thorén and Olsson 2017). The concept itself becomes highly unstable without such a notion of
persistence and it becomes hard –​impossible even –​to distinguish between instances of collapse
from instances of adaptation as one and the same event can, with only small adjustments with
respect to how the system is described, be construed as either showing a system to be resilient or
showing that system to lack resilience. Here are two examples borrowed from Thorén (2014).The
role of migration has been an issue in discussing the resilience of social systems such as coastal
communities (see e.g. Adger 2000). If we have a community that has been subjected to, say, severe
flooding and has responded to that flooding by dispersing, should we think of that community

28
 Against general resilience

as resilient or not? How this question is to be answered depends on what it means for that com-
munity to persist. If persistence is conceived to hinge on e.g. inhabiting some specific physical
space then migration, clearly, involves the collapse of that system. But there is nothing about the
notion of resilience itself that forces this conclusion. A different idea about what constitutes per-
sistence for this community might have the community persisting by adapting to a change in
circumstances. Ceteris paribus, migration might just as well be seen as the dynamic adaptation of a
highly resilient community (see also Thorén and Olsson 2017).
Similarly, psychologists, to whom resilience also has been an important concept, have argued
about whether depression should be perceived to be an adaptation to psychological trauma, or
the “collapse” of that individual (Rutter 1993, 627).
Now I am not suggesting either of these issues are as a matter of fact controversial in their
respective fields –​they do not seem to be –​but rather to point out that landing on one side or
the other depends on how persistence is construed for the relevant system. There are however
related concerns that have indeed been controversial. The Arctic Council recently released a
report on the topic of resilience (Arctic Council 2016). The report contains a wealth of cases of
how a changing climate (and other “disturbances” such as tourism and mining) are impinging
on indigenous and local communities in the region.The willingness of the inhabitants of the city
of Kiruna in northern Sweden to move as a consequence of the mining operation in the area is
portrayed as a sign of the resilience of these local communities and their ability to adapt. But, as
Thorén and Olsson (2017) point out, this way of representing the situation obscures conflicts of
interest and power differentials among stakeholders and thus hides crucial normative dimensions
of the development in this area.3

Describing the system

The main point in the previous section was that the adaptation/​collapse distinction is sensitive to
how the system itself is described. Slight alterations in that description can lead one to think of
one and the same material situation as one or the other. So this is of little interest if it were the
case that there really is only one correct or appropriate way of describing the kinds of systems
we might be interested in.This leads us to consider how system descriptions relate to the systems
themselves.What is at stake presently are primarily urban systems but the point I will make could
be made more generally.
If the idea that there is usually (or always) only one correct description towards which we
should strive can be labelled as a form of monism it is noteworthy that pluralism has often reigned
in these discussions. Gerald Weinberg writes in his An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
from 1975: “What is a system? As any poet knows, a system is a way of looking at the world.The
system is a point of view –​natural for a poet, yet terrifying for a scientist!” (Weinberg 1975, 105).
Arriving at a description of a system is taking a certain perspective on the world the implica-
tion being: there are many admissible perspectives on offer. James Kay argues along similar lines
writing: “A system description is always from the perspective of an observer, and the questions
or issues in which they are interested. […] So when we talk about a system we are not talking
about a physical object but rather our limited mental representations of it. The system is not ‘out
there’ but ‘inside us’” (Kay 2008, 16). Even if we confine ourselves to ecology in particular this
point has been emphasized. Collier and Cumming write: “[t]‌he difficulty of defining an eco-
system is complicated by the fact that any description of an ecosystem is from the perspective
of an observer, and the focus of their description will be on the issues in which they are most
interested” (Collier and Cumming 2011, 203).

29
Henrik Thorén

All these authors emphasize the role of the observer or inquirer in studying complex systems.
The implication is pluralism with respect to system descriptions. That is to say, there is no defini-
tive single description of a given system but many. But let us make that more precise. Pluralism
is usually understood to be normative in the sense that it provides some prescriptive claim
(Mäki 1997). In this case, that there should be a plurality of system descriptions. Undergirding
any specific form of pluralism, however, are the justifications, and here pluralists tend to differ.
Some have motivated pluralism as a kind of temporarily useful state of affairs eventually to be
discarded once relevant uncertainties can be sufficiently minimized (Kitcher 1991). Others have
maintained that pluralism is neither a stepping stone towards a more enlightened situation, nor
as it were the sorry imposition we happen to find ourselves in: pluralism reflects the complexity
of the world. Mitchell (2002) writes “the diversity of views found in contemporary science is not
an embarrassment or sign of failure, but rather the product of scientists doing what they must do
to produce effective science” (p. 55).
The perspectival pluralism of e.g. Collier, Cummings, seems to go beyond the less substan-
tive forms of the dogma.4 That is to say, they are not merely claiming that there are practical, or
indeed in-​principle, epistemological limits –​i.e. that we cannot for some reason access the true
nature of the systems (but that there nonetheless may be such a true nature). If this is correct the
position could be summarized as involving two claims: (1) a perspective is necessary for the system
to emerge in the first place, and (2), there are several legitimate options.5
In many ways it seems clear that for ecosystems, as for many other kinds of systems, the
representations used by scientists to investigate and understand real systems are constrained in
ways that the systems themselves are not. For example, whereas actual ecosystems are rarely
unambiguously bounded –​although they may on occasion approach such an ideal –​models of
ecosystems have to be bounded. There is just no way of constructing them otherwise. Not to
speak of all the further simplifications and idealizations that have to be deployed in order to make
the models cognitively tractable and usefully manipulable.
For social systems these issues are further exacerbated, for several reason. An argument could
be mounted that ecologists to a greater extent than social scientists share values and norms that
dictate what is important and central about what they are studying as well as tools and practices
(cf. Kuhn 1996/​1962). Diagnosing the roots of this difference lays bare central conflict lines in
the social sciences that is quite beyond the scope of this particular chapter. But let us just sur-
mise that social systems are both highly complex and, in particular with respect to contemporary
social systems, imbued with values. Descriptive claims about what it means for a social system
to persist are often inseparable from normative claims about what that system should be. Deeply
contested values come to the fore and remain there. This makes descriptions of social systems
inherently unstable and tentative in a way that is obscured by an ontological notion of general
resilience.
Now someone may object that complete and permanent destruction would surely pass
for collapse on any reasonable construal of persistence thus providing a kind of baseline for
distinguishing collapse and adaptation. Indeed, if one would consider Lotka-​Volterra predator–​
prey models used in population ecology (and elsewhere) as an analogue –​not unreasonable
given that is whence the concept once sprung –​such systems collapse when they are put on
inescapable trajectories that lead towards the extinction of one (and then all) species.This is true,
of course, but often enough we are interested in something more than the survival of the species,
or the persistence of some city in a nominal sense. Thomas Campanella notes that “the modern
city is virtually indestructible” (Campanella 2006, 142) if considered merely in terms of its phys-
ical manifestation. But a city is something more than its buildings, obviously, and reconstructing

30
 Against general resilience

it after a disaster still can involve some crucial breach of the continuity upon which its identity
would hinge.

General resilience and self-​governance

Now it is time to return to the issue of general resilience. If a pluralism like the one hinted at
above is indeed an appropriate stance to assume, then that seems to speak against the use of a
notion of general resilience. Any applicable notion of resilience –​that is, that purports to say
something about actual systems –​involves implicit or explicit system descriptions. The point
here is that talk of general resilience either misconstrues the property of resilience or, at best, is a
puzzling way of thinking about the ontology and epistemology of complex systems.
Another possibility is that the distinction really captures the difference between resilience as
an abstract concept and resilience as applied to a concrete situation. Applying the concept to
an actual system necessarily relies on some kind of model or framework that provides points of
attachment (see Thorén 2014). Otherwise we get into the kinds of difficulties with the collapse/​
adaptation distinction outlined above. In the abstract, of course, no such thing is needed. But
again, if this is indeed what is intended, construing this in terms of two different abilities or prop-
erties of systems seems misleading.
Finally, we need to underscore that it is clear that it is useful to talk about something like
the adaptive scope of different systems in relative terms. Some systems appear to have a broader
adaptive scope than others, for whatever reason. Ismael (2011), for instance, illustrates such a
difference by comparing self-​governing systems with self-​organizing systems. The former are
systems that have a central processing unit (CPU) that manages what Ismael calls a self-​model.
A simple example is a ship that navigates using a map that has a representation of where the
ship is that is continually updated. Self-​organizing systems have no CPU and no self-​model and
instead relies on local interactions between “dumb” elements. Paradigmatic examples of self-​
organizing systems are colonies of insects or flocks of birds that coordinate activities “spontan-
eously”. Ismael points out that there are important trade-​offs made between these two idealized
structures with respect to the scope and cost of adaptation. Self-​organizing systems are compu-
tationally inexpensive but lack second-​order capabilities of self-​governing systems. The latter are
involved in their own goal-​setting in ways that self-​organizing systems can never be. The benefit
of self-​governance is an enormous capacity to adapt to new situations. But this ability comes at
great computational costs. Although Ismael argues these two adaptive strategies are analytically
different they are not in practice mutually exclusive: real systems tend to blend them in various
ways. The design problem is to get an appropriate balance.
Self-​governing systems have, in an important sense, a much greater adaptive scope than self-​
organizing systems –​that are to an extent hard-​wired to respond to certain types of disturbances –​
and could perhaps thus be said to be generally resilient. This could possibly provide resilience
theorists with a way of fleshing out the details with the added potential benefit that it is framed
in a familiar terminology. The down-​side is that self-​governance is a much too broad notion to
be particularly useful on its own.The general level theorizing does not help us much since there
are massive differences between self-​organizing systems in their ability to adapt.

The challenge of urban resilience

The argument presented above is aimed at showing how the notion of general resilience obscures
how values and perspectives play a central, and ineliminable role in assessing systems in terms

31
Henrik Thorén

of their resilience. In order to understand resilience at all we have to come to terms with what
it is that is resilient. If this is indeed true, general resilience, at least on some formulations, starts
to look like something of an oxymoron. There is a risk that one mistakes conceptual flaws for a
genuine adaptive capacity.
The focus in this chapter has been on the concept of general resilience understood in onto-
logical terms. One point was to show that this particular understanding is difficult to marry to
an (arguably) sensible pluralism about system descriptions. This particular construal of concept
is not perhaps necessary, but the notion does appear to have such connotation. That in turn risks
obfuscating important aspects of how the concept works when applied to concrete situations.
Towards the end of the last section, it was hinted at one possible understanding of the descrip-
tion that captures some of the aspects of the distinction. But let us now return to a different
understanding of the distinction altogether –​namely as a primarily epistemological distinc-
tion. On their online Wiki-​style workbook on resilience thinking, the Resilience Alliance, in
discussing this precise distinction, do warn that too narrow a focus on a particular construal of
the system (specific resilience) is dangerous.

The distinction between these two aspects of resilience [specific and general resilience] is
important because there is a danger in focusing too much on known or suspected thresholds
[…]. If all the attention and resources of management are channeled into managing for
identified (specified) resilience and associated thresholds, the management may inadvert-
ently be reducing resilience in other ways –​resilience to completely novel “surprises”.
There is therefore a need to consider both general and specified resilience.
(Resilience Alliance 2009, section 1.5)

The over-​arching idea captured in this quote is in line with what has been claimed here.What is
objectionable about general resilience as a concept is not that one should not be wary of unknown
unknowns. We have only a limited perspective of the consequences on urban areas of e.g. cli-
mate change and efforts to build resilience should be carried out whilst minimizing new vulner-
abilities. The warning of the dangers of a singular focus on certain types of disturbances at the
expense of all others is hence well taken. If this is indeed all that the general/​specific distinction
aims to do in this context, then the charge here should be understood as concerning termin-
ology. General resilience brings unfortunate connotations that engenders rather than makes us
wary of precisely the sort of myopia the Resilience Alliance implores us to be wary of. Here the
focus has been on how a notion of general resilience tends to lead towards a monistic view of
systems that simplifies the relationship between system descriptions and systems they describe.
Some other concerns, like the tenability of a notion of universal and unconstrained adaptability,
have been more tangentially touched upon.
Finally, the conclusion here is thus neither that resilience as such is an inherently flawed con-
cept, nor somehow unworkable for social systems such as urban systems, but that care needs to
be taken to avoid overly reductive accounts that the notion of general resilience in this context
can be counter-​productive.

Notes
1 It is notable that the stability/​resilience distinction that so much turns on in early texts, such as Holling
(1973) is now sometimes explicitly conflated. For an example of this see Meerow et al. (2016). See also

32
 Against general resilience

Hansson and Helgesson (2003) for a careful conceptual analysis of these two notions are related to one
another.
2 In his original paper on resilience Holling emphasised that measurability was a crucial aspect of the
concept (Holling 1973, 19). In the social sciences measurements are typically introduced in the form of
(sometimes aggregated) indicators, see e.g. Cutter et al. (2010) and Sherrieb et al. (2010).
3 These issues even flared up in the popular press briefly (see e.g. Reid and Skoglund, 2017).
4 For instructive overviews of the idea of pluralism see e.g. Kellert et al. (2006) and Mäki (1997). See also
Mitchell (2009).
5 This can be contrasted against the reductionism of e.g. Holling when he writes that the “complexity
of living systems of people and nature emerges not from a random association of a large number of
interacting factors rather from a smaller number of controlling processes” (Holling 2001, 391).

References
Adger, W. (2000). Social and ecological resilience: are they related? Progress in Human Geography.
Arctic Council. (2016). Arctic Resilience Report. (M. Carson and G. Peterson, eds.). Stockholm: Stockholm
Environment Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre. www. arctic-​council.org/​arr.
Campanella,T. (2006). Urban resilience and the recovery of New Orleans. Journal of the American Planning
Association. 72(2):141–​146.
Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, J., and Abel, N. (2001). From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of
what to what? Ecosystems. 4(8): 765–​781.
Collier, J. and Cumming, G. (2011).A dynamical approach to ecosystem identity. In: B. Brown, K. deLaplante,
and K. Peacock (eds.) Philosophy of Ecology. Oxford: Elsevier.
Cumming, G.S. and Collier, J. (2005). Change and identity in complex systems. Ecology and Society.
10(1): 29.
Cutter, S.L., Burton, C.G., and Emrich, C.T. (2010). Disaster resilience indicators for benchmarking baseline
conditions. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. 7(1): 51
Hansson, S.O. and Helgesson, G. (2003). What is stability? Synthese. 136: 219–​235.
Holling, C. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics, 1–​23.
Holling, C. (1996). Engineering resilience versus ecological resilience. In: P. Schulze (ed.) Engineering with
ecological constraints. Washington DC: National Academy Press.
Holling, C. (2001). Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems.
4(5): 390–​405.
Ismael, J.T. (2011). Self-​organization and self-​governance. Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 41(3): 327–​
351. http://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0048393110363435.
Kay, J.J. (2008). Framing the situation: Developing a system description. In: D. Waltner-​Toews, J.J. Kay,
and N.-​ M. Lister (2008). The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for
Sustainability. New York: Columbia University Press, 16–​34.
Kellert, S., Longino, H., and Waters, K. (2006). Introduction. In: S. Kellert, H. Longino, and K. Waters
(eds.): Scientific Pluralism, volume XIX of Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.
Kitcher, P. (1991). ‘The division of cognitive labor’, Journal of Philosophy. 87: 5–​22.
Kuhn,T. (1996/​1962).The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, third
edition.
Mäki, U. (1997). The one world and the many theories. Pluralism in Economics: New Perspectives in
History and Methodology. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 37–​47.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 147: 38–​49. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2015.11.011.
Miller, F., Osbahr, H., and Boyd, E. (2010). Resilience and vulnerability: Complementary or conflicting
concepts? Ecology and Society. 15 (3).
Mitchell, S.D. (2002). Integrative pluralism. Biology and Philosophy. 17: 55–​70.
Mitchell, S.D. (2009). Unsimple Truths: Science, Complexity, and Policy. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Olsson, C.A., Bond, J.M. Burns, D.A. Vella-​Brodrick, and Sawyer, S.M. (2003). “Adolescent resilience: A
concept analysis.” Journal of Adolescent Health. 26: 1–​11.

33
Henrik Thorén

Reid, J. and Skoglund, A. (2017). Problematisk forskning. Uppsala Nya Tidning. www.unt.se/​asikt/​debatt/​
problematisk-​forskning-​4585302.aspx.
Resilience Alliance (2009) http://​wiki.resalliance.org/​index.php/​1.5_​Specified_​and_​General_​Resilience.
Rutter, M. (1993). Resilience: Some conceptual considerations. Journal of Adolescent Health. 14(8): 626–​631.
Sherrieb, K., Norris, F.H., and Galea, S. (2010). Measuring capacities for community resilience. Social
Indicators Research. 99(2): 227–​247. http://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11205-​010-​9576-​9.
Thorén, H. (2014). Resilience as a unifying concept. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
28(3): 303–​324.
Thorén, H. and Olsson, L. (2017). Is resilience a normative concept? Resilience. 31(5): 1–​17. http://​doi.
org/​10.1080/​21693293.2017.1406842.
Walker, B. and Salt, D. (2012). Resilience Practice. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Weinberg, G.M. (1975). An Introduction to Systems Thinking. New York: Wiley.
Zebrowski, C. (2013). The nature of resilience. Resilience. 1(3): 159–​173. doi:10.1080/​21693293.2013.
804672.

34
 4
Urban resilience
A call to reframing planning discourses

Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

Genealogy of resilience

Engineering resilience
The first known use of the term “resilience” was in the study of natural properties of physical
objects (Klein et al. 2004; McAslan 2010). Tredgold (1818) used it to refer to timber’s “stiffness,
strength and its power to resist a body in motion” (p. 216). In its subsequent use in physics of
materials and engineering, resilience conveyed the notion of resistance, rigidity, and represented
the property of materials to revert to their original form or structure after being deformed by
external forces. An object that reverted or “bounced back”, following the impact of an external
force, without collapsing or breaking, was more resilient than one that either collapsed or took
longer to bounce back. This understanding of “engineering resilience” held sway for more than
a century and even influenced how natural ecosystems were conceived –​in terms of stable states
with natural and human activity acting as external forces or perturbations. It was against this
orthodoxy that the resilience of natural systems was redefined by ecologist C.S. Holling, thereby
sharply departing from its initial equilibrist focus (Holling 1973).

Ecological resilience
While in the 1970s, Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner catalyzed the environmental
movement, Holling undermined the dominant equilibrium-​centered understanding of the
natural world (Holling 1973). Instead of conceptualizing natural ecosystems as being endlessly
capable of recovering from losses due to natural or human causes –​a view that reinforced
expanded exploitation of natural resources –​Holling was advancing a non-​equilibrium view
of resilience, described as “persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and
disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables”
(Holling 1973, p. 14). This view of resilience was dynamic, demonstrating not resistance but
rather a response to either an internal or external distrubance that was absorbed by recon-
stitution of system structure to preserve its function. Ecosystems were resilient in so far as
the system structure was capable of self-​reconstitution to maintain system functionality, but

35
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

would collapse in cases where this was no longer possible (Holling 1973). The implications of
this view for natural ecosystems management in the face of “limits to predictive knowledge,
emphasized prevalence of the unexpected” (Walker and Cooper 2011, p. 147) and underscored
that human activity and natural ecosystems health were inextricably linked (Holling 2001); a
view that eventually matured into socio-​ecological systems (SES) under the rubric of evolu-
tionary resilience.

Evolutionary resilience
Whereas early Holling remained cautious about the transfer of analogies from the natural to
the social, and recommeded “smaller scale interventions and decentralized efforts” (Holling
and Goldberg 1971, p. 228), the latter Holling saw “resilience as integral to the co-​evolution
of societies and ecosystems as a total complex system” (Walker and Cooper 2011, p. 147).
In the case of the former, the non-​equilibrium or ecological view emphasized “presumption
of ignorance over presumption of knowledge” (Holling and Goldberg 1971, p. 221), while
the latter highlighted the capacity of complex SESs to self-​organize without the need for
centralized management and control. In so far as Holling’s original conceptualization of resili-
ence encouraged pessimissm about predictability of interventions, its application to coupled
SESs tended to undermine the role of any centralized governing authority.1 Practically, the
application of SES resilience drew on notions of “positive adaptability” or “bouncing forward”
(Mykhnenko 2016), which were developed by mental health professionals in the 1920s and
1930s to refer to the ability to recover from misfortune or preserve mental immunity or mental
hygiene (Scoloveno 2016). Initially introduced in the context of child psychology (Clauss-​
Ehlers and Weist 2010), the concept gained traction to enhance the forward-​looking adaptive
capacity of SESs (Holling 2001, p. 404). While the adaptive capacity view helped explore and
hypothesize resilience of SESs, it encouraged state roll-​back on the one hand and promoted
market-​oriented forward-​looking adaptive planning on the other, opening the door for conser-
vative social policy and planning approaches. In effect, translating resilience thinking into urban
planning carries the possibility not only of eschewing progressive transformation in favor of the
dominant and highly institutionalized social order but also enjoins greater liberties for unre-
stricted market-​oriented mechanisms (Davoudi and Porter 2012; MacKinnon and Derickson
2012;Vale 2014).
Conceptualized under the notion of Panarchy, evolutionary or SES resilience is seen as the
property of dynamic and nested complex adaptive systems consisting of continuous interconnected
phases of stability and change. In fact, resorting to Greek mythology (Pan, the unpredictable god
of nature) and human action, Panarchy labels “revolt” “the smaller, faster, nested levels [that]
invent, experiment and test, while the larger, slower levels [labeled “remember”] stabilize and
conserve accumulated memory of system dynamics” (Resilience Alliance n.d.). In Panarchy,
“the slower and larger levels set the conditions within which faster and smaller ones function”
(Resilience Alliance n.d.). However, suggesting a unified theory of resilience, premised on the
ontological similarity of natural and social systems, via Panarchy,“all systems (and SESs especially)
exist and function at multiple scales of space, time and social organization, and the interactions
across scales are fundamentally important in determining the dynamics of the system at any par-
ticular focal scale” (Resilience Alliance n.d.). Therefore, even though resilience thinking may aid
our understanding and analysis of social and ecological systems, evolutionary resilience suffers
from blind spots theoretically and at the level of policy or planning prescriptions. Many of these
drawbacks, as illustrated by Olsson et al. (2015), stem from incompatibilities between resilience
thinking and non-​functionalist social science.

36
 Reframing planning discourses

Translation of resilience into urban planning and implications

As long as Holling’s adaptive cycle and other resilience conceptualizations were used to study
human–​nature interdependencies in the area of ecosystem management, they provided greater
awareness and understanding of the limits or thresholds of ecosystems, allowing for better man-
agement of natural resources. However, applying these conceptualizations as a unified theory,
integrating the society, the economy and the environment, leads to incompatibilities between the
concept of resilience and the contemporary social sciences. Whereas some authors like Meerow
et al. (2016, p. 38) highlight the “conceptual tensions fundamental to urban resilience” and pro-
ceed to remedy them by broadening its definition, Olsson et al. (2015) discuss the concept’s irre-
mediable ontological incommensurabilities with non-​functionalist social science.
The translation of resilience thinking into urban planning, in particular, and social theory, in
general, has met with criticism and several authors urge for explicit disclosure about “resilience
for whom and to what, when where and why?” (Davoudi and Porter 2012; Lhomme et al. 2013;
Meerow et al. 2016, p. 38; Mykhnenko 2016; Shaw 2012;Vale 2014).
Notwithstanding these concerns, the notion finds wide use not only in urban emergency
management and post-​disaster planning but also in urban planning for climate change adaptation.
In the following, we provide an overview of discourses that sustain specific notions of resilience
across different practical domains including emergency management and disaster preparedness,
post-​disaster roadmaps for recovery and reconstruction, and within broader city-​scale adaptation
across different sectors. In doing so, we attempt to uncover the discourses surrounding the notion
of “urban resilience” and explain why they either gloss over or fail to grasp certain critical aspects
of contemporary social theory like social inequality and conflict, power, and agency.

Emergency Management and Community-​based Disaster Preparedness

Although the scholarship on emergency management and hazard research finds it difficult to
clearly define a “disaster” (McEntire 2004), the concept of resilience has gained prominence.
Operationalizing resilience in this field, however, tends to remain reactive rather than pro-
active, focusing on reducing recovery times and instituting standardized response protocols at
the expense of improving mitigation and preparedness (McEntire 2004; Ostadtaghizadeh et al.
2015). Where mitigation and preparedness are emphasized, actions tend to sit awkwardly on
“a very fine line between pushing for a more proactive approach in emergency management
while recognizing the limits of what we can do to prevent disasters” (McEntire, 2004, p. 11).
This dilemma in emergency management, regarding how a “disaster” is defined, is brought full
circle, not just in terms of what constitutes and/​or characterizes a disaster, but also in regards to
who characterizes it and decides how and when to intervene.The overt and explicit “top-​down”
approaches to how large-​scale disasters are confronted –​for instance, by organizations such as
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) –​privilege expert knowledge and emphasize faster bounce-​back to pre-​disaster
conditions (McEntire 2004).
In so far as such approaches, aligned with the engineering notion of resilience, overempha-
size quantification across a number of domains including physical, social, and institutional, they
are criticized for “the lack of inclusion of specific social and psychological factors (e.g., self-​and
collective-​efficacy, sense of community)” (Ostadtaghizadeh et al. 2015, p. 14; McEntire 2004).
This inability to pay proportional attention to social and psychological aspects of resilience
suggests the fundamental inadequacy of the concept to capture social change (Olsson et al. 2015;

37
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

Wikström 2013). Furthermore, this inadequacy tends to run deeper, especially given the “top-​
down” conceptualization not only of disasters but also of disaster-​stricken populations, because:

Resilience is fundamentally about how best to maintain the functioning of an existing

system in the face of externally derived disturbance. Both the ontological nature of “the
system” and its normative desirability escape critical scrutiny. As a result, the existence
of social divisions and inequalities tends to be glossed over when resilience thinking is
extended to society.
(MacKinnon and Derickson 2012, p. 258)

Roadmaps for Post-​Disaster Recovery and Revitalization

Post-​disaster roadmaps are long-​range strategic plans for recovery and rebuilding after sudden
shocks such as natural and man-​made disasters, and also for revitalization and reconstruction
following slow burns like gradual decline in industries, tax base, and population. Therefore,
depending on whether the perturbation in question is a sudden shock, like Hurricane Katrina
or Harvey, or a slow burn, like sustained urban depopulation like in Detroit or Youngstown, post-​
disaster roadmaps anticipate and operationalize the notion of resilience quite differently.
When the perturbation is a sudden shock, like a hurricane, earthquake, or terrorist attack,
post-​disaster recovery roadmaps emphasize rebuilding and re-​ emerging from the mishap.
The perturbation is almost always an unfortunate aberration, something that should not have
occurred, and bounce-​back is the expected response:

In the life of this nation, we have often been reminded that nature is an awesome force, and
that all life is fragile…our [second] commitment is to help the citizens of the Gulf Coast to
overcome this disaster, and rebuild their communities.
(George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina on August 31, 2005)

In contrast, when the perturbation is a slow-​burn process, like lake eutrophication, long-​term
droughts, or urban shrinkage, post-​disaster revitalization roadmaps emphasize renewal and
reconstruction. In this case, the perturbation itself is conceived not as a shock or unexpected
aberration, but rather as an expected function (i.e. feedback processes) of system dynamics.
Not only does construing these processes as gradual or slow-​burn stresses, whether natural or
social, suggests a semblance of control, but also embraces the existence of multiple interlocking
systems and their periodic growth and decline as a normal socio-​ecological feature (Haase et al.
2014; Holling 1973; Holling and Goldberg 1971).
The notion of resilience, in general, considers “very different events (a flood, a war, a social upheaval)
as essentially equal, without distinguishing what is unexpected from what is contentious or unwanted”
(Pizzo 2015, p. 134). How crises are construed and reacted to, under different circumstances, provides
insight into the preferred approach to resilience, viz., engineering, ecological or evolutionary. On
the one hand, resilience in reference to sudden shocks –​for instance in national security discourses
against cyberattacks and terrorist threats –​emphasizing elimination of risk and vulnerabilities, expan-
sion of structural and functional redundancies and hardening of physical infrastructures in order
to “quickly respond to shortages, disruptions and emergencies” (Hartman 2013; Moteff 2012) –​
indicates alignment with the engineering or “equilibrium” view of resilience as discussed earlier. On
the other hand, responses to slow burns, for instance, through long-​range redevelopment and reinvest-
ment programs in shrinking cities have tended to emphasize reconstitution of tax bases through right-​
sizing policies, landbanking schemes, demolition of abandoned structures, reuse and redevelopment of

38
 Reframing planning discourses

vacant land by private development and growth coalitions.These policies and programs, which signify
efforts at reconstituting the system structure in response to external disturbances in order to preserve
function, embody the ecological view of resilience.

The Detroit Strategic Framework marks the first time in decades that Detroit has considered
its future not only from a standpoint of land use or economic growth, but in the context of
city systems, neighborhood vision, the critical question of vacant land and buildings, and the
need for greater civic capacity to address the systemic change necessary for Detroit’s success.
This plan is also the first to accept and address Detroit’s future as a city that will not regain
its peak population of nearly 2 million people.
(Detroit Future City 2012, Detroit Strategic Framework Plan, p. 5)

The policies and plans set into motion by post-​disaster roadmaps, whether addressing sudden
shocks or slow burns, carry deeply normative implications for recovery and reconstruction. In
this regard, we are in agreement with Barbara Pizzo (2015), who contends that while “we need
to correctly and specifically narrow the concept and its use […] this is not the primary problem.
Instead […] its political meaning [is] of the utmost importance” (p. 134).Translation of resilience
into urban planning, either against sudden or slow-​acting perturbations, is, therefore, a far cry
from the supposedly uncontroversial mobilization of metaphors from the physical and natural
sciences (Carpenter et al. 2014; Pickett et al. 2004).
Take, for instance, the strategies to reduce risk and eliminate vulnerabilities against sudden
shocks. For physical systems, like energy infrastructures, these strategies emphasize increasing
investments to harden transmission lines and expand distribution network redundancies (Amin
2002; Arghandehet al. 2015; Moteff 2012). For social systems, these same strategies, quite rightly,
entail reducing poverty and eliminating social vulnerabilities. But as progressive as this recom-
mendation may seem, one need look no further than post-​Katrina New Orleans to appreciate
its controversial application in practice. As Lawrence Vale (2014), referring to the post-​disaster
demographic shift in the city asks,“Is ‘the city’ resilient even if many of its poorest former citizens
have not been able to return? Or, as is the view of some, is the city’s resilience actually dependent
on the departure of many of its most vulnerable residents?” (p. 197; see also Long, 2007). Owing
to its functionalist systems ontology, resilience theory remains conceptually committed to con-
struing society and social change as conceived in early functionalist (Parsonian) social theory,
namely consensus-​driven, orderly and stable –​a perspective mostly abandoned in current social
theory for leaving no room for agency, power and conflict (Olsson et al. 2015). Inherently
depoliticized and conservative, resilience thinking concedes little, if any, conceptual space to pov-
erty and social justice. And thus, one might ask if enhancing systemic resilience at the expense of
the resilience of communities and individuals is justifiable (Levine et al. 2012), since what may
enhance resilience for some may increase vulnerability for others.
Strategies to improve resilience of societies against slow-​burn processes –​such as the gradual
deindustrialization and depopulation of cities –​carry greater normative overtures. The slow-​
acting impact of the perturbation tends to open the scene for experts not only to determine
when and how to intervene, but also, more critically, where to do so. It is no surprise, then, that
the top-​down determination of particular neighborhoods as “blighted” or “rundown”, or of
entire cities, like Detroit or Youngstown, as “hollowed out” or “wasteland”, is often met with
resistance by existing residents (Audirac 2018; Keene and Padilla 2010; Pedroni 2011).
Furthermore, improving system resilience through self-​organization and adaptive capaci-
ties, to slow-​burn processes of cities and communities officially designated as needing expert
intervention, carries subtle recommendations for “rolling back the state” (Davoudi and Porter

39
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

2012). Rather than an arbitrary or naive conception of social and individual self-​organization
based on market mechanisms, the recommendation is, we argue, quite deliberate and embedded
in the concept of resilience. In fact, it follows directly from Holling (1971) who, comparing
ecological management and urban planning, argued in favor of pricing and similar market-​
oriented means of self-​organizing (see Holling 2001) to “guide people towards socially desirable
ends” (p. 229). Holling’s attempt to preserve complexity was, by default, conceived without
regulatory influences of the state which he considered stifling, leading to the recommendation
that “We must reduce the size of our institutions to ensure their flexibility and respect for the
system of which they are a small interacting part” (p. 229). Rather than ignoring the concept
of agency, Holling renders it internal to the self-​organizing dynamics of the whole system by
foregrounding systems learning and adaptation (Folke 2006; Holling 2001). This conceptualiza-
tion of agency is expounded in the literature emphasizing critical reflection and collaborative
deliberation (McCarthy et al. 2011) and through explicit references to values, morality and ethics
(Adger et al. 2009; Stokols et al. 2013). However, with social learning and adaptive capacities
in modern societies understood consistently and predominantly in terms of market-​oriented
mechanisms and pricing signals, several authors also highlight the inherent limits to social and
individual adaptation (Adger et al. 2009; Wikström 2013). Offering reasons for why this is so,
MacKinnon and Derickson (2012) suggest that

the proffered solutions of greater public participation and accountability seem inad-
equate, since they continue to be underpinned by a notion of adaptive management that
subordinates communities and local groups to the imperative of greater resilience as defined
by external experts and policy-​makers.
(p. 261)

Inadvertently, by subjecting agency to self-​organized system dynamics of human societies, the

concept of resilience not only reinforces the status quo maintained by the power of incum-
bent institutions but also undermines popular struggles and conflict that may arise in response.
It achieves this not by ignoring or discrediting the legitimacy of socio-​political struggles and
disruptions, but rather by internalizing them as yet another feature of the complex urban system’s
adaptive capacity, before seemingly arriving at a new dynamic equilibrium (Walker and Cooper
2011). In urban planning, where non-​discriminatory participation and community engagement
may be mandatory, operationalizing resilience can potentially sanction socio-​political margin-
alization of subaltern voices and sustain token participation with little or no real accountability.

Urban climate adaptation plans

The pervasiveness of resilience in the literature, replacing sustainability as the leading concept,
occurs mostly in response to the inevitability of widespread social, economic, and biophysical
disruptions due to climate change (Kim and Lim 2016; Rockström et al. 2009). As a foundational
concept and as an operative construct intended to develop systems and structures in the present
to forestall the challenges of a potentially catastrophic future, forward-​looking “evolutionary”
resilience emphasizes “positive adaptability” and vastly succeeds in offering confidence and hope
of survival. The key difference, however, between climate adaptation plans and the aforemen-
tioned emergency management and post-​disaster roadmaps, is the expectation and social con-
struction of an impending catastrophe (Christmann et al. 2014). Since climate adaptation plans are
designed to address anticipated disasters rather than ongoing or prior crises, they greatly expand
the potential for top-​down and expert-​driven determinations of future perturbations –​often as

40
 Reframing planning discourses

“objectively measurable external and internal factors” (Christmann et al. 2014, p. 146). While
acknowledging the practical necessity to predict and plan for the uncertainties of unforeseeable
magnitude facing humanity (Rockström et al. 2009; Westley et al. 2011), the emphasis on essen-
tialist conceptualizations of vulnerability and resilience, as Christmann et al. (2014) note, “make
the mistake of conceiving the endangerment of a social entity in a rather one-​sided manner, as an
objectively –​naturally and socially –​given exposure, since they usually consider it independently
of the ‘threat perceptions’ that members of an entity have with respect to a potential exposure”
(p. 146, emphasis added). Arguably, such essentialist determinations of vulnerability and resilience,
against perturbations anticipated to occur sometime in the future, play into the hands of multi-
national private entities like the Rockefeller Foundation (Rockefeller Foundation 2015) and
supranational agencies like the World Bank (World Bank 2013). On the one hand, urban resiliency
planning is increasingly performed for cities and their residents by non-​local/​non-​state actors. On
the other hand, the list of perturbations to prepare and plan for has grown beyond natural disasters,
to encompass cyber-​physical attacks on critical infrastructure systems (Evans and Penner 2015;
Sharifi and Yamagata 2015, 2016), financial crises, food riots and violent demonstrations (ARUP
2014; Kim and Lim 2016).Without denying that cities do, in fact, potentially face numerous such
perturbations, criticism of urban resilience and climate adaptation plans, for example by Bulkeley
and Betsill (2013), problematizes the co-​existence of “glocalized urban politics” with forms of
“municipal voluntarism” due to “the growing influence of a range of non-​state actors in shaping
urban climate governance and an ever more complex political economy of climate change, woven
between notions of carbon control, resource scarcity, resilience and security” (pp. 15–​16).

Holling’s society and shrinking cities: Two approaches to resilience

Translation of resilience thinking into urban planning accompanies the transfer of its conceptual
malleability into the discipline, accommodating different notions of resilience under different crisis
conditions, often applied top-​down as seen fit by experts.Yet, underlying this malleability is a fun-
damental inadequacy of the resilience lens to grasp society in all its complexity –​often ignoring
or glossing over critical issues of socio-​economic disenfranchisement and disempowerment –​
owing not only to its functionalist systems ontology but also to Hollings’ preferential conceptu-
alization of self-​organization dynamics through market mechanisms. Holling’s society privileges
decision-​making by the rational economic man (homo economicus), subjecting all contemporary
socio-​ecological challenges –​from climate change adaptation to urban resource management –​
solely to market-​based incentive mechanisms. And in the process, ignoring concerns regarding
disparate individual capabilities to participate in such market mechanisms. Inadvertently or not,
Holling’s society obscures the existence of underrepresented, disempowered, and disenfranchised
sections of society –​often communities of color and immigrants –​lacking the necessary finan-
cial, political or institutional capital to participate in markets. Attempts to remedy this theoretical
inadequacy often draw on the nested dynamics of the “panarchy” model to explain (away) the co-​
existence of socio-​structural resilience alongside social and economic vulnerabilities at different
levels –​thereby effectively internalizing poverty, homelessness, and other social problems as part
or as outcome of complex systems dynamics. By effacing disparate individual capabilities to affect
market dynamics on the one hand, and internalizing vulnerabilities as inherent to the society on
the other, Holling’s society elevates market-​based solutions and emphasizes individual behavior
(e.g. individual responsibility and choice) to overcome personal adversity rather than communal
solidarity and community organizing in popular struggles for increased state support.
Contemporary planning approaches in shrinking cities offer ample evidence to support these
aforementioned concerns regarding theoretical inadequacies inherent in resiliency planning. As

41
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

a well-​established term in academic discourse, “shrinking cities” invoke the image of urban
distress, often popularized through negative monikers like “decay”, “destruction”, and “run-
down” (Audirac 2018). From the perspective of resilience thinking, shrinking city planning falls
under the category of post-​disaster roadmaps often combined with climate adaptation efforts,
emphasizing not only policies for “right-​sizing” and market-​oriented landbanking schemes
(Hackworth 2014) but also landscape restructuring strategies that leverage green infrastructure
to signal and, eventually, determine future land uses (Desimini 2014). Such mainstream planning
approaches introduced as remedies to vacant land, abandoned properties and loss of tax base,
frame the challenges encountered by shrinking cities in predominantly economic terms, with
little regard for critical socio-​political constructs like poverty, race, and class, thereby limiting a
greater understanding of relative deprivation across the population (Hackworth 2014).
Yet, under the metanarrative of resilience, undergirding mainstream responses to urban
shrinkage, insurgent responses evident in emerging grassroots urbanisms (Kinder 2014) are
broadening the scope of solutions beyond purely market-​based strategies. Take, for example,
grassroots community action in Buffalo, New York for sustainable housing tackling low-​
income vulnerability against electric utility shut-​offs (PUSH Buffalo 2014); designation
of community gardens as spaces of post-​disaster refuge and sources of community resili-
ence (Chan et al. 2015; Colding and Barthel 2013) and establishment of formal cooperative
organizations that draw on community assets and resources to drive community-​led grassroots
energy projects (Fairchild and Weinrub 2017; Pahl 2012). In describing these responses as
insurgent, we call attention to their distinctive character, which, while rooted in civil society,
is not necessarily incompatible with mainstream approaches, but rather crucial for practically
engaging with critical social concepts like social inequality and conflict, power, and agency.
Such an understanding of insurgency helps uncover a continuum of strategies falling rela-
tively closer or further away from contemporary approaches to planning in shrinking cities.
For instance, civic engagement in top-​down planning and policymaking, often by non-​state
actors, as in the “100 resilient cities” initiative by the Rockefeller Foundation, would fall
much closer to mainstream practices as compared to insurgent, DIY, or guerilla interventions
encompassing creation of urban alternatives towards

defamiliarisation and the identification of new possibilities; refamiliarisation and the occu-
pation of alienated spaces; decommodification that asserts use over exchange value; and a
collaboration across difference that involves emergent rather than pre-​fixed subjects.
(Wendler 2014, citing Crawford 2001, 1999)

In acknowledging these distinctions –​across a spectrum from market-​oriented mechanisms

to a host of alternative insurgent strategie –​we join Bene et al. (2016) in urging urban
planners to be better aware of the conceptual subtleties and policy implications of resilience
and to “acknowledge the political economy dimension of urbanization to uncover instances
where enhancing resilience may lead to reinforcing the status quo responsible for contem-
porary social and environmental ills” (Bene et al., p. 26).

Conclusion
Following a genealogical account from engineering to evolutionary resilence, we traced the
migration of resilience across disciplinary domains and illustrated how different notions of resili-
ence have gained saliency in accordance to different crisis conditions addressed under climate
adaptation plans, emergency management, and post-​disaster roadmaps.

42
 Reframing planning discourses

Table 4.1 Mainstream and alternative discourses

Mainstream resilience discourse Alternative discourse

(based on Holling’s Society)

Recognizes no role for central governing
authority, whether by the state or centralized
market
Overemphasizes market-​oriented mechanisms
for societal self-​organization
Emphasizes value capture for individual self-​gain
and self-​preservation in the face of scarce
resources
Responsibility-​based; emphasis on personal
responsibility and potential of individual
choices to influence the market
Examples: Resiliency planning by Rockefeller
Foundation; Energy Assurance Planning
sanctioned under American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009
The state acts to enable equity through its support
of grassroots and community-​driven and -​
controlled efforts
Expanded understanding of self-​organization that
acknowledges existing power differentials in
society to support coalitions outside and, often,
contrarian to extant market principles
Emphasizes value creation for communitarian ideals
and towards commonly shared goals
Capability-​based; emphasis on capabilities of
individuals as well as communities to express
their choices so as to acknowlege and address the
influence of broader power differentials
Examples: Energy Democracy movement in several
north eastern cities to drive local community
action in the domain of utility-​controlled energy
services

Source: Based on Adil forthcoming

Focusing on policy and planning responses in shrinking cities helped identify the mobil-
ization of evolutionary resilience, which internalizes critical urban problems like social
inequality and conflict, power, and agency. We referred to these as the conceptual blind spots
inherent in the mainstream view of resilience, which are as much a consequence of the
underlying functionalist ontology on which the original concept is predicated, as an outcome
of Holling’s over reliance on market mechanisms behind societal self-​organization. Critical
review of these blind spots throws into relief alternative conceptualizations of resilience nei-
ther accommodated nor acknowledged within the mainstream understanding of the concept
(see Table 4.1).
The alternatives to the mainstream view of resilience can be found in grassroots urbanisms,
such as identified above, which are grounded in insurgent notions of community solidarity and
ownership, participatory democracy, and social justice. It is in seeking to elevate this latter view
of resilience, against the mainstream view, that planning discourses should be reformulated.
This position does not suggest outright abandonment of market-​oriented approaches, rather it
sympathizes with Victor Ostrom’s advice to avoid being “trapped within narrowly constrained
intellectual horizons […] [and to] usefully think about combinations of private and public
economies existing side by side” (Smith et al. 2003, p. 1). At the theoretical level, this rec-
ommendation requires breaching the functionalist orthodoxy inherent within resilience by
reconceptualizing the concept using theoretical perspectives that remain explicit about social
inequality and conflict, power and agency. Steps in this direction are evident in Wagenaar and
Wilkinson (2013) performative account for governing urban resilience as well as in the broader
trend in scholarship acknowledging aspects of materiality, narratives and cross-​disciplinary trans-
actional processes conceptualizing socio-​ecological resilience (Lejano and Stokols 2013; Stokols
et al. 2013). On the practical level, reformulating planning discourses requires that planners and

43
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

local policymakers pay increased attention and offer greater institutional and financial support
to grassroots efforts without placing unrealistic institutional demands on citizen-​led actions.
In contexts punctuated by increasing state roll-​back and a greater reliance on private social
enterprises and entrepreneurs, we envision the broadenening of the planning discourse on
resilience within the interstitial intellectual spaces outlined by traditional state, market and civil
society boundaries (Adil forthcoming).

Note
1 To this end, ideologically speaking, Holling’s prescriptions aligned with Frederick von Hayek’s neo-
liberal philosophy set against the “hubris of predictive modelling in the face of unknowable complexity”
(Walker and Cooper, 2011, p. 149).

References
Adger, N., Dessai, S., Goulden, M., Hulme, M., Lorenzoni, I., Nelson, D.R., … Wreford, A. (2009). Are
there social limits to adaptation to climate change? Climatic Change. 93(3–​4): 335–​354. http://​doi.org/​
10.1007/​s10584-​008-​9520-​z.
Adil, A.M. (n.d.). Societal impacts of emerging grassroots energy communities: A capabilities based
assessment. In: Energy Impacts: A Multidisciplinary Exploration of North American Energy
Development. Utah: Social Ecology Press and Utah State University Press.
Amin, M. (2002). Toward secure and resilient interdependent infrastructures. Journal of Infrastructure
Systems. 8 (September): 67–​75. http://​doi.org/​10.1061/​(ASCE)1076-​0342(2002)8:3(67).
Arghandeh, R., von Meier, A., Mehrmanesh, L., and Mili, L. (2015). On the definition of cyber-​physical
resilience in power systems, 20. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.rser.2015.12.193.
ARUP (2014). Research Report Volume 3 Urban Measurement Report. Arup (Vol. 3).
Audirac, I. (2018). Shrinking cities: An unfit term for American urban policy? Cities. 75 (July 2016): 12–​19.
http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.cities.2017.05.001.
Baggio, J.A., Brown, K., and Hellebrandt, D. (2015). Boundary object or bridging concept? A citation net-
work analysis of resilience. Ecology and Society. 20(2).
Bene, C., Mehta, L., McGranahan, G., Cannon, T., Gupte, J., and Tanner, T., (2017). Resilience as a Policy
Narrative: Potentials and limits in the context of urban planning. Climate and Development. (March,
2017): 1-​18 http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1080/​17565529.2017.1301868
Bulkeley, H. and Betsill, M. (2013). Revisiting the urban politics of climate change. Environmental Politics.
1: 136–​154. http://​doi.org/​10.1063/​1.2756072.
Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, M., and Abel, N. (2014). From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of
what to what? Ecosystems. 4(8): 765–​781. http://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s10021-​001-​0045-​9.
Chan, J., DuBois, B., and Tidball, K.G. (2015). Refuges of local resilience: Community gardens in post-​
Sandy New York City. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening. 14(3): 625–​635. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.ufug.2015.06.005.
Christmann, G., Balgar, K., and Mahlkow, N. (2014). Local constructions of vulnerability and resilience in
the context of climate change. A comparison of Lübeck and Rostock. Social Sciences. 3(1): 142. http://​
doi.org/​10.3390/​socsci3010142.
Clauss-​Ehlers, C.S. and Weist, M.D. (2010). Community Planning to Foster Resilience in Children.
New York: Springer US. https://​books.google.com/​books?id=41BDBAAAQBAJ.
Colding, J. and Barthel, S. (2013). The potential of “urban green commons” in the resilience building of
cities. Ecological Economics. 86: 156–​166. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ecolecon.2012.10.016.
Crawford, M. (1999). Introduction. In Everyday Urbanism. New York: Monacelli Press, pp. 8–​15.
Crawford, M. (2011).The right to the city. In The Right to the City Conference and Exhibition. University
of Sydney.
Davoudi, S. and Porter, L. (2012). Resilience: A bridging concept or a dead end? Planning Theory Practice.
13(2): 299–​333. http://​doi.org/​10.1080/​14649357.2012.677124.
Desimini, J. (2014). From planned shrinkage to formerly urban: Staking landscape architecture’s
claim in the shrinking city debate. Landscape Journal. 33(1): 17–​35. http://​doi.org/​10.1353/​
lnd.2014.0005.

44
 Reframing planning discourses

Evans, P.C. and Penner, P.F. (2015). Resilient and sustainable infrastructure for urban energy systems.
The Solutions Journal. 5(5): 48-​54. www.thesolutionsjournal.com/​article/​resilient-​and-​sustainable-​
infrastructure-​for-​urban-​energy-​systems/​.
Fairchild, D. and Weinrub, A. (2017). Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions.
(D. Fairchild and A. Weinrub (eds.). Washington DC: Island Press. https://​ books.google.com/​
books?id=td4yDwAAQBAJ.
Folke, C. (2006). Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-​ecological systems analyses. Global
Environmental Change. 16: 253–​267. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.gloenvcha.2006.04.002.
Haase, A., Rink, D., Grossmann, K., Bernt, M., and Mykhnenko,V. (2014). Conceptualizing urban shrinkage.
Environment and Planning A. 46: 1519–​1534. http://​doi.org/​10.1068/​a46269.
Hackworth, J. (2014). The limits to market-​based strategies for addressing land abandonment in shrinking
American cities. Progress in Planning. 90: 1–​37. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.progress.2013.03.004.
Hartman, K. (2013). Protecting the Nation’s Energy Infrastructure: States Address Energy Security. National
Conference of State Legislatures. www.ncsl.org/​documents/​energy/​EnergySecurityFinal-​10-​13.pdf.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 4 (1973): 1–​23. http://​doi.org/​10.1146/​annurev.es.04.110173.000245.
Holling, C.S. (2001). Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems.
4 (5): 390–​405. http://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s10021-​00.
Holling, C.S. and Goldberg, M.A. (1971). Ecology and planning. Journal of the American Institute of Planners.
Keene, D.E. and Padilla, M.B. (2010). Race, class and the stigma of place: Moving to “opportunity” in
Eastern Iowa. Health and Place. 16(6): 1216–​1223. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.healthplace.2010.08.006.
Kim, D. and Lim, U. (2016). Urban resilience in climate change adaptation: A conceptual framework.
Sustainability. 8(5): 405. http://​doi.org/​10.3390/​su8040405.
Kinder, K. (2014). Guerrilla-​style defensive architecture in Detroit: A self-​provisioned security strategy in a
neoliberal space of disinvestment. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 38(5): 1767–​
1784. http://​doi.org/​10.1111/​1468–​2427.12158.
Klein, R.J.T., Nicholls, R.J., Thomalla, F., Klein, R.J.T., Nicholls, R.J., Thomalla, F., … Thomalla, F. (2004).
Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept? (Vol. 7891). Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research: Potsdam.
Lejano, R. and Stokols, D. (2013). Social ecology, sustainability, and economics. Ecological Economics.
89: 1–​6. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ecolecon.2013.01.011.
Levine, S., Pain, A., Bailey, S., and Fan, L. (2012). The Relevance of “Resilience”? London: Overseas
Development Institute.
Lhomme, S., Serre, D., Diab,Y., and Laganier, R. (2013). Analyzing resilience of urban networks: a prelim-
inary step towards more flood resilient cities. Natural Hazards and Earth System Science. 13(2): 221–​
230. http://​doi.org/​10.5194/​nhess-​13-​221-​2013.
Long, A.P. (2007). Poverty is the new prostitution: race, poverty, and public housing in post-​Katrina New
Orleans. The Journal of American History. 94(3): 795–​803. http://​doi.org/​10.2307/​25095141.
MacKinnon, D. and Derickson, K.D. (2012). From resilience to resourcefulness: A critique of resilience policy
and activism. Progress in Human Geography. 37(2): 253–​270. http://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0309132512454775.
McAslan, A. (2010). The Concept of Resilience: Understanding its Origins, Meaning and Utility. .
Adelaide: Torrens Resilience Institute.
McCarthy, D.D.P., Crandall, D.D., Whitelaw, G.S., General, Z., and Tsuji, L.J.S. (2011). A critical systems
approach to social learning: Building adaptive capacity in social, ecological, epistemological (SEE)
systems. Ecology and Society. 16(3): 18. http://​doi.org/​10.5751/​ES-​04255-​160318.
McEntire, D. (2004). The status of emergency management theory: Issues, barriers, and recommendations
for improved scholarship. FEMA Higher Education Conference, 1–​ 25. http://​doi.org/​10.1017/​
CBO9781107415324.004.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 147: 38–​49. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2015.11.011.
Moteff, J.D. (2012). Critical Infrastructure Resilience: The Evolution of Policy and Programs and Issues for
Congress, 1–​20. http://​doi.org/​R42683.
Mykhnenko,V. (2016). Resilience: A right -​winger’s ploy? In S. Springer, K. Birch, and J. MacLeavy (eds.),
The Handbook of Neoliberalism (pp. 190–​206). London: Routledge.
Olsson, L., Jerneck, A., Thoren, H., Persson, J., and O’Byrne, D. (2015). Why resilience is unappealing
to social science: Theoretical and empirical investigations of the scientific use of resilience. Science
Advances. 1(4): e1400217–​e1400217. http://​doi.org/​10.1126/​sciadv.1400217.

45
Ali Adil and Ivonne Audirac

Ostadtaghizadeh, A., Ardalan, A., Paton, D., Javvari, H., and Khankeh, H.R. (2015). Community disaster
resilience: A Systematic review on assessment models and tools. PLOS Currents Disasters, 1–​21. http://​
doi.org/​10.1371/​currents.dis.f224ef8efbdfcf1d508dd0de4d8210ed.Revisions.
Pahl, G. (2012). Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance, and Launch Local Energy Projects.
White River Junction,VT: Chelsea Green Pub. https://​books.google.com/​books?id=zzqGKrthyOoC.
Pedroni, T.C. (2011). Urban shrinkage as a performance of whiteness: Neoliberal urban restructuring,
education, and racial containment in the post-​industrial, global niche city. Discourse. 32(2): 203–​215.
http://​doi.org/​10.1080/​01596306.2011.562666.
Pickett, S., Cadenasso, M.L., and Grove, J.M. (2004). Resilient cities: meaning, models, and metaphor
for integrating the ecological, socio-​economic, and planning realms. Landscape and Urban Planning.
69(4): 369–​384. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2003.10.035.
Pizzo, B. (2015). Problematizing resilience: Implications for planning theory and practice. Cities. 43: 133–​
140. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.cities.2014.11.015.
PUSH Buffalo (2014). PUSH Buffalo Energy Democracy Campaign. http://​pushbuffalo.org/​Websites/​
pushbuffalo/​images/​PUSH_​Buffalo_​Energy_​Democracy_​Campaign_​info.pdf.
Resilience Alliance (n.d.). Resilience Alliance. www.resalliance.org/​.
Rockefeller Foundation (2015). 100 Resilient Cities Challenge | 100 Resilient Cities. www.100resilientcities.
org/​pages/​100-​resilient-​cities-​challenge#/​-​_​/​.
Rockström, A., Steffen, J.W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F.S., Lambin, E., … Fole, J. (2009). Planetary
boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology And Society. 14(2). http://​doi.
org/​10.1038/​461472a.
Scoloveno, R. (2016). A concept analysis of the phenomenon of resilience. Journal of Nursing & Care. 5(4).
http://​doi.org/​10.4172/​2167-​1168.1000353.
Sharifi, A. and Yamagata, Y. (2015). A conceptual framework for assessment of urban energy resilience.
Energy Procedia. 75: 2904–​2909. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.egypro.2015.07.586.
Sharifi, A. and Yamagata, Y. (2016). Principles and criteria for assessing urban energy resilience: A litera-
ture review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 60: 1654–​1677. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.rser.2016.03.028.
Shaw, K. (2012). “Reframing” resilience: Challenges for planning theory and practice. Planning Theory
Practice. 13(2): 308–​312.
Smith,V., Tullock, G., and Aligica, P. (2003). Rethinking institutional analysis: interviews with vincent and
elinor ostrom. http://​hdl.handle.net/​10535/​6156.
Stokols, D., Lejano, R., Hipp, J., Perez Lejano, R., and Hipp, J. (2013). Enhancing the resilience of human-​
environment systems: A social ecological perspective. Ecology and Society. 18(1). http://​doi.org/​http://​
dx.doi.org/​10.5751/​ES-​05301-​180107.
Tredgold, T. (1818). On the Transverse Strength and Resilience of Timber. London: Taylor & Francis.
https://​books.google.com/​books?id=tJaHHAAACAAJ.
Vale, L.J. (2014). The politics of resilient cities: whose resilience and whose city? Building Research &
Information. 42(July): 37–​41. http://​doi.org/​10.1080/​09613218.2014.850602.
Wagenaar, H. and Wilkinson, C. (2013). Enacting resilience: A performative account of governing for urban
resilience. Urban Studies. 52(May). http://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0042098013505655.
Walker, J. and Cooper, M. (2011). Genealogies of resilience From systems ecology to the polit-
ical economy of crisis adaptation. Security Dialogue. 42(2): 143–​160. http://​doi.org/​10.1177/​
0967010611399616.
Wendler, J. (2014). Experimental urbanism: Grassroots alternatives as spaces of learning and innovation
in the city. Manchester: University of Manchester. http://​easyaccess.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/​login?url=http://​
search.proquest.com/​docview/​1775430358?accountid=10371%5Cnhttp://​findit.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/​
852cuhk/​?url_​ver=Z39.88–​2004&rft_​val_​fmt=info:ofi/​fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&genre=dissertations
+%26+theses&sid=ProQ:P.
Westley, F., Olsson, P., Folke, C., Homer-​Dixon, T., Vredenburg, H., Loorbach, D., … van der Leeuw, S.
(2011). Tipping toward sustainability: Emerging pathways of transformation. Ambio. 40(7): 762–​780.
http://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s13280-​011-​0186-​9.
Wikström,A. (2013).The Challenge of Change: Planning for Social Urban Resilience. Stockholm: Stockholm
University.
World Bank (2013). Building Urban Resilience (A.K. Jha, T.W. Miner and Z. Stanton-​ Geddes
(eds.)). Washington, DC: The World Bank. http://​elibrary.worldbank.org/​doi/​book/​10.1596/​
978-​0-​8213-​8865-​5.

46
 5
The being of urban resilience
Christine Wamsler, Lynne Reeder, and Mark Crosweller

Introduction
The nature of urban risk and disasters is changing. For the first time in human history, more
people live in cities than in rural areas. Recent figures from the United Nations estimate that 6.3
billion people –​68 per cent of the world’s population –​will be living in urban areas by 2050
(UN 2018; UN-​Habitat 2017). Many of these growing cities are located on the coast or in other
hazardous areas that are increasingly threatened by floods, storms, earthquakes, fires, heat or cold
waves and drought (IPCC 2014). As urban corridors continue to be built in areas where hazards
are commonplace, more and more people will be living with the continual threat of environ-
mental upheaval and climate change.
The unpredictable nature and intensity of hazards and disasters has a significant impact
on mental wellbeing, and the level of suffering and stress that occurs during difficult times
and following loss is profound. Nevertheless, disaster risk reduction and management and
associated policy responses have, so far, mainly focused on building, sustaining or restoring
socio-​economic, environmental, and physical structures and systems for issues such as housing
rehabilitation, water and sanitation, the enforcement of building codes, compulsory insurance,
livelihood and food security.
While it is important that the community infrastructure and economy in susceptible areas
are adaptive and capable of being restored swiftly, it is equally important to pay attention to the
wellbeing of residents and responders in these emergent “at risk” spaces. However, there is an
almost total absence of literature on the mental wellbeing of “at risk” populations, as sources of
resilience that go beyond the individual.
Much of resilience theory has its roots in either natural resource management, or psych-
ology and mental health literature (Cork 2010; Doppelt 2016). While the former highlights the
importance of systems and governance, the latter focuses on individual wellbeing.
At the same time, there is a growing consensus that the complex global challenges posed
by an increasing number of disasters and climate change cannot simply be solved by “business
as usual” policy approaches. They require new social practices and a broader cultural shift to
support resilience. As a result, the potential role of people’s inner dimensions and transformation
is attracting increased attention from researchers and practitioners (O’Brien and Sygna 2013;
Parodi and Tamm 2018; Wamsler et al. 2017; Wamsler 2018).

47
C. Wamsler, L. Reeder, and M. Crosweller

For example, recent advances in neuroscience research and other fields suggest that cer-
tain inner capacities, such as mindfulness, can open new pathways towards societal resilience
(Goleman and Davidson 2017; Sharma 2017; Parodi and Tamm 2018). However, in the fields
of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaption and resilience their potential role has, to
date, been largely ignored (Wamsler 2018). Mindfulness is generally defined as intentional, non-​
judgmental attentiveness to the present moment (Kabat-​Zinn 1990). While rooted in Buddhist
psychology, it is commonly seen as “an inherent quality of human consciousness” that is access-
ible to –​and empirically assessable in –​individuals, independent of their religious or spiritual
beliefs (Black 2011:1). Since its introduction into Western science around 40 years ago, extensive
research has linked mindfulness to established theories of attention, awareness and emotional
intelligence (Buss 1980; Brown et al. 2007; Goleman 2011; Carroll 2016). Different theories and
methods have also been developed for its understanding and assessment as cognitive/­emotional
capacity or dispositional characteristic (a medium to long-​lasting trait, e.g. Baer et al. 2011;
Sharma 2017), a state/​outcome (resulting from inner capacity training, e.g.Valk et al. 2017) and
a process or practice (mindfulness training itself; e.g., Black 2011; Condon et al. 2013). On this
basis, it is increasingly claimed to have the potential to support societal transformation (Goleman
and Davidson 2017; Wamsler 2018).
The questions that underpin the lack of research into the role of mental wellbeing and mind-
fulness in building societal resilience include:

• How does the changing nature of hazards, and their impact, relate to individual wellbeing and
resilience building? (section 2)
• What is the interface between disaster risk reduction, resilience building and mindfulness in
current research? (section 3)
• What is the potential influence of mindfulness on building urban resilience? Or, in other
words: What are the options for the inclusion of mindfulness considerations when developing
a comprehensive framework for urban disaster resilience? (sections 4 and 5)

We assess these questions based on a review of current risk reduction, resilience and mind-
fulness theory and the literature on how socio-​cognitive and socio-​affective mindfulness, and
associated practices, support the development of resilience. The results provide an overview of
how the human mind, and mindfulness in particular, influences resilience at different scales.
These observations lead to some initial conclusions and recommendations regarding how
organizations can address resilience more comprehensively. Examples from practice and a poten-
tial operationalization of this approach are described in the context of sections 2–​5.

The changing nature of hazards, and their impacts on individual

wellbeing and resilience
It is generally accepted that extreme weather events and climate change are interdependent.
Climate change, significantly influenced by toxins and pollutants produced by modern lifestyles
and accelerated urban growth, is the primary reason for increasingly frequent and intense
extreme weather events (IPCC 2014).
As a consequence, urban risk and the global impact of so-​ called natural disasters are
increasing (Desonie 2007; Malik 2008; IPCC 2014; Mechler and Bouwer 2015). It is estimated
that the equivalent of a new city, able to house one million people, must be built every five
days between now and 2050 to accommodate global population growth (Norman, Steffen and
Stafford-​Smith 2014).

48
 The being of urban resilience

Such urban expansion will inevitably see more people exposed to more frequent and intense
natural hazards, leading to increasing inequality as a result of the uneven distribution of disaster
impacts. This uneven distribution is due to differential risk-​reducing capacities, hazard exposure,
and vulnerabilities with respect to geographic location, together with other issues such as access
to public services, income, gender, age, health, and associated wellbeing (Wisner et al. 2004;
Wamsler 2014).
The interlinkages between disasters, mental wellbeing, and resilience are manifold.
Individual wellbeing influences people’s vulnerability. At the same time, the most devas-
tating impacts of hazards and disasters are often on mental health. In addition to the physical
impacts (e.g. the destruction of structures and systems), hazards and natural disasters affect
mental health and psycho-​social-​spiritual wellbeing at individual and societal levels through,
for instance:

• Fears about personal safety;

• Stress caused by constant uncertainty and unpredictability (e.g. the timing and strength of a
hazard, financial insecurity);
• Post-​trauma reactions (behavioral problems, anxiety, depression, suicide, etc.) after fast-​onset
disaster impacts (e.g. death, depletion of physical, financial, and social resources);
• Increasing alcohol and drug abuse, interpersonal aggression, crime, violence, extremism,
terrorism, etc. caused by psychological and emotional distress due to fast-​and slow-​onset
hazard/​disaster impacts (e.g. heat waves and drought);
• The loss of a sense of place (e.g. through destruction or resettlement, loss of social inclusion);
• The loss of a sense of meaning, order and justice (e.g. regarding the causes of the hazard/​dis-
aster or suffering) and related hope-​and helplessness;
• Increase in existing health problems (e.g. asthma during hot weather or the outbreak of infec-
tious diseases causing anxiety) (Doppelt 2016).

To this, we can add other mental aspects related to climate change, such as the link between
global warming, consumerism, and capitalism (Moore 2015).
In order to prepare for the effects on mental health and wellbeing, different organizations
and stakeholders are increasingly promoting the need for individuals to be resilient. During the
past three decades, over a dozen theories of individual resilience have been proposed, including
a debate regarding whether it is a capacity, trait, a process or an outcome (which is similar to the
discourse on mindfulness; cf. section 1). Although there are many differences, several common
features and concepts emerge. Two pivotal concepts are adversity and positive adaptation (Fletcher
and Sarkar 2013), which are (implicitly and/​or explicitly) reflected in a number of resilience
definitions. These include: the ability of people in otherwise normal situations who are exposed
to an isolated and highly disruptive event, such as death or a violent situation, to maintain rela-
tively stable and healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning (Bonanno 2004), the
capacity to rebound from adversity, misfortune, trauma, or other transitional crises with greater
strength and more resourcefulness (McCubbin et al. 1997), and a dynamic process encompassing
positive adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances (Masten et al. 1990) or in a
context of significant adversity (Luthar et al. 2000).Windle (2011) adds a third concept: resistance.
Resistance is the ability to counteract the negative effects of adversity and seek positive adapta-
tion, rather than resist adversity itself. It is achieved through the application of assets (capacities
and efficacy) and resources (contextual and environmental influences such as family support and
community services). Together, assets and resources may be regarded as strengths.

49
C. Wamsler, L. Reeder, and M. Crosweller

Here, therefore, individual resilience is a process of effectively negotiating, adapting to,

or managing significant sources of stress or trauma. The assets and resources available to
the individual facilitate this capability for adaptation and “bouncing back”. An individual’s
experience of resilience will consequently vary during their lifetime (Windle 2011). This
also relates to finding meaning in what has happened, which emerges from a sense of com-
munity identity (from local to national). This can be encapsulated in narratives of resilience
that include a sense of duty or obligation to come to the assistance of others during times
of crisis, and the anticipation of adversity found in patriotic or religious obligations (Flynn
2008). In this context, Hillman (1983) argues that trauma is not what has happened, but how
we see it; it is not, therefore, a pathological event but a pathologized image that has become
intolerable. If these images cause stress, illness, and trauma, then recovery and wellness can
arise from the imagination.
In practice, individual capacity for mindfulness has been increasingly advocated by various
organizations as an essential skill to increase mental wellness and resilience (Wamsler et al. 2018).
It is thought to help in preparing for, and navigating, a complex future, and is seen as a way to
encourage adaptation to increasing adversity in burgeoning urban societies and bring positive
meaning to these experiences. Capacity development to foster individual resilience is, for instance,
offered by the Red Cross (e.g. Australian Red Cross 2015) and the OnTack Flood and Storm
Recovery Program in Australia.1 It aims to help people use their strengths to work through practical
problems following disasters, provides information to enable them to understand their reactions,
and guides them towards drawing up their own mental and physical wellbeing recovery plan.

The interface between disaster risk reduction, resilience and

mindfulness: Research gaps
Disaster risk reduction is the concept and practice of reducing hazard and disaster risks through
systematic efforts to analyze and manage their causal factors, including avoiding or reducing
exposure to hazards, reducing the vulnerability of people and property, and improving response
and recovery preparedness for adverse events (UNISDR 2009, 2015;Wamsler 2014). It is a cross-​
cutting topic that needs to be mainstreamed into the associated fields of development, response
and recovery (Wamsler 2014). The aim is to increase societal resilience, i.e. societies’ capacity
to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard/​disaster in a timely
and efficient manner (UNISDR 2009). Many risk-​reduction measures also directly contribute
to better climate adaptation. In fact, in a context of increasing disasters and climate change, risk
reduction and climate adaptation share the same aim, namely to reduce risk and increase resili-
ence (Wamsler 2014). The question thus is, if mindfulness could be an essential capacity or skill
in preparing for, and navigating, this complex future?
Our review shows that there is a dearth of scientific research at the interface between dis-
aster risk reduction, resilience, and mindfulness, and there is a particular blind spot with respect
to mindfulness in anticipatory risk reduction (Wamsler 2018). However, evidence regarding the
potential role of mindfulness for supporting resilience is growing. In fact, mindfulness research
is increasing at an annual rate of 30 per cent (Ericson et al. 2014; AMA 2016). Studies have
found, for instance, that mindfulness training changes the physical structure of the brain and
increases grey matter in regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regu-
lation, self-​referential processing, perspective taking, and response control (Luders et al. 2009;
Vestergaard-​Poulsen et al. 2009; Hözel et al. 2011; cf. section 4). Furthermore, research shows the
positive influence of mindfulness and the associated cultivation of compassion and empathy on
aspects such as: (1) subjective wellbeing; (2) the activation of (intrinsic/​non-​materialistic) core

50
 The being of urban resilience

values; (3) consumption and sustainable behavior; (4) the human–​nature connection; (5) equity
issues; (6) social activism; and (7) deliberate, flexible, and adaptive responses (Brown and Ryan
2003; Brown and Kasser 2005; Shapiro et al. 2006; Brown et al. 2007, 2004; Amel et al. 2009;
Goleman 2009; Jacob et al. 2009; Sheth et al. 2010; Ericson et al. 2014; cf. section 4). However,
while all of these capacities are crucial in all phases and contexts of disasters, there are almost no
studies on mindfulness that focus on disaster risk reduction and associated resilience building
(Wamsler 2018).
The few studies that explicitly link mindfulness with risk reduction have examined mindful-
ness in the context of post-​disaster response and recovery (with links to response and recovery
preparedness) (Wamsler et al. 2018).They focus on assessing the potential of specific mindfulness-​
related interventions to improve mental resilience in a post-​disaster context (cf. section 2).
These interventions include mindfulness meditation or relaxation techniques aimed at disaster
victims, aid workers (such as firefighters, health care professionals, and volunteers), and disaster
researchers (e.g.Waeldeet al. 2008; Cataniet al. 2009; Matanle 2011; Smithet al. 2011; Hoeberichts
2012; Srivatsaet al. 2013; Eriksen and Ditrich 2015; Hechanovaet al. 2015; Yoshimuraet al. 2015;
Zelleret al. 2015).
However, emerging research also indicates that mindfulness may open up new perspectives
and facilitate cognitive/emotional, managerial, structural, ontological, and epistemological
change that could support broader risk reduction and resilience building (Schwartz 2011; Bai
2013; Osborne and Grant-​Smith 2015; Wamsler et al. 2017; Wamsler 2018). It can in fact lead to
a fundamental shift in the way we think about –​and ultimately act on –​local and global eco-
nomic, social and ecological crises, such as increasing disasters and climate change (Scharmer
2009; Ericson et al. 2014; Carroll 2016; Wamsler et al. 2017). Empirical research is though vastly
lacking.
The first empirical study by Wamsler and Brink from 2018 addresses this gap by linking indi-
viduals’ intrinsic mindfulness (i.e. their mindfulness disposition as opposed to external mind-
fulness interventions; cf. section 1) to both pro-​and reactive risk reduction. Based on a survey
of citizens at risk from severe climate events, it found that individual mindfulness is correlated
with: greater motivation to take or support risk-​reduction actions; deeper engagement in
pro-​social and pro-​environmental actions; a reduction in fatalist attitudes; and an increased
acknowledgement of climate change, which influences people’s risk perception (Wamsler and
Brink 2018).

Mind science: The potential influence of mindfulness on

building urban resilience
In order to better understand the potential of mindfulness in building resilience, we need a deeper
understanding of recent advances in social neuroscience, and how the mind influences our capacity
to deal with risk and the suffering inherent in the occurrence of hazards and disasters (cf. section
2). Evidence-​based mindfulness science offers new insights into how we can improve our capacity
to address disaster and climate risk, with implications for the theory and practice of urban resilience.
The human brain evolved to deal with threats that existed in the Stone Age, notably
predators –​and an occasional disaster. However, people in modern societies face increasingly
complex problems, such as climate change and disasters, which produce a constant flood of
stimuli that our brain interprets as threatening (Doppelt 2016). It is well documented that the
Flight–​Fight–​Freeze response has evolved in the human body as an automatic, built-​in system
designed to protect us from stressful situations, threat, or danger; however, it is counterproductive
in improving risk reduction and building resilience. When faced with an event that is perceived

51
C. Wamsler, L. Reeder, and M. Crosweller

to be threatening, neuroscientists have found that information is instantaneously sent to the

brain’s locus coeruleus (the locus coeruleus is part of our brain stem involved with physiological
responses to stress and panic). The immediate effect is to stimulate the limbic brain and the
amygdala in particular (the brain’s “fear and alarm center”), and sideline the prefrontal cortex
(the “executive center” or thinking part of the brain) as the body puts all of its resources into
protecting itself from the threat (Doppelt 2016). When people experience what they perceive to
be a serious threat or trauma (e.g. caught by floods), the fear and alarm center is activated and
they are unable to learn as the executive center has been sidelined. They can also adopt harmful
coping strategies (e.g. alcohol abuse, overworking) to relieve mental stress. Because the body and
mind are inextricably linked, self-​destructive coping strategies can lead to a vicious downward
spiral and physical breakdown (e.g. stroke, cognitive problems) (Doppelt 2016; cf. section 2). Our
brains are thus not well equipped to deal with climate change and disaster situations.
At the same time, humans are able to reflect on their thoughts, which can enable us to con-
sciously still our minds and calm our emotions. Daniel Siegel reminds us that “our species name
is not homo sapiens –​the one who knows. It is homo sapiens sapiens –​the ones who know and
know we know” (Siegel 2017, p. 277). Current scientific evidence confirms that if we are able
to consciously still our minds and calm our emotions, e.g. through mindfulness training, we can
build neural connections in areas that regulate, for instance, stress; this has implications for how
we make decisions, how we improve our perspective taking, and how we engage with others
(Goleman and Davidsson 2017).
Reported rates of stress, anxiety and professional burnout are all very high in risk and disaster
settings (cf. section 2). Mindfulness can thus be a tool to reduce stress in those who are directly
subject to disaster impacts, and those who must manage risk and disaster situations. In addition,
it can help in cultivating our understanding of the human body as a complex “multidimensional
network of interdependent systems each sending information and each affecting everything else”
that improves our awareness of the mind–​body, and related socio-environmental connections
(Watkins 2014, p. 39). New policy processes that support individual resilience building, and that
are targeted at urban dwellers faced with uncertainty or who are recovering from trauma, could
thus improve risk reduction and increase people’s ability to engage with integrity in urban resili-
ence and justice at a wider community level.
This is also supported by the ReSource Project, a large-​scale study on Eastern and Western
methods of mental training, which found evidence that such training can cultivate social
intelligence, prosocial motivations, and cooperation (Valk et al. 2017). While their initial
trials were run in clinical, educational, and corporate settings, the study concluded that such
interventions should also be conducted and tested with other groups, notably policymakers
and first responders. In the context of urban resilience, one finding from the study was
that different types of mental training elicit change in different areas, including attention,
compassion, and high-​level cognitive abilities, all of which are important in dealing with
socio-environmental threats. The study concludes that “the socio-​affective training that dealt
specifically with compassion and perspective taking may be important not only for indi-
vidual health, but also for communal flourishing”.2 Applying these lessons will also require
policymakers to have a better understanding of their own minds and emotions.
Importantly, social neuroscience research shows that capacities of self-​awareness, reflex-
ivity, flexibility, adaptability, perspective taking, compassion, and empathy can be proactively
increased through mental training, such as mindfulness (e.g. Davidsson and Goleman 2017;
Siegel 2017; Valk et al. 2017). Managing with compassion is thus learnable and can be further
developed through practice (Worline and Dutton 2017). Developing the ability to mindfully

52
 The being of urban resilience

“see” and respond to personal suffering could allow policymakers and first responders to better
interpret and act in effective ways when alleviating suffering. In addition, it has been shown
that mental training can also discourage competitiveness (Gilbert 2017). Developing a com-
passionate and empathic mind can thus create “certain patterns in our brains that organize our
motives, emotions and thoughts in ways that are conducive for our own and other people’s
well-​being” (Gilbert 2013, p. 87).
When we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we use a part of the brain that is linked
with creativity and social connections (specifically, the right inferior parietal lobe and the
right lateral prefrontal cortex) (McGilchrist 2009). Developing this “empathy muscle”, based
on a deep appreciation of another’s perspective, is pivotal for compassionate decision making,
which is especially relevant in traumatic contexts. In order to make what Krznaric (2014)
calls the “imaginative leap of empathy”, we need first to learn to humanize the other and
discover what we have (or do not have) in common. Mental training, such as mindfulness
meditation, can be used to support empathy and related processes (Valk et al. 2017). At a
minimum, such training should be considered for strategic planners who have to deal with
the human aspects of urban adversity. Scientific evidence also suggests that the quality and
form of relationships between humans, shapes connections between nerve cells in the brain.
This indicates that mindfulness interventions cannot be encapsulated in “business as usual”
policy options, but rather must be built into wider risk and disaster policy approaches e.g.
by supporting platforms, structures and mechanisms for cooperation, personal development,
and self-​authoring (as in the past has been promoted in Nordic countries; Andersen and
Björkman 2017).
One of the key insights of recent social neuroscience research is that mental training, such
as mindfulness, can alter traits in the human body (Goleman and Davidson 2017). The defin-
ition of an altered trait is “a new characteristic that arises from a meditation practice –​one that
endures. Altered traits shape how we behave in our daily lives, not just during or immediately
after we meditate” (Goleman and Davidson 2017, pp. 6–​7). The most compelling impacts and
relevance of mindfulness are thus not necessarily short-​term interventions that can increase indi-
vidual wellbeing (e.g. during response or recovery phases), but the wider and long-​term personal,
interpersonal, and socio-​environmental outcomes that are key for proactive risk reduction and
resilience building.

Conclusions
This chapter highlights the importance of addressing individual inner dimensions and
associated cognitive/emotional capacities to support urban resilience. In particular, it shows
that mindfulness disposition, practices, and training have the potential to contribute to all
phases of risk reduction (development, response, and recovery) and at all scales –​from the
individual, to the institutional and societal levels:

• Individual risk reduction: for instance, by increasing psychological resilience, improving indi-
vidual post-​disaster response, recovery and growth.
• Public risk reduction: for instance, by influencing motivation to support risk-​reduction efforts,
risk perceptions and bias, risk communication, and new social relational approaches that
challenge the business-​and-​power-​as-​usual norm. In this context, it is crucial to acknowledge
that people are heterogenous in their thinking, and too often it is wrongly assumed that there
is a simple, direct link between evidence and behavior, and policy and implementation.

53
C. Wamsler, L. Reeder, and M. Crosweller

• Risk-​reduction policy integration: for instance, by influencing organizational decision taking,

reliability and innovation, nurturing social capital, and providing an ethical basis to negotiate
risk reduction objectives across different cultures and practices.
• Risk reduction science: for instance, by shaping new research questions, methodologies, and,
ultimately, knowledge production.

Taken together, these four aspects form the key conceptual trajectories of what has been coined
“Mindful Risk Reduction” (Wamsler 2018). They have a bearing on measures designed to
increase resilience (i.e. hazard reduction and avoidance, vulnerability reduction, response and
recovery preparedness, and associated mainstreaming). New cognitive/emotional methods,
such as mindfulness-based approaches, have a role to play in enhancing decision making for
pro-​environmental and prosocial behavior and fostering compassionate and empathic neural
responses that allow us to better connect with others in times of need, particularly groups we
may not feel a natural connection to (cf. Weng et al. 2017).
As we expand our knowledge of the workings of the human mind, we are reaching a tipping
point where this new understanding can be applied to urban resilience theory and practice. Some
initial policy approaches are currently being tested. An example is the Mindfulness, Behaviour
Change and Decision Making Programme that was conducted with municipal officials of the
Welsh Government (including disaster and climate managers) to enable people to take greater
control of their own behavioral systems and influence resilience-​related issues (Pykett et al. 2016).
Similarly, the Red Cross and the University of Miami offer mindfulness training to high-​stress
groups, ranging from the disaster-​affected to firefighters and teachers, while the Garrison Institute
offers similar programs to frontline trauma workers in Africa and the Middle East.3
New approaches should include, but not be limited to, mindfulness-​based training that supports
socio-​affective (compassion, dealing with difficult emotions, and prosocial motivations) and socio-​
cognitive (perspective taking on self and others and metacognition) skills (Valk et al. 2017). Offering
such training modules could help urban risk managers and planners to enquire into the relationships
between emotion/cognition and bias and put people (with their values, beliefs, worldviews, and
associated cognitive/emotional capacities) at the center of resilience planning to improve decision
and better assist those directly affected. In addition, we need to create structures and mechanisms
that can support and create conditions for such approaches, allowing to better integrate policy,
practical and personal spheres of transformation (cf. O’Brien and Sygna 2013). Such approaches are
still emerging, and only with a better understanding of our minds can we start to think about the
social structures and mechanisms that are conducive to both wellbeing and resilience.
Therefore, while the two dominant responses to disasters and climate change –​emission
reductions (usually called climate mitigation) and ensuring that physical infrastructure and natural
resources can withstand impacts (framed as disaster risk reduction or climate adaptation) –​are essen-
tial, they are insufficient for the challenges that lie ahead. We also need to foster personal spheres
of transformation and support the “being of resilience”. Through this, not only will we build the
individual resilience that will help to mitigate harmful personal and social impacts and reactions, we
will also improve societal wellbeing and resilience in times of increasing disasters and climate change.

Notes
1 www.ontrack.org.au/​floodandstormrecovery/​
2 https://​sharpbrains.com/​blog/​2018/​07/​11/​study-​finds-​clear-​yet-​surprisingly-​different-​benefits-​in-​3-​
types-​of-​meditation-​based-​mental-​training/​
3 www.garrisoninstitute.org/​blog/​fostering-​resilience-​among-​aid-​workers/​

54
 The being of urban resilience

References
Amel, E.L., Manning, C.M., and Scott, B.A. (2009). Mindfulness and sustainable behavior: Pondering
attention and awareness as means for increasing green behavior. Ecopsychology. 1(1): 14–​25.
AMRA (2016). Database of the American Mindfulness Research Association (AMRA). https://​goamra.
org/​resources/​. (Accessed May 21, 2017).
Andersen L.R. and Björkman, T. (2017). The Nordic Secret. Stockholm: Fri Tanke.
Australian Red Cross (2015). After the emergency podcast. Mindfulness meditation from Smiling
Mind. www.redcross.org.au/​resilience-​newsletter/​issue5/​2012/​01/​27/​mindfulness.html. (Accessed
June 1, 2016).
Baer, R.A., Smith G.T., Hopkins J., Krietemeyer, J., and Toney, L. (2006). Using self-​report assessment
methods to explore facets of mindfulness, Assessment. 1: 27–​45.
Bai, H. (2013). Peace with the earth: animism and contemplative ways. Cult Stud Sci Educ. 10(1):
135–​147.
Black, D.S. (2011). A brief definition of mindfulness. Mindfulness Research Guide. www.mindfulexperience.
org.
Bonanno, G.A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience; have we underestimated the human capacity
to thrive after extremely aversive events?(Author Abstract). The American Psychologist. 59(1): 20.
doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.59.1.20.
Brown, K.W. and Kasser, T. (2005). Are psychological and ecological well-​being compatible? The role of
values, mindfulness, and lifestyle. Social Indicators Research. 74(2): 349–​368.
Brown, K.W. and Ryan, R.M. (2003). The benefits of being present: mindfulness and its role in psycho-
logical well-​being. Journal of personality and social psychology. 84(4): 822.
Brown, K.W., Kasser, T., Ryan, R.M., and Konow, J. (2004). Having and Being: Investigating the Pathways
from Materialism and Mindfulness to Well-​being. Unpublished data, University of Rochester.
Brown, K.W., Ryan, R.M., and Creswell, J.D. (2007). Mindfulness: theoretical foundations and evidence for
its salutary effects. Psychol Inq. 18(4): 211–​237.
Buss, A.H. (1980). Self-​Consciousness and Social Anxiety. San Francisco, CA: Freeman.
Carroll, J. (2016). Formless meditation and sustainability. In: S. Dhiman and J. Marques (eds.): Spirituality
and Sustainability: New Horizons and Exemplary Approaches. Switzerland: Springer.
Cash, M. and Whittingham, K. (2010). What facets of mindfulness contribute to psychological well-​being
and depressive, anxious, and stress-​related symptomatology? Mindfulness. 1(3):177–​182.
Catani, C., Kohiladevy, M., Ruf, M., Schauer, E., Elbert, T., and Neuner, F. (2009). Treating children
traumatized by war and Tsunami: a comparison between exposure therapy and meditation-​relaxation in
North-​East Sri Lanka. BMC psychiatry. 9(1): 22.
Condon, P., Desbordes, G., Miller,W., and DeSteno, D. (2013). Meditation increases compassionate responses
to suffering. Psychological Science. 24(10): 2125–​2127.
Congress, US (2006). Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared. www.govinfo.gov/​content/​pkg/​
CRPT-​109srpt322/​pdf/​CRPT-​109srpt322.pdf. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.
Cork, S. (2010). Resilience and Transformation, Preparing Australia for Uncertain Futures. Canberra: CSIRO
publishing/​Australia21.
Desonie, D. (2007). Climate Causes and Effects of Climate Change. New York: Infobase Publishing.
Donovan, Jenny. (2018). Designing the Compassionate City: Creating Places Where People Thrive.
New York: Routledge.
Doppelt (2016). Transformational resilience: How building human resilience to climate disruption can
sateguard society and increase wellbeing. New York: Routledge.
Ericson, T., Kjønstad, B.G., and Barstad, A. (2014). Mindfulness and sustainability. Ecological Economics.
104: 73–​79.
Eriksen, C. and Ditrich, T. (2015). The relevance of mindfulness practice for trauma-​exposed disaster
researchers. Emot Sp Soc. 17:63–​66.
Fletcher, D. and Sarkar, M. (2013). Psychological resilience: A review and critique of definitions, concepts,
and theory. European Psychologist. 18(1):, 12–​23. doi:10.1027/​1016–​9040/​a000124
Flynn, S.E. (2008). America the resilient: Defying terrorism and mitigating natural disasters. Foreign Affairs.
87(2): 2–​8.
Greater Good Magazine (2018). Study finds clear-​yet surprisingly different-​benefits in 3 types of meditation-​
based mental training. Sharpbrains. https://​sharpbrains.com/​blog/​2018/​07/​11/​study-​finds-​clear-​yet-​
surprisingly-​different-​benefits-​in-​3-​types-​of-​meditation-​based-​mental-​training/​.

55
C. Wamsler, L. Reeder, and M. Crosweller

Gilbert, P. (2013) Mindful Compassion. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
Gilbert, P. (2017). Living Like Crazy.York: Annwyn House.
Goleman, D. (2009). Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can
Change Everything. New York: Doubleday.
Goleman, D. (2011).The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights. More than Sound. www.mindful.
org/​daniel-​goleman-​new-​insights-​on-​emotional-​intelligence/​. (Accessed August 19, 2018).
Goleman, D. and Davidson, R.J. (2017). Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your
Mind, Brain, and Body. New York: Penguin.
Hechanova, R.M., Ramos, P.A.P., and Waelde, L. (2015). Group-​based mindfulness-​informed psychological
first aid after Typhoon Haiyan. Disaster Prevention and Management. 24(5): 610–​618.
Hillman, J. (1983). Healing Fiction. New York: Station Hill Press.
Hoeberichts, J.H. (2012). Teaching council in Sri Lanka: A post disaster, culturally sensitive and spiritual
model of group process. Journal of religion and health. 51(2): 390–​401.
Hölzel, B.K., Carmody, J., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S.M., Gard, T., and Lazar, S.W.
(2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry
Research: Neuroimaging. 191(1): 36–​43.
IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to
the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Core Writing Team,
R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)). Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC.
Jacob, J., Jovic, E., and Brinkerhoff, M.B. (2009). Personal and planetary well-​being: Mindfulness meditation,
pro-​environmental behavior and personal quality of life in a survey from the social justice and ecological
sustainability movement. Social Indicators Research. 93(2): 275–​294.
Kabat-​Zinn J (1990). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress,
PAin and Illness. New York: Delacourt.
Krznaric, R. (2014). Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution. London: Ebury Publishing.
Luders, E., Toga, A.W., Lepore, N., and Gaser, C. (2009). The underlying anatomical correlates of long-​term
meditation: larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter. Neuroimage. 45(3): 672–​678.
Luthar, S.S., Cicchetti, D., and Becker, B. (2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and
guidelines for future work. Child Development. 71(3): 543–​562. doi:10.1111/​1467–​8624.00164
Malik, A. (2008). Causes of Climate Change (1st ed.). Delhi: Rajat Publications.
Matanle, P. (2011). The Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown: towards the (re) con-
struction of a safe, sustainable, and compassionate society in Japan’s shrinking regions. Local Environment.
16(9): 823–​847.
Masten, A.S., Best, K.M., and Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience and development: Contributions from
the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopathology. 2(4): 425–​444.
doi:10.1017/​S0954579400005812.
McCubbin, H.I., McCubbin, M.A., Thompson, A.I., Han, S.-​Y., and Allen, C.T. (1997). Families under
stress: what makes them resilient. (based on 1997 American Association of Family and Consumer
Sciences Commemorative Lecture). Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 89(3): 2.
McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and His Emissary The Divided Brain and the Making of he Western
World. London: Yale University Press.
Mechler, R. and Bouwer, L. (2015). Understanding trends and projections of disaster losses and climate change: is
vulnerability the missing link? Climatic Change. 133(1): 23–​35. doi:10.1007/​s10584-​014-​1141-​0.
Moore, J. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. London: Verso
publishing.
Norman, B., Steffen, W., and Stafford-​Smith, M. (2014). Cities in Future Earth: A Summary of Key
Considerations. Paper presented at the Cities in Future Earth: Third Australian Earth System Outlook
Conference, Canberra, Australia. www.science.org.au/​news-​and-​events/​events/​third-​australian-​earth-​
system-​outlook-​conference/​cities-​future-​earth-​summary.
O’Brien, K. and Sygna, L. (2013). Responding to climate change: The three spheres of transformation.
Proceedings of Transformation in a Changing Climate, June 19–​21, 2013, Oslo, Norway. University of
Oslo (pp.16–​23).
Osborne, N. and Grant-​Smith, D. (2015). Supporting mindful planners in a mindless system: limitations to
the emotional turn in planning practice. Town Planning Review. 86(6): 677–​698.
Parodi, O. and Tamm, K. (2018). Personal Sustainability: Exploring the Far Side of Sustainable Development,
Routledge Studies in Sustainability. London: Routledge.

56
 The being of urban resilience

Pykett, J., Lilley, R., Whitehead, M., Howell, R., and Jones, R. (2016). Mindfulness, Behavior Change and
Decision-​Making, Birmingham: University of Birmingham and Aberystwyth University. 52 pages.
Scharmer, O. (2009/​2016). Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-​
Koehler Publishers.
Schwartz, J.M. (2011). Mindfulness and materialist paradigm: mind-​brain interaction and the breakdown of
the materialist paradigm. www.youtube.com/​watch?v=Ff2cnQ69LK8. (Accessed May 2, 2016).
Shapiro, S.L., Carlson, L.E., Astin, J.A., and Freedman, B. (2006). Mechanisms of mindfulness. Journal of
clinical psychology. 62(3): 373–​386.
Sharma, M. (2017). Radical Transformational Leadership: Strategic Action for Change Agents. Berkeley,
CA: North Atlantic Books.
Sheth, J.N., Sethia, N.K., and Srinivas, S. (2010). Mindful consumption: a customer-​centric approach to
sustainability. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 39(1): 21–​39.
Siegel, D. (2017). Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human. New York: W W Norton & Company Ltd.
Smith, B.W., Ortiz, J.A., Steffen, L.E., Tooley, E.M., Wiggins, K.T.,Yeater, E.A., Montoya, J.D., and Bernard,
M.L. (2011). Mindfulness is associated with fewer symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms,
and alcohol problems in urban firefighters. J Consult Clin Psychol. 79(5): 613.
Srivatsa, U.N., Ekambaram, V., Saint Phard, W., and Cornsweet, D. (2013). The effects of a short term
Stress Alleviating Intervention (SAI) on acute blood pressure responses following a natural disaster.
International journal of cardiology. 168(4): 4483–​4484.
UN (2018). World Urbanization Prospects 2018: Key Facts. https://​esa.un.org/​unpd/​wup/​Publications/​
Files/​WUP2018-​PressRelease.pdf.
UN-​Habitat (2017). UN-​Habitat global activities report 2017. Strengthening partnerships in support of
the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. unhabitat.org/​wp-​content/​uploads/​
2017/​02/​GAR2017-​FINAL_​web.pdf.
UNISDR (2009). UNISDR terminology on disaster risk reduction, Geneva, Switzerland: The United
Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction, www.unisdr.org/​we/​inform/​publications/​
7817.
UNISDR (2015). Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-​2030. Geneva, Switzerland: The
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. www.preventionweb.net/​ files/​
43291_​
sendaiframeworkfordrren.pdf.
Valk, S. Bernhardt, Fynn-​Mathis, T. Böckler, A. Kanske, P, Guizard, N. Collins, L., and Singer, T. (2017).
Structural plasticity of the social brain: Differential change after socio-​affective and cognitive mental
training. Science Advances. 3(10).
Vestergaard-​Poulsen, P., van Beek, M., Skewes, J., Bjarkam, C.R., Stubberup, M., Bertelsen, J., and Roepstorff,
A. (2009). Long-​term meditation is associated with increased gray matter density in the brain stem.
Neuroreport. 20(2): 170–​174.
Waelde, L.C., Uddo, M., Marquett, R., Ropelato, M., Freightman, S., Pardo, A., and Salazar, J. (2008). A pilot
study of meditation for mental health workers following Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Traumatic Stress.
21(5): 497–​500.
Wamsler, C. (2014). Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaption. London: Routledge.
Wamsler, C. (2018). Mind the gap: The role of mindfulness in adapting to increasing risk and climate
change. Sustainability Science. 13(4): 1121–​1135. DOI: https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11625-​017-​0524-​3.
Wamsler, C. and Brink, E. (2018). Mindsets for sustainability: exploring the link between mindfulness and
sustainable climate adaptation, ecological economics. Ecological Economic. 151: 55–​61.
Wamsler, C., Brossmann, J., Hendersson, H., Kristjansdottir, R., McDonald, C., and Scarampi, P. (2017).
Mindfulness in sustainability science, practice and teaching. Sustainability Science. 13:143–​162. https://​
doi.org/​10.1007/​s11625-​017-​0428-​2.
Watkins, M.B., Ren, R., Umphress, E.E., Boswell, W.R., Triana, M.D.C., and Zardkoohi, A. (2015).
Compassion organizing: Employees’ satisfaction with corporate philanthropic disaster response and
reduced job strain. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 88(2): 436–​458.
Weng, H.Y., Schuyler, B., and Davidson, R.J. (2017).The Impact of Compassion Meditation Training on the
Brain and Prosocial Behavior. Oxford: The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science.
Windle, G. (2011). What is resilience? A review and concept analysis. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology.
21(2): 152–​169. doi:10.1017/​S0959259810000420.
Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., and Davis, I. (2004). At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and
Disasters (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

57
C. Wamsler, L. Reeder, and M. Crosweller

Worline, M.C. and Dutton, J.E. (2017). 31 How Leaders Shape Compassion Processes in Organizations.
Oxford: The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, p. 435.
Yoshimura, M., Kurokawa, E., Noda,T.,Tanaka,Y., Hineno, K., Kawai,Y., and Dillbeck, M.C. (2015). Disaster
relief for the Japanese earthquake–​tsunami of 2011: Stress reduction through the transcendental medi-
tation® technique. Psychological reports. 117(1): 206–​216.
Zeller, M., Yuval, K., Nitzan-​Assayag, Y., and Bernstein, A. (2015). Self-​compassion in recovery following
potentially traumatic stress: Longitudinal study of at-​r isk youth. Journal of abnormal child psychology.
43(4): 645–​653.

58
 6
Data gaps and resilience metrics
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

Introduction
Understanding the spectrum of urban risks women, men, and children living in urban areas face
on a regular basis is key for developing policy and programming responses for urban develop-
ment and disaster risk reduction. The importance of understanding risks as an integral part of
disaster risk management was emphasised in the Hyogo Framework and now the Sendai frame-
work. As such there have been many initiatives to develop data to underpin our understanding of
the scale of risks. Nonetheless, the amount of risk information available for urban areas, particu-
larly in low-​income countries, is still seriously lacking. In response to this, there have been many
initiatives that seek to bridge the gap, between top-​down information generated by experts and
bottom-​up information generated by communities, and to develop risk information that can
represent the realities faced by people and in a form that can be useful for policy-​makers and
practitioners. The notion of “urban resilience” in this context has been employed in different
multistakeholder methods for measuring and understanding risks, and usually encompassing
action-​planning to tackle those risks.
This chapter seeks to review a number of these methods that have been developed in recent
years to generate policy-​relevant information and analysis about the spectrum of urban risks.
By “the spectrum of urban risks” we mean not just risks to large-​scale disaster events, but also
small localized disasters as well as everyday events resulting in premature death, illness or injury
and impoverishment, that are environmentally related and within the context of urban areas
(Adelekan et al. 2015). Everyday risks are systemic, and high-​frequency conditions and hazards
that people and communities are continually exposed to, and that could lead to losses.These may
be related to mortality or the destruction of property and may even become normalized phe-
nomena in the lives of those affected.These include: protracted periods of illnesses from endemic
infectious and parasitic diseases (not epidemics), automobile accidents, isolated cases of domestic
fires, persistent air pollution, poor waste management, and frequent flash flooding (Osuteye and
Leck 2017).
In many cities, small and everyday risks are concentrated in particular districts or settlements
with “development deficits” in relation to risk-​reducing infrastructure and services. This is also
generally where urban governments lack the resources and capacities to address these deficits.

59
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

In addition, there is often little in the way of local government accountability to citizens, posing
a major obstacle in the potential of urban areas to support improved health outcomes, better
living conditions, and stronger economies. The residents in such areas are also likely to lack
secure tenure, which reduces their incentive to upgrading housing and invest in amenities, are
more likely to be recent migrants, and have low incomes or a reduced capacity to recover from
disasters. Consequently, small-​scale events, and everyday risks, are more likely to impact those
living in informal settlements.
The perspectives that are portrayed here have been developed out of research looking into
the metrics of urban resilience, which has sought to understand how to measure the risks faced
by women, men, and children in urban areas and how this information can be taken up by urban
resilience initiatives, or how risk information is acted on by policymakers and practitioners at the
local level.1 Additionally, the analysis presented in this chapter draws from the authors’ involve-
ment in the Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK) research project, which trialled a
number of different methodologies for understanding risk at the city level and sought to engage
with city stakeholders to identify needs and to support demand-​driven approaches to generating
evidence (Dodman et al., 2018).
This chapter departs from two key premises. The first is that risk is socially constructed.
That is, in order to fully understand disaster risks, we need to understand the causes and drivers
that create situations of vulnerability or exposure to hazards. We need to understand how the
risks affect people’s lives. This has been a point of discourse for the last 30 years in disaster
studies, emanating originally from Latin American scholars, and reflects the need to combine
thinking about inequalities in development with our understanding of how people are impacted
by disasters. The second premise is that we need to consider not only large-​scale disaster events
that affect a whole area at one time, but also small-​scale and everyday events across the spectrum
of urban risks, which may not be immediately perceptible, but which cumulatively place an
equal or greater burden on people, households, and cities. Both of these premises underline the
need for understanding risks, that is, the causes and drivers of risks and why they accumulate, as
well as the scale and frequency of disaster events, as a crucial component to addressing disasters.

Methods for understanding risks and enhancing resilience

at the local level
Measurements of risk may look at hazards (the physical phenomenon), vulnerability (susceptibility),
exposure of persons and assets as well as people’s and organization’s capacity to act. Understanding
risk must be seen as a dynamic process of interpreting these conditions, which themselves are
in constant flux. Figure 6.1 portrays different approaches to measuring risk, and plots various
methods that are described in this chapter. Hazard analysis looks at the potential for natural
or anthropogenic events to happen, and this is usually coupled with a measure of vulnerability.
Some measurements of risk look at past impacts or losses from disaster events, as a way of
predicting future probabilities. Other measures look at existing conditions on the ground by
focusing on conditions of vulnerability, or the extent of exposure to various potential hazards.
Some measurements also focus on the capacity of people, governments, or systems to respond,
or act, to reduce the impact of the disaster. Resilience usually implies looking across the measures
of capacity/​vulnerability/​hazard & exposure by focusing on what actions can be taken to address
vulnerability to a range of hazards.
Approaches to measuring risks will always depend on the values that one perceives to be
important. Different methodologies recognize different viewpoints and thus highlight different
values.The classic way of doing risk assessment would be to look at what can happen, how likely

60
 Data gaps and resilience metrics

Hazards ACTION AT
(what?) THE
Impacts/losses FRONTLINE
(to what extent) SDI SETTLEMENT
MANDISA PROFILES
Vulnerability
REMAPRISK (who/why?)
DESINVENTAR
Exposure
(where?) RESILIENCE
FRAMEWORKS

Capacity
(what actions?)

Figure 6.1 Schematic diagram showing different approaches to measuring risks covered in this
chapter.
Source: Authors

it is to happen, and what are the consequences if it does happen. Once an analysis has been
carried out, this is usually followed by a process of evaluating the results of the risk analysis in
order to determine whether the identified risk is tolerable or not (Wamsler 2014).
This section outlines three distinct types of risk measurement at the local level, which we
have come across in our research: (1) detailed inventories of impacts or losses; (2) urban resili-
ence measurement frameworks; (3) community-​generated information that profile risk and seek
action to address those risks. Each of these three types have been elaborated through different
initiatives, which are plotted in Figure 6.1 and will be discussed in more detail below.These types
can be differentiated by a number of factors, which offer an analytical framing for the chapter.
Firstly, they are differentiated by viewpoint, that is who creates the measurement, which poten-
tially impacts what is valued. Secondly, they vary in the physical scale that they measure and the
degree to which they provide enough coverage for a clear understanding of risks. Third, the
amount to which they uncover the root causes or social construction of risks, and, fourth, whether
or not they are action-​oriented and therefore concerned with resilience-​building. These factors
will be elaborated below as a way of framing the discussion of each method.

Detailed inventories of impacts or losses

There are several examples of databases that catalogue past disaster events and each of them uses
slightly different criteria and data. Using these databases to analyse past events can also be used to
provide probability estimates for future events. EM-​DAT2 is the most widely used international
database and includes all large-​scale disasters from 1900 to the present that conform to at least
one of the following criteria: ten or more people died, 100 or more people were affected, dec-
laration of a state of emergency, and/​or call for international assistance.

DesInventar
DesInventar, is an evidence-​based methodology and database that shows that risks are not
always big disaster events, but that in fact small-​scale disasters are more harmful and account
for greater losses overall than big disaster events. As a methodological tool, DesInventar is used

61
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

to systematically document losses from disasters. This data is available in an intuitive portal that
can be used to generate national and sub-​national inventories of events that reveal the effects
of disasters in a selected locality.3 The database provides a strong tool for analysing the trends
of past events and therefore can tell us a lot about small disaster risks (Marulanda et al. 2010).
The utility of DesInventar and its distinction over other comparable globalized databases is the
lowered threshold of disaster impact or losses that is required for events to be captured in the
database. DesInventar database creates a log for an event if it records one or more deaths or
produces a $1 or more in economic losses, and thus is a much lower threshold than the EM-​
DAT database. DesInventar uses national and local newspapers, police, and public health reports
as sources of information and will include a disaster event if there is any kind of human or
economic loss.
This broadened framing of risks portrayed in DesInventar is based on the premise, orginally
developed through the Network for Social Studies on Disaster Prevention in Latin America (LA
RED), that in many rapidly urbanizing areas in low-​income countries the growth is increas-
ingly associated with risk in varying scales, frequency and patterns that need to be adequately
recognized, captured, understood, and addressed (Bull-​Kamanga et al. 2001). Moving from a
sole focus on large-​scale disasters towards a recognition of small-​scale disasters was a paradigm
shift, because, this framing allows for the appreciation of the full spectrum of urban risks and
for making a useful distinction between scales of disaster risk. Considerable analysis has been
undertaken to understand the differences between losses from large (intensive) disaster events
and smaller scale (extensive) events (see the UNISDR Global Assessment Reports4) and is more
conducive to understanding the breadth of everyday losses, small disasters, and large disasters in
urban areas.
There are, however, still large gaps in the data provided through the DesInventar, which
is currently limiting its usefulness as a means of understanding the risk or making detailed
assessments at the city-​scale or below. Marulanda et al. (2012) concede that, at best, DesInventar
“is a wide sample of disasters and is limited by the characteristics of the information and its
sources” (p. 555).
Overall the data for most of the cities and urban areas is not of sufficient quality to reli-
ably make conclusions about the totality of disaster losses in a particular urban area, but it does
give an overview about the city and the kinds of events that are prevalent. For some databases,
this is because the data comes from newspapers that may not be representative of all cities in a
country. In some cases where data comes from newspapers –​even local ones –​small disasters
in certain areas tend to be under-​reported. Allen et al. (2015) found this to be the case in Lima,
where most events reported concerned central areas of the city, while the periphery where small
disasters are more frequent tended to be invisible. Often data is entered for one year and not
others. Commonly, lots of entries exist for certain kinds of events (i.e. fires or traffic accidents,
or floods) but not for other kinds of events. This depends on where the data comes from and
who is responsible for upkeep of the dataset. One gets the impression that some low-​impact dis-
aster events are still vastly unreported, so the actual extent of losses is much greater than what is
reported by this tool (Osuteye et al, 2017).
As part of the Urban ARK project, Adelekan (2019) has developed a detailed DesInventar
database for Ibadan, Nigeria, using data from local newspapers and from state and hospital health
records. As detailed in the 2019 paper, the city lacks systematic data on everyday hazards and
disasters. Adelekan outlines a number of limitations of the quality of the data used for the
DesInventar, but this effort does show the possibilities of the DesInventar methods to show a
detailed picture of risks. Based on the newspaper data, she identifies vehicle accidents, crime,

62
 Data gaps and resilience metrics

violence, fire, and flood to be the most prevalent events in the city. Detailed city data in
DesInventar also exists for some cities, for example Cali, Colombia (OSSO 2008).
For cities where there is detailed data available that represents the range and scale of risks,
DesInventar offers a strong analytical tool that can show the prevailing trends over time, and
organized by neighborhood. There is less evidence, however, that the risk information in
DesInventar is being used for local-​level policy making or planning, or that it is being taken up
by communities. It seems to be a powerful tool for analysis and used by researchers, who may
communicate results to decision-​makers, rather than being used directly by practitioners.

MANDISA
In addition to these initiatives to understand and capture broad risk profiles, some attempts
to create detailed databases on particular risks exist. For instance, on the issue of fire risk in
informal settlements, an exemplar of thorough and extensive data collection to support decision-​
making and strategic planning is the Monitoring, Mapping and Analysis of Disaster Incidents in
Southern Africa (MANDISA) project, which collected data on fires in Cape Town from 1990
to 2004. During this period 8,787 fires affecting 41,301 dwellings in the city’s rapidly growing
informal settlements were recorded, with informal dwellings accounting for over half of all fires
by 2005 (Pharoah 2009). Unfortunately, this effort to collect fire data has been discontinued. It
is argued that this kind of detailed information is needed to better grasp the magnitude of the
problems (Twigg et al. 2017).
These examples are but a few of the existing databases that show detailed inventories of
impacts or losses that are being used to understand the spectrum of urban risks. The databases
paint a strong picture of what is happening in a particular place, especially if the data is rep-
resentative of the cities impacted. While on their own the databases do not make explicit the
root causes of the events, further analysis is often used to make these connections (OSSO 2008;
Pharoah 2008). Using community-​generated experiences of risks can also help to expand on the
qualitative aspects of the data (Adelekan 2019; Twigg 2017).

Urban resilience measurement frameworks

Resilience, as a notion, has been taken up by many in the disaster risk field. Many dispute its
usefulness claiming that, as a concept, it denotes instrumental change, and not systemic changes;
and that it does not tackle the root causes of systemic features of local, national, and global social
and economic organization that are the root causes of disasters (Oliver-​Smith et al. 2016). It fur-
thermore conceptually muddies the waters of disaster risk studies (Lavell and Maskrey, 2014).Yet,
others have embraced resilience as a “mobilizing metaphor”, and resilience-​building is a term
that denotes multidisciplinary and action-​oriented collaboration between groups and commu-
nities (Béné et al., 2016 in Tanner et al. 2017).
In recent years, there has been a burgeoning array of tools and methods for measuring or
profiling urban resilience (Schipper and Langston, 2015). The UN-​Habitat’s report Trends in
Urban Resilience 2017 outlines more than 30 such initiatives. Each initiative understands urban
resilience slightly differently, but all of them work at the scale of the city (or municipality) and
try to understand the strengths and deficiencies of cities to withstand hazards, or smaller events,
often termed “shocks and stresses”. Some of the urban resilience measurement tools are meant to
offer comparative metrics to look across cities, and others are meant only to provide information
about a particular city.

63
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

For the most part the purpose of these urban resilience tools are to catalyse actions at the city
level, thus they place emphasis on action-​planning or being action-​oriented. Some examples of
this include the UNISDR Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient,5 UNISDR City Resilience
Scorecard,6 City Resilience Index developed by ARUP and Rockefeller,7 the City Resilience
Action Planning Tool (CityRAP),8 and UN-​Habitat City Resilience Profiling Tool.9
These methods are designed to be led by local or municipal governments in consultation
with a range of stakeholders. Some of the more complicated methods may be led by outside
consultants, but most of them are intended to be convened from within the city, with some
assistance from external facilitators. They are based on a multistakeholder diagnosis that seeks
inputs from many different actors as well as residents in the city.This means that the methods are
designed to be focused on the values that would be important for local governments and their
constituents. For example, the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient campaign is targeted at city
governments, and their 10 Essentials for Making Cities Resilient Tool, and the City Resilience
Scorecard, are meant to be undertaken in a multistakeholder workshop format, with the pro-
cess led by the local government. The CityRAP tool is led by the municipality with external
facilitators to guide the process. It aims to bring in strong community perspectives, by using
community-​led gathering of data about risks, especially from the most vulnerable, as well as
building consensus across communities and city management on the prioritization of key issues
for enhancing resilience. The tool is intended to be low-​cost to implement, does not require
technical expertise, and helps to build the capacity of the local government to address resilience
issues jointly with communities.
The scale of the resilience frameworks is based on the whole city, or municipality. They seek
to understand particularities of the city, and what makes it resilient to a range of disasters. These
frameworks often seek to draw on existing studies or experiences to understand the kinds of
hazards that exist, so the characterization of the hazard may be general or detailed, pragmatic-
ally depending on the kinds of information that are available in the city. These methods may
also draw on detailed loss, vulnerability, capacity, or exposure data, if these exist. If they do not
exist, they are designed to make use of multistakeholder generated information or experiences.
Some of the information or viewpoints integrated into the diagnosis may be at settlement or
neighborhood level. They are also multihazard oriented, so they can look across the spectrum of
disaster events.
The particular problems of women, men, and children living in informal settlements form part of
the analysis in these measurements, but are not central.This may be because they aim to enter the
problem from the perspective of the local government, or municipal authority. While they seek
a range of different perspectives within the process, they tend look at a balance of the different
issues going on in the city, of which the particular problems of informal settlements may form
only a small part.
In our research we have focused on the methods that provide information that is of signifi-
cance to those living in informal settlements to better understand how this information could
be used for change, both instrumental changes in addressing risks, as well as systemic change that
is needed to address the underlying conditions that cause disasters.

Community-​generated information
More recently, there have been many different initiatives to better understand the small-​scale and
everyday risks that people face on a daily or frequent basis and are most common in informal
settlements. Two features that are common to these initiatives are that the methods of data
collection are community-​based and participatory in nature, and often designed at smaller

64
 Data gaps and resilience metrics

sub-​city scales that give a more refined lens to the risk profile in the locality or community
(although they can be further scaled up to cover entire towns or the city). The key distinction
in this approach is that in contrast with the approaches previously outlined, the starting point
is the actual experience of those living at risk, so residents’ views and values are central to the
data-​gathering exercises.
As mentioned above, large databases like DesInventar often describe disaster losses without
exploring their underlying drivers, which requires collecting different strands of data on social
factors (e.g. age, gender, income, ability, migrant status), environmental factors (e.g. access to
good-​quality housing and basic services) and political and institutional factors related to planning
and decision-​making processes at different levels. This holistic approach to data collection is
more conducive to in situ community-​based initiatives that generate rich contextual data in the
process and can improve our understanding of underlying factors that drive risk generation and
accumulation.
A growing number of studies have focused on the potential and value of these community-​
based processes where comprehensive data are lacking, and use a mix of research methods
to assess the profile and scale of risk, identify key issues, and recommend improvements.
Capturing risk and risk accumulation across space and time is a first and necessary step towards
addressing the systemic drivers of risk. In data-​scarce contexts, this requires engendering
grassroots-​led processes to assess not only how, where, why, and with what consequences
risk accumulates but also what responses are adopted, by whom, and with what impact
(Allen et al. 2019). This gives an understanding of not only the risk impacts in that particular
place but of the resilience of people and communities through the understanding of their
individual and collective coping strategies. The methods often adopted in addition to quan-
titative approaches of documenting metrics on disaster risk (number of events, frequency,
and losses) include the creation of settlement timelines that plot risk events over time and
outline demographic change and the actions adopted, community-​led mapping methods to
build georeferenced risk profiles and initiatives, and qualitative interviews and focus group
discussions to gather further details on people’s experiences, vulnerability and coping capaci-
ties (see also chapter by Allen et al. in this volume).
Three such notable initiatives include the Action at the Frontline (AFL), “ReMapRisk”, and
the Slum and Shack Dwellers International (SDI) process of settlement profiling.The AFL meth-
odology, developed by the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction
(GNDR), involves a series of interviews and focus group discussions with the communities to
capture and rank the threats/​r isks and impacts experienced. It also captures some coping strat-
egies and the perceived barriers to remedial action by both the authorities and the communities
themselves. The process is useful in generating community awareness and conversation about
risk and resilience, but also creates a situated metrics based on the rankings of perceptions and
experiences of risk, as seen in the case of work done in Vingunguti and Masasani, two wards in
Dar es Salaam (Osuteye et al. 2018). The community-​generated metrics in Dar es Salaam have
formed the basis of meaningful engagements with their respective municipal offices and DRM
officials to invest in risk prevention activities from their dedicated budgets. A related method-
ology also developed by the GNDR, called Frontline, has been applied in 15 countries and can
be used for cross-​country comparisons or for research purposes (Gibson and Wisner 2016).
ReMapRisk10 is a methodology and tool that enables local communities to document and
monitor how risk accumulation cycles materialise over time, where and why, feeding spatial and
temporal details into an interactive online database that hosts different media files (photographs,
audio, video and text), where all information collected is georeferenced (Allen et al. 2018; Allen et al.
2019). The database stores information about hazards, vulnerability and capacity to act and enables

65
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

public enquiries across all fields of information recorded that can be visualised through maps in
response to each query, while excluding information considered confidential by local communities.
The SDI settlement profiling collects data on informal settlements using predesigned surveys,
and its entries are not limited to risk, but also collects data, using standardised questions, on their
everyday lives and living conditions such as service provision and health. This policy-​relevant
data is a means to communicate the scale and extent of informality and deprivation in the spaces
they occupy in their cities. Community profiling and mapping is important for identifying and
taking action on disaster risk and fills a large data gap at local government level. Affiliates of
SDI are working in 33 nations across Africa and Asia and have so far profiled 7,712 settlements
across 224 cities11. SDI’s experience shows that standardising this data helps particularly informal
settlement dwellers establish partnerships with governments and allow them to collaborate with
other stakeholders and agencies (Beukes 2014). The cardinal point in SDI’s approach is the
attempt at standardization of the data that can provide citywide comparable settlement profiles,
and aid city-​level decision-​makers in planning for informal settlements. It points to the fact that
small, disaggregated data on risk can potentially contribute to wider-​city level processes if it is
presented in a useful manner to planners and decision-​makers. A first step of many, however
Beukes (2014) argument remains valid, that in many developing country contexts such processes
are the only credible hope that the realities of informal settlement residents will become factored
into the formal city-​planning processes.
Three common challenges with the community-​based data is that, although the data is often
held at a smaller scale, entries are often not geolocated, making them lose a layer of potential
utility (for instance in various advanced techniques of data visualization that are of interest to
researchers and practitioners alike) (Gaillard and Mercer 2012). Secondly the documentation
processes and archiving of such data appears rather fragmented and uncoordinated with other
similar efforts that are occurring in the cities. So, for instance, multiple NGOs would have their
own forms of risk registers created without recourse to or building on other previous works, as
well as the added difficulty of gaining access to these data sets where they exist. The third and
arguably biggest challenge is the uptake and utility of community-​generated data by decision-​
makers. The first two appear to be progressively being addressed with the data uptake being the
lingering challenge (see section 3 below).
The challenge of data georeferencing has become less arduous as modern technology is
increasingly used to enhance more traditional participatory mapping processes with local
community actors in order to produce detailed risk profiles of communities. The traditional
approach involves participants undertaking transect walks in the community to identify factors
of interest (such as landmarks, hazards, safety mechanisms, and sites of previous disasters), plotting
them onto a printed map and annotating the information being gathered. This process is now
enhanced by training participants to use digital processes in a number of open-​source mobile
phone applications such as Epicollect+, MyTracks (developed by Google Inc., Mountain View,
CA, USA), and Ramblr (developed by Imperial College London, UK), which helps with the
parallel, systematic, and speedy collection of georeferenced data, whilst embedding pictorial,
video, and audio files. Training provided for participants prepares them to use these tools and
visualize the information gathered (Lambert and Allen 2016). Data sharing and public acces-
sibility is increasing, and also as a result of the growth of action research projects that create
websites or sharing portals for outputs, such as ReMapRisk, and see the filling of risk data gaps
as integral project outcomes.
The main challenge is, though, to implement this kind of data collection at a larger scale, so
that it can support processes of decision-​making and strategic planning at the scale of the whole
city (Boonyabancha 2005).There are also potential drawbacks with experiential data, as residents’

66
 Data gaps and resilience metrics

recollection of the risks and events or outcomes may not always yield reliable results. Therefore,
a mixture of experiential data and loss data would be optimal.

Discussion and conclusions

We know that there have been innovative initiatives to develop better information to support
advocacy and decision-​making on risk for local governments. However, there is still a lot that
needs to be done in terms of getting local governments to address risks, and to take on board the
knowledge that is developed through local risk information methods.
In an article written in 2012 entitled “From knowledge to action: Bridging gaps in disaster
risk reduction”, Gaillard and Mercer outlined several key elements of why risk information was
not used by policymakers. Two of these points are quoted below:

Unfortunately, if [community-​driven] tools prove very useful for achieving their primary
goal, i.e. identifying local knowledge and issues, and planning actions at the community
level, they remain insufficient to integrate stakeholders from beyond local communities and
NGO partners. Local government institutions and scientists have been reluctant to seriously
consider both the tools themselves and the knowledge they produce for improving policies.
This is because participatory tools are not primarily geared towards producing quantitative
data, which are primary importance to government decisions makers.
(p102)

To foster the dialogue required to exchange knowledge and discuss consensual actions there
should be tools that allow all stakeholders to participate in the same activity, around the same
table, at the same time.These tools should enable an assessment of the needs and capacities of
local communities and to plan from the inside what can and should be done at the commu-
nity level. They should also provide space for NGOs and local government officials to plan
and plot, in collaboration with local people, top-​down actions intended to sustain local needs.
(p103)

It is quite interesting to note that the methods we have reviewed in this chapter, many of which
have been developed in the last few years, respond quite directly to these points. Methods
for community-​generated data have radically advanced in recent years and, consequently, most
methods offer strong elements of quantitative data.
Strategic action-​planning has become integral to the community-​led and urban resilience
frameworks, both as a means to collectively validate findings, but also as a capacity building
step which is instrumental in inducing ways of “doing things”. This allows the community
to concretize learning and arm them with prioritized agendas for disaster risk reduction at
scale, capitalizing on the resources and mobilization capacities that already exist. Very effective
responses typically do emerge from joint initiatives of residents and the city council or other
public agencies, such as fire awareness and hazard monitoring in the case of recent studies in
Freetown (Allen et al. 2017).
Small steps at collecting local data that are “good enough” can be valuable in the beginning for
a city that is starting on disaster risk management (Spaliviero et al. 2019). As all of the initiatives
reviewed in this chapter have shown, understanding risks requires information; however that infor-
mation does not have to be perfect or complete in order to begin actions to address disaster risks.
The depth of the participatory processes when conducted at scale provides very good opportun-
ities to develop information through people’s existing knowledge and decision-​support tools.

67
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

However, moving on from these small-​scale processes of providing good contextual data
on risk involving local decision-​makers, the critical multiplier at a scale requires an overhaul
and improvement in the current established means of data collection. Improving official data
collection, such as census, vital registration systems, and health care records will be neces-
sary to systematically address disaster and health risks in informal settlements (Adelekan and
Satterthwaite 2019). Censuses should provide valuable data on housing and living conditions
and other health determinants on all households. Most census authorities do not provide city
governments with data broken down to the level of the street and ward –​needed for planning,
and in the context of many developing cities and urban centers, will also require a radical
approach to expressly recognize and include demographics and a distinction for informal settle-
ment that often fall outside or straddle formal boundaries.
Finally, there is a need for a paradigm shift in the conceptualization of risk for risk govern-
ance professionals, local decision-​makers, and various practitioners to consider risk as a spec-
trum that marks a departure from the dominance of intensive risks in most policy frameworks.
While this is well documented in the literature, it is less exercised in practice. It is only
when the small-​scale and everyday risks are measured that we can understand the scale of the
problem.

Notes
1 This research has been funded by the AXA Research Fund under the grant “AXA Outlook: Metrics
for Policy Action in Urban Areas: Characterising risks facing low-​income groups”.
2 www.emdat.be/​
3 The database is available at www.desinventar.net. See further background notes on DesInventar www.
desinventar.net/​whatisdesinventar.html (last accessed 6 March, 2018).
4 www.unisdr.org/we/inform/gar?
5 www.unisdr.org/​campaign/​resilientcities/​home/​index
6 www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/53349
7 www.cityresilienceindex.org
8 http://​dimsur.org/​city_​rap/​
9 http://​urbanresiliencehub.org/​tools-​for-​action/​
10 ReMapRisk methodology and tool was developed and first applied in Lima by Allen and Lambert in
the context of a project entitled cLIMA sin Riesgo, and later applied in Karonga and Freetown, as part
of the ESRC/​DFID funded Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK) project, led by team from the
Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London.
11 https://​knowyourcity.info/​

References
Adelekan, I.O. (2019). Urban dynamics, everyday hazards and disaster risks in Ibadan, Nigeria. Environment
and Urbanization.
Adelekan, I., Johnson, C., Manda, M., Matyas, D., Mberu, B.U., Parnell, S., Pelling M., Satterthwaite, D.,
and Vivekananda, J. (2015). Disaster risk and its reduction: an agenda for urban Africa. International
Development Planning Review. 37(1): 33–​43.
Adelekan, I.O. and Satterthwaite, D. (2019). Filling the data gaps on everyday and disaster risks in cities: The
case of Ibadan. Urban Africa Risk Knowledge Briefing, No 22. January 2019.
Allen, A., Belkow, T. de los Ríos, S., Escalante Estrada, C., Lambert, R., Miranda, L., Poblet Alegre, R., and
Zilbert Soto, L. (2015). Urban Risk: In search of new perspectives. Disrupting urban ‘risk traps’: Bridging
Finance and Knowledge for Climate Resilient Infrastructural Planning in Lima. Policy Brief No.1, June
2015. www.climasinriesgo.net.
Allen, A., Koroma, B., Lambert, R., and Osuteye, E. in collaboration with Macarthy, J., Kamara, S., Sellu,
S., Bertin, A., and Stone, A. (2018). ReMapRisk Freetown. Online platform produced for Urban Africa
Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK) www.urbanark.org. (Accessed March 8, 2019.)

68
 Data gaps and resilience metrics

Allen,A., Koroma, B., Osuteye, E., and Rigon,A. (2017). Urban risk in Freetown’s informal settlements: making
the invisible visible. Urban Africa Risk Knowledge Briefing, No. 6.
Allen, A., Osuteye, E., Koroma, B., and Lambert, R. (2019). Unlocking urban risk trajectories: Participatory
approaches to uncover risk accumulation in Freetown’s informal settlements. In: M. Pelling (ed.): African
Cities: Lessons and Leadership for Integrating Risk into Development. Nairobi: UN-​Habitat.
Béné, C., Headey, D., Haddad, L., and von Grebmer, K. (2016). Is resilience a useful concept in the con-
text of food security and nutrition programmes? Some conceptual and practical considerations. Food
Security. 8(1): 123–​138.
Beukes, A. (2014) Know Your City: community profiling of informal settlements, IIED Briefing Paper.
(Accessed March 7, 2019).
Boonyabancha, S. (2005). Baan Mankong: Going to scale with “slum” and squatter upgrading in Thailand.
Environment and Urbanization. 17(1): 21–​46.
Bull-​Kamanga, L., Diagne, K., Lavell, A., Leon, E., Lerise, F., MacGregor, H., Maskrey, A., Meshack, M.,
Pelling, M., Reid, H., Satterthwaite, D., Songsore, J.,Westgate, K., and Yitambe, A. (2003), From everyday
hazards to disasters: the accumulation of risk in urban areas. Environment and Urbanization. 15
(1): 193–​204.
Dodman, D., Adelekan, I., Brown, D., Leck, H., Manda, M., Mberu, B., Pelling, M., Rusca, M.,
Satterthwaite, D., and Taylor, F. (2018). A spectrum of methods for a spectrum of risk: Generating
evidence to understand and reduce urban risk in sub-​Saharan Africa. Area. 00: 1–​9.
Gaillard, J.C. and Mercer, J. (2012). From knowledge to action: Bridging gaps in disaster risk reduction.
Progress in Human Geography. 37(1): 93–114. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0309132512446717.
Gibson, T. and Wisner, B. (2016). “Let’s talk about you…” Opening space for local experience, action and
learning in disaster risk reduction. Disaster Prevention and Management. 25(5): 664–684. https://doi.
org/10.1108/DPM-06-2016-0119.
Lambert, R. and Allen, A. (2016). Participatory mapping to disrupt unjust urban trajectories in Lima.
In: P. Imperatore and A. Pepe (eds.): Geospatial Technology – Environmental and Social Applications.
InTech Open Science. 2016. www.intechopen.com/books/geospatial-technology-environmental-
and-social-applications/participatory-mapping-to-disrupt-unjust-urban-trajectories-in-lima. (Accessed
on March 7, 2019).
Lavell, A. and Maskrey, A. (2014). The future of disaster risk management. Environmental Hazards. 13(4).
https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2014.935282.
Marulanda, M.C., Cardona, O.D., and Barbat, A.H. (2010). Revealing the socioeconomic impact of
small disasters in Colombia using the DesInventar database. Disasters. 34(2): 552–570. https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1467-7717.2009.01143.x.
Oliver-Smith, A, Alcántara-Ayala, I. Burton, I., and Lavell, A.M. (2016). Forensic Investigations of Disasters
(FORIN): A Conceptual Framework and Guide to Research (IRDR FORIN Publication No.2).
Beijing: Integrated Research on Disaster Risk.
OSSO, 2008. Anexo. 11. Urbanización, marginalización y prefiguración de desastres en ciudades “medianas”
de países en desarrollo: Estudio de caso, Cali, Colombia. Analisis del riesgo extensivo, Urbanización
de los riesgos y su expansión territorial en América Latina. www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/
gar/2011/en/bgdocs/GAR-2009/background_papers/Chap3/LAC-overview/OSSO/11_Capitulo_
Cali_Riesgo-extensivo_V3.doc. (Accessed April 10, 2019).
Osuteye, E., Johnson, C., and Brown, D. (2017). The data gap: An analysis of data availability on disaster
losses in sub-Saharan African Cities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 26: 24–33.
Osuteye, E. and Leck, H. (2017). Freetown’s mudslides and the slippery slope of urban risk in Africa,
Opinion Piece, IRIN News: Inside Story on Emergencies. www.irinnews.org/opinion/2017/08/23/
freetown-s-mudslides-and-slippery-slope-urban-risk-africa. (Accessed March 13, 2019).
Osuteye, E., Leck, H., Johnson, C., Ndezi, T., Makoba, F.D., and Pelling, M. (2018). Communicating risk
from the frontline: projecting community voices into disaster risk management policies across scales.
Urban ARK Policy Briefing 19.
Pharoah, R. (2009). Fire risk in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa. In: M. Pelling and B.
Wisner (eds.): Disaster Risk Reduction: Cases from Urban Africa. London: Earthscan, 105–​124.
Schipper, L., Lisa, F., and Langston, L. (2015). A Comparative Overview of Resilience Measurement
Frameworks: Analysing Indicators and Approaches. ODI Working Paper, London. https://​ pdfs.
semanticscholar.org/​2d45/​b8f15d521051d7af464e607b465b164f03cc.pdf. (Accessed April 12, 2019).
Spaliviero, M., Rochell, K., Pelling, M., Tomaselli, C., Lopez, F.L., and Guambe, M. (2019). Urban resilience
building in fast-​growing African Cities. Urban Africa Risk Knowledge Briefing, No. 20, January 2019.

69
Cassidy Johnson and Emmanuel Osuteye

Tanner, T., Bahadur, A., and Moench, M. (2017). Challenges for Resilience Policy and Practice.
London: Overseas Development Institute.
Twigg, J., Christie, N., Haworth, J., Osuteye, E., and Skarlatidou, A. (2017) Improved methods for fire risk
assessment in low-​income and informal settlements. International Journal of Environmental Research
and Public Health. 14: 139
UN-​Habitat (2017). Trends in Urban Resilience 2017. Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements
Programme.
Wamsler, C. (2014). Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation. London and New York: Routledge.

70
 7
Urban open space systems
Multifunctional infrastructure

James A. LaGro, Jr.

Introduction
Spanning the social and health sciences, scholarship on resilience shares a common interest in
how individuals and groups of people cope with adversity. The definition of resilience from
pediatric psychology, for example, is “the capacity of a system to adapt successfully to challenges
that threaten the function, survival, or future development of the system” (Masten and Barnes
2018, p.2). This emphasis on adaptive capacity is equally germane to cities and to the design of
integrated infrastructure systems.
The spatial structure or physical morphology of cities is shaped by four infrastructure
domains: (1) building infrastructure, (2) transportation infrastructure, (3) utility infrastruc-
ture (water, energy, waste, communications), and (4) open space infrastructure. These systems
fundamentally influence urban sustainability, livability, and resiliency (Ramaswami et al. 2012;
Zhang and Li 2018). Sustainable cities conserve water, energy, biodiversity, and other natural
resources, and minimize environmental degradation (Burby 1998; Hough 2004; Lehmann 2010).
Livable cities promote human health, safety, and wellbeing by providing convenient and equit-
able access to affordable housing, multimodal transportation options, and public parks and open
spaces (Beatley 2011; Wheeler 2013). Resilient cities minimize risks from natural hazards and
their potential social and economic impacts (Godschalk 2003; Meerow et al. 2016; Mileti 1999).
Urban ecology, the science of cities, provides evidence that can inform the policies and
paradigms that shape the structure and function of the built environment (Forman 2014; Grimm
et al. 2008). A better understanding of urban ecology can help cities enact evidence-​based pol-
icies that adapt their communities to changing social, economic, and environmental conditions
(Nursey-​Bray et al. 2014; Ramaswami et al. 2012). Local leaders often underestimate the import-
ance of their city’s architecture, public spaces, and transportation systems, failing to fully grasp
their effects on environmental quality, economic prosperity, and human health and wellbeing
(United Nations 2017).
This chapter focuses on urban open space systems. This infrastructure can play vital
roles in protecting environmental quality, reducing risks from natural hazards, and advancing
human health and wellbeing. Grounded in the expanding literature of urban science and urban
design, three key principles are proposed to help local governments advance urban resiliency: (1)

71
James A. LaGro, Jr.

identify built environments that are vulnerable to natural hazards and remove or retrofit the
built infrastructure in harm’s way, (2) identify and protect critical urban natural areas and restore
the integrity of fragmented and degraded ecosystem components, and (3) reform the policies,
institutions, and planning paradigms that exacerbate hazard risks and impede resiliency, sustain-
ability, and livability. This chapter concludes with recommendations on potential reforms in the
education, licensing, and certification of four professions that directly shape the structure and
function of the built environment.

Nature’s infrastructure
The Earth is a dynamic, living planet, sustaining human life while also presenting risks to human
health, safety, and wellbeing.The complex interrelationships between natural and human systems
have direct implications for urban resiliency (Forman 2014; Ramaswami et al. 2012). Most
cities are vulnerable to one or more natural hazards, including earthquakes, volcanos, landslides,
avalanches, heat waves, drought, wildfires, floods, and coastal subsidence and erosion (Birkmann
et al. 2014). Geologic hazards have posed risks to urban settlements for millennia. Thousands
died, for example, when the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna led to Pompeii’s demise more
than 2,000 years ago. In coastal areas subject to hurricanes and typhoons, these massive storms are
responsible for losses of life, billions of dollars in property damage, and lasting psychological and
economic impacts (Mileti 1999; Wisner et al. 2004). History has repeatedly demonstrated, how-
ever, that catastrophes from geologic and climate hazards are often linked to human decisions –​
to the land use patterns that place people and property in harm’s way (Mileti 1999; Moffatt and
Kohler 2008).
Urban morphology profoundly influences public health, safety, and wellbeing (Sallis et al.
2015; Wheeler 2013). Vulnerability assessments identify the locations where people and
property are exposed to risks from climate change and other natural hazards (Wisner et al. 2004).
With rising sea levels, new vulnerabilities to buildings, utility and telecommunication networks,
and machinery are emerging in coastal cities (Gagliano et al. 2003; Zou et al. 2016). Land
use changes can also increase the exposure and magnitude of potential hazard risks. In heavily
farmed regions of the US midwest and Great Plains, fence-​row to fence-​row crop cultivation
has destroyed most native vegetation in these landscapes, greatly increasing runoff –​and river
flooding –​from early spring storms and snowmelt. Hundreds of thousands of wetland hectares
have been drained for agricultural crop production; thousands more wetland hectares have been
filled in, built on, and paved over for urban development (Davidson 2014). Cities and villages
along major rivers –​the Missouri and Mississippi, for e­ xample –​suffer the consequences of cata-
strophic flooding.
Hazard vulnerability is often exacerbated by lack of local capacity to collect, analyze, and
act on evidence that could mitigate risks (Godschalk 2003). Moreover, interventions to reduce
risks may be adaptive, maladaptive, or have no effect at all. Levees, sea walls, and storm pumps,
for example, can protect development in river floodplains and low-​lying coastal areas.Yet, these
public works projects may provide a false sense of security.This engineered infrastructure can fail,
and sometimes does, dramatically amplifying the subsequent flooding impacts (Josephson 2002,
Mileti 1999). In some cases, infrastructure failures concentrate the destructive forces, with devas-
tating effects on highly vulnerable lower-​income populations. When catastrophic infrastructure
failures occur, they are often considered unavoidable.Yet, as Gilbert F. White (1945), the “father”
of floodplain management, wryly observed: “Floods are ‘acts of God,’ but flood losses are largely
acts of man.”

72
 Urban open space systems

Land use practices

The United Nations estimates that over half of the world’s 7.3 billion people are now living in
urban areas and 70 per cent of the projected 9.7 billion people are expected to live in urban
areas by 2050. Continued population growth and redistribution are expected to produce 41
megacities, each with at least 10 million people, by the year 2030 (United Nations 2014). As
urban populations increase, cities may grow in three ways: (1) peri-​urban development on former
farmland, forests, and other rural natural areas, (2) redevelopment of previously developed, but
usually lower-​density, urban sites, and (3) infill on vacant land within the existing urbanized
area. Ironically, the potential promise of urbanization is that it can provide the impetus –​and
abundant opportunities –​for cities to incrementally increase sustainability and resiliency and
improve residents’ quality of life. Successful urban transformations require, however, a thorough
understanding of local environmental conditions and, typically, systematic reforms of the policies
and practices that shape the built environment.

Land suitability analysis

Land suitability varies, spatially, with some places much better suited for urban development than
others (LaGro 2013; Marsh 2010; McHarg 1969; Steiner 2008). Steep slopes, shallow bedrock,
and elevated water tables are naturally occurring constraints on urban development. These and
many other common physiographic conditions reduce land suitability for buildings, transpor-
tation, and utility infrastructure.
Designing with nature carefully considers intrinsic biophysical conditions in planning, per-
mitting, and developing the built environment (LaGro 2013; McHarg 1969; Steiner 2008).
Decisions on where to develop –​and where not to develop –​should reflect a standard of
care that minimizes risks to property and people. New development should be directed to
locations that protect nature’s infrastructure, while also minimizing both on-​and off-​site risks
to people, private property, and public infrastructure (Beatley 2011; Hough 2004). Slope pro-
tection regulations, for example, reduce on-​and off-​site risks from hillside development. These
regulations can limit soil disturbance on steeper slopes, require the protection of native vegeta-
tion, and encourage groundwater recharge.

Land use policy

Analogous to genetic codes –​the blue prints of life –​building codes, zoning codes, and other
local, state, and national policies shape both the form and function of the built environment.
The social, economic, and environmental effects of these public policies may persist for decades
or even centuries, long after those policies become obsolete and may (or may not) be repealed.
Combined sewer systems (CSS), for example, convey both stormwater and wastewater in shared
underground pipes. Widely implemented in the United States as a public health innovation in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this shared sewerage infrastructure is still oper-
ational in over 700 US cities (Tibbetts 2005).Yet, when these cities experience extreme rainfall
events, the combined volume of storm runoff and raw sewage exceeds this infrastructure’s cap-
acity, thus spilling its contents into nearby rivers, lakes, and marine ecosystems.
Local governments have a primary role in regulating land use, yet they often lack the resources
to implement environmental planning best practices. Comparative research on land use zoning

73
James A. LaGro, Jr.

codes (Chriqui et al. 2016), comprehensive plans (Brody et al. 2004), and hazard mitigation
plans (Berke et al. 2015) reveals substantial variation in governance capacity. Providing technical
assistance and environmental data to local governments is one way that higher levels of govern-
ment can mitigate hazard risks in urban areas. State agencies in California and Utah, for example,
produce statewide geologic hazard maps that assist local governments in urban planning and
growth management.

Land planning and development

Deforestation, mass grading, and the draining and filling of wetlands are “brute force” land devel-
opment practices that deprive communities of valuable ecosystem services. As landscapes became
more impervious, their watersheds lose their natural capacity to infiltrate rainfall, replenish
aquifers, and mitigate flooding. This “man-​over-​nature” paradigm has led to catastrophic infra-
structure failures (Josephson 2002, Mileti 1999). Breached Mississippi River levees are but one
example of failed attempts to mitigate natural hazard risks through conventional engineered
infrastructure. The channelization of Florida’s Kissimmee River, another massive civil engin-
eering intervention, reduced flooding but caused extensive ecological degradation, subsequently
precipitating a $2 billion ecosystem restoration effort (Whalen et al. 2002).
Ecological planning, in contrast, adapts the built environment to intrinsic local conditions
(Steiner 2008). Patrick Geddes (1854–​ 1932) and Ian McHarg (1920–​ 2001) were prominent
scholars and practitioners who passionately articulated the rationale for integrating nature into
urban planning and design (Geddes 1915; McHarg 1969). Contemporary nature-​based planning
includes integrative efforts to adapt cities to climate change, sustainably manage natural resources,
and restore degraded ecosystems (Beatley 2011; Cohen-​Shacham et al. 2016; Forman 2014).
Assembled within geographic information systems (GIS), spatial data on natural resources and
vulnerability to natural hazards identify locations with reduced land use suitability (McHarg 1969;
Steiner 2008). These locations should be prioritized for potential land acquisition and protection,
and, if warranted, ecological restoration. Urban resiliency strategies revitalize degraded ecosystems
by restoring degraded drainage networks and biotopes essential to natural ecosystem function
(Forman 2014;Weisshohn 2019).“Daylighting” urban streams is an example of green infrastructure.
Green infrastructure not only reduces risks from natural hazards but also provides many
co-​benefits, including habitat for birds, pollinating insects, and other urban flora and fauna. Green
infrastructure protects natural hydrogeologic processes, facilitating stormwater infiltration and
groundwater recharge, and reducing natural hazard risks to people, property, and infrastructure.
When planning new urban areas, reserving at least 10–​20 per cent of the land for public open
space is a “no regrets” strategy to protect ecosystems, mitigate natural hazards, and enhance com-
munity quality of life. The dimensions of these open spaces, or buffer zones, depend on local
environmental conditions and on projections of future climate risks. An active volcano on a
Pacific island, for example, may require a no-​development buffer zone of several kilometers from
the mountain’s base. Conversely, the margin of safety from aseismic “ground faults” in coastal Texas
and Louisiana may be sufficiently met by a network of linear open spaces just 20–​30 meters wide.
Low-​impact development (LID) protects wetlands, riparian areas, and other natural areas;
minimizes soil disturbance, compaction, and impervious surfaces; and disconnects impervious
surfaces to slow runoff and encourage on-​site groundwater infiltration (Vermont Department
of Environmental Conservation 2014). By strategically integrating green space and other non-​
impervious surfaces, LID reduces runoff volumes and flow rates during extreme weather events
(Dietz 2007). Stormwater management paradigms have radically changed over the past 150 years,
becoming increasingly focused on mitigating ecological impacts by disconnecting impervious

74
 Urban open space systems

surfaces (Reese 2001). Adapting to climate change requires that stormwater management mimic
the landscape’s natural hydrology and hydraulics, employing decentralized, small-​scale stormwater
control and infiltration measures (Ahiablame et al. 2012; Dietz 2007; Pyke et al. 2011). In coastal
areas subject to sea level rise or in river floodplains, strategic retreat from flooding hazards can
reduce losses and allow new wetland formation. Buildings may be removed or retrofitted to ele-
vate finished interior spaces above expected flooding levels. Waterfront parks, as in New York
City, can help communities become more resilient to extreme storms and the effects of rising
sea levels (New York City Parks, 2017).

Urban open space infrastructure

As cities grow in both total population and population density, the quality of urban open spaces
becomes critically important. Urban open space systems can buffer people, property, and infra-
structure from natural hazards.Yet, design matters. Urban neighborhoods that are dense enough
to support frequent transit service, for example, require convenient access to outdoor public
spaces that vary in size, context, and function. The social, economic, and environmental benefits
of this infrastructure depend upon how the system of open spaces is designed. A hierarchy of
open spaces can meet community needs at site and neighborhood scales as well as at municipal
and regional scales. Small, neighborhood-​serving public spaces complement larger, community-​
serving parks and open spaces. In world cities and major capital cities, public open spaces serve
not only local, regional, and national populations, but often international visitors. Urban open
spaces can be a powerful force for business and tourism.
Planners in Portland, Oregon (USA) identify three broad urban categories of public open
space, spanning a gradient from protected natural areas to intensively-​used outdoor social spaces
(Harnik 2010). Nature-​oriented spaces include urban forests, wetlands, lakes, and other natural
areas. Prominent natural features are present in many great cities, worldwide, with iconic natural
features including ravines (Chicago,Washington, DC), landmark hilltops (Rome, Prague, and San
Francisco), and sustainably-​managed forests (Berlin, Vienna, Zurich). People-​oriented spaces, in
contrast, include urban plazas, malls, promenades, and boulevards. These spaces can encourage
civic engagement and facilitate political expression. Hybrid spaces, providing benefits for both
nature and people, include parks, waterfronts, and community gardens.

Environmental benefits
Urban open space systems provide ecosystem services, including the protection of water and
air quality. This infrastructure helps to mitigate the effects of urban heat islands, reduce energy
demand for heating and cooling buildings, and sequester carbon. By integrating green infra-
structure within parking lots, along streets, and on rooftops, a city’s “effective” imperviousness
can be reduced. Rooftop gardens provide convenient outdoor spaces for building occupants and,
by adding a natural insulation layer, green roofs reduce building heating and cooling costs, limit
stormwater runoff, and extend roof longevity.
Plants and soil-​borne microbes in rain gardens, bio-​infiltration basins, and bioswales help
to prevent the transport of pollutants from streets and parking lots to natural water bodies.
Groundwater recharge in metropolitan areas also helps to maintain seasonal base flow rates of
nearby streams and rivers. Rainwater harvesting and non-​potable “grey water” recycling also
helps to conserve water resources, especially in arid and semi-​arid landscapes.
If widely planted throughout a community, trees reduce air pollution through leaf uptake
and contact removal and slow the temperature-​dependent photochemical reaction that forms

75
James A. LaGro, Jr.

ground-​level ozone pollution (Roy et al. 2012). Native trees also sustain pollinating insect species
and birds, creating a richer and more diverse ecosystem (Forman 2014). By reintroducing bio-
diversity into the built environment, people are brought closer to their ancient genetic heritage
(Wilson 2017).

Social and economic benefits

Public plazas and squares complement traditional parks as catalysts for new businesses and real
estate development (Compton 2005). Chicago’s Millennium Park, for example, has spurred
billions of dollars in new real estate development (Uhlir, 2005). These public open spaces can
strengthen the fiscal health of local governments by increasing tax revenues from retail sales,
hotel room rentals, and real estate (Uhlir 2005). This infrastructure also can attract employers
providing jobs in well-​paying occupations (Leigh and Blakely 2016). Infrastructure that enables
residents and visitors to walk or bicycle to parks, shops, and restaurants contribute to the “experi-
ence” economy (Brown et al. 2016; Leinberger 2008).
Engaging residents in open space programming can tailor this infrastructure to meet each
neighborhood’s specific needs. In Philadelphia, a program that converted abandoned vacant lots
into “clean and green” landscapes increased surrounding property values as well as perceptions
of personal safety (Garvin et al. 2012). Community gardens produce locally-​g rown food and
enhance local food security. Urban tree canopies reduce urban heat island effects and are also
associated with lower crime rates (Bogar and Beyer 2015). Public spaces can also bring commu-
nities together by hosting cultural festivals, farmers’ markets, concerts, holiday celebrations, and
art and craft fairs. Events like these support the local business community while strengthening
shared sense of place.
Open space networks create opportunities for bicycle commuting, outdoor recreation,
and walking to parks, restaurants, shopping, and transit stations. Rails-​to-​trails conversions
extend walking and bicycling paths and improve access from neighborhoods to cultural
sites, civic centers, and opportunities for environmental education. A robust public open
space system provides opportunities for exercise and active transportation, while minim-
izing conflicts with motorized vehicles. The benefits of linear recreation and transportation
networks include cardiovascular health, better sleep, and reduced infection (Sallis et al. 2015).
Children, especially, need outdoor places for sunlight, fresh air, and active play. Health benefits
from children’s frequent exposure to nature include improved academic performance and
reduced symptoms associated with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders (Louv 2008;
Sallis et al. 2015).
High quality public open spaces can increase the desirability –​and market prices –​of nearby
housing. “Just green enough” strategies strive to protect housing affordability by preventing
“eco-​gentrification” (Wolch et al. 2014). Efforts to limit the extent, connectivity, and/​or quality
of public open spaces in poorer neighborhoods are well-​intentioned yet inappropriate responses
to gentrification. Rapid housing price increases are a symptom of broader, systemic factors
including the insufficient supply of walkable, location-​efficient, urban neighborhoods. Urban
greening initiatives need to be more extensive across municipalities, not less. Targeted reforms in
land use zoning and housing policies can also help to address the housing affordability challenge.

Toward ecological equilibrium

A pressing twenty-​first century urban planning challenge is to catalyze the evolution, or
succession, of cities from juvenile ecological states to more mature and resilient states (Bahadur

76
 Urban open space systems

and Tanner 2014; Miller et al. 2018; Moffatt and Kohler 2008). Yet, the ability of local
governments to enact urban resiliency initiatives varies widely across municipalities (Cervero
and Arrington 2008; Ekkel and de Vries 2017; Koop et al. 2017; Sallis et al. 2015). Governance
challenges include conflicting policy decisions, insufficient coordination across jurisdictions,
and lack of capacity to gather and plan effectively with relevant environmental data (Göçmen
and LaGro 2016).

Good governance
Public policy reforms are fundamental to paradigm change in urban infrastructure planning,
design, funding, and management. Land use and transportation policies can be leveraged to
reduce carbon emissions and incrementally adapt cities to changing social, economic, and envir-
onmental conditions. Public subsidies for rebuilding properties damaged by natural hazards
can, and often do, create incentives for maladaptive land use practices, especially in coastal and
riverine landscapes threatened by extreme flooding. Market-​based initiatives, including flood
insurance reforms, are needed to reduce the financial incentives that encourage unsustainable
behaviors, such as building in locations at risk from repeated flooding (Jacob and Showalter
2007). Impact fees for new real estate development can help finance land acquisitions and new
public open space infrastructure.
Natural disasters can change attitudes, however, and precipitate actions that increase urban
resilience (Ernston et al. 2010). After a devastating hurricane struck the city of Houston, Texas
in 2017, a major bond referendum was passed to purchase flood-​prone properties and expand
the region’s public green space system. Grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
(NFWF) in the United States fund green infrastructure conservation projects and capacity
building and demonstration projects. These initiatives build working relationships among
stakeholders, fund training workshops in assessing local vulnerability, and build community cap-
acity for collective impact.
Strategies to foster urban resilience can benefit from holistic, systems thinking (Bahadur and
Tanner 2014; Miller et al. 2018; Moffatt and Kohler 2008).“Upstream” policy factors, for example,
have countless “downstream” effects on both the built and natural environments (Chapman
et al. 2016; Ramaswami et al. 2012). Coordinated initiatives –​bridging all four infrastructure
domains –​can help municipalities conserve natural and fiscal resources, while protecting public
health, safety, and wellbeing (Fink et al. 2011; Frantzeskaki and Kabisch 2016).
Cities require enormous amounts of energy. And the generation of renewable solar, wind,
hydro, and geothermal energy is another potential social and economic benefit of urban open
space systems. More needs to be done to explore the potential for public-​private partnerships.
For example, leased public open spaces could enable geothermal district heating and cooling
systems, or small-​scale wind and solar arrays.
Parks and open spaces are often viewed as non-​essential community amenities. Consequently,
a fuller accounting of the costs and benefits of urban open space systems could strengthen
arguments for public investment in this infrastructure (Jacob and Showalter 2007). New metrics
are needed to help communities understand their return on investment in urban open spaces
(Brown et al. 2016). A metric that has long been used in municipal park planning is park sur-
face area per 1,000 residents. This metric is a “benchmark” indicator for inter-​city, peer group
comparisons by city parks agencies and non-​profit advocacy organizations.Yet as urban districts
and neighborhoods densify through infill and redevelopment, this metric is sure to decline at
these granular scales. Importantly, this metric does not measure the quality or connectivity of
public open spaces.

77
James A. LaGro, Jr.

Neighborhoods with medium to high population densities (e.g. residents, commuting

workers; business visitors; tourists) need well-​designed urban spaces. Strategic investment in open
space infrastructure can help communities advance multiple goals, including active transporta-
tion, economic development, and environmental protection. Areas with high ecological value
and high hazard risk should receive priority for protection and management (Dudley 2008).
Linear open spaces are particularly important because they link parks and other large open
spaces, enabling passive recreation, silent sports, and active transportation. They also enhance the
location-​efficiency of adjoining neighborhoods.
The funding, development, programming, and management of community open space
systems is a good governance challenge. Public-​private partnerships and non-​profit organizations
play critical roles, in several larger US cities, in funding the programming and management of
major urban parks and outdoor spaces (Harnik 2010). Human behavior –​responses to incentives
and disincentives –​cannot be ignored in crafting public policy. Local zoning and building code
reforms are needed, as well as innovative financing strategies. Financial incentives for green
infrastructure investment by the private sector are an area with considerable potential. Property
tax abatement, for example, has been used effectively to promote green roof installations in
New York City (Nolan 2016).

Higher education
Cities are complex adaptive systems. They are the cultural and biophysical legacies of multiple
actors, including policy-​makers and planners, land developers, landscape architects, architects and
engineers, and residents whose housing choices influence urban growth patterns. As centers of
creativity and innovation, cities are central to our species’ effective adaptation to global sustain-
ability challenges (Grimm et al. 2008; Miller et al. 2018).
Universities can play pivotal roles in local sustainability and resiliency initiatives by helping to
transform the paradigms that influence urban planning, design, and management. Accreditation
standards for professional degree programs, for example, influence the decisions that shape the
structure and function of the built environment. Professional degree programs convey to students
the analytic and design paradigms that guide problem conceptualization and problem solving in
their chosen fields. In higher education as well as in professional practice, disciplinary silos can
lead to insular pedagogies and parochialism (Fink 2011; Miller et al. 2018). Professional degree
programs in urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and civil engineering should be
training the next generation of practitioners to embrace system-​level approaches to reshaping
the built environment. Professional licensing and certification requirements can reinforce the
importance of interdisciplinary, collaborative approaches to professional practice.
Faculty in public universities, especially, are engaging in community partnerships, evaluating
natural experiments, and developing the evidence-​base to inform public policies (Hodges and
Dubb 2012; Jacob and Showalter 2007; Nursey-​Bray 2014; Schaffer and Vollmer 2010). These
collaborative initiatives have great potential to transform urban infrastructure by raising the
capacity of professions and elected decision-​makers to transform cities into more sustainable,
resilient, and livable habitats. Transdisciplinary initiatives like these have the potential to reshape
the trajectory of urban futures, worldwide.

References
Ahiablame, L.M., Engel, B.A., and Chaubey, I. (2012). Effectiveness of low-​impact development practices: lit-
erature review and suggestions for future research. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution. 223: 4253–​4273.

78
 Urban open space systems

Bahadur, A. and Tanner,T. (2014).Transformational resilience thinking: putting people, power and politics at
the heart of urban climate resilience. Environment & Urbanization. 26(1): 200–​214.
Beatley, T. (2011). Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
Berke, P., Newman, G., Lee, J., Combs, T., Kolosna, C., and Salvesen, D. (2015). Evaluation of networks of
plans and vulnerability to hazards and climate change: A resilience scorecard. Journal of the American
Planning Association. 81(4): 287–​302.
Birkmann, J., Kienberger, S., and Alexander, D.E. (2014). Assessment of Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: A
European Perspective. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Bogar, S. and Beyer, K.M. (2015). Green space, violence, and crime: a systematic review. Trauma,Violence,
& Abuse, 1–​12.
Brody, S.D., Highfield, W., and Carrasco, V. (2004). Measuring the collective planning capabilities of local
jurisdictions to manage ecological systems in southern Florida. Landscape and Urban Planning.
69: 33–​50.
Brown, V., Diomedi, B.Z., Moodie, M., Veerman, J.L., and Carter, R. (2016). A systematic review of eco-
nomic analyses of active transport interventions that include physical activity benefits. Transport Policy.
45: 190–​208.
Burby, R.J. (ed.) (1998). Cooperating with Nature: Confronting Natural Hazards with Land-​Use Planning
for Sustainable Communities. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
Cervero, R. and Arrington, G.B. (2008).Vehicle trip reduction impacts of transit-​oriented housing. Journal
of Public Transportation. 11(3): 1–​17.
Chapman, R., Howden-​Chapman, P., and Capon, A. (2016). Understanding the systematic nature of cities
to improve health and climate change mitigation. Environment International. 94: 380–​387.
Chriqui, J.F., Nicholson, L.M., Thrun, E., Leider, J., and Slater, S.J. (2016). More active living-​oriented
county and municipal zoning is associated with increased adult leisure time physical activity –​United
States, 2011. Environment and Behavior. 48(1): 111–​130.
Cohen-​Shacham, E., Walters, G., Janzen, C., and Maginnis, S. (eds.) (2016). Nature-​Based Solutions to
Address Global Societal Challenges. Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN).
Compton, J.L. (2005). The impact of parks on property values: Empirical evidence from the past two
decades in the United States. Managing Leisure. 10: 203–​218.
Davidson, N.C. (2014). How much wetland has the world lost? Long-​term and recent trends in global wet-
land area. Marine and Freshwater Research. 65: 934–​941.
Dietz, M.E. (2007). Low-​impact development practices: A review of current research and recommendations
for future directions. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution. 186: 351–​363.
Dudley, N. (ed.) (2008). Guidelines for Applying Protected Area Management Categories. Gland,
Switzerland: IUCN.
Ekkel, E.D. and de Vries, S. (2017). Nearby green space and human health: Evaluating accessibility metrics.
Landscape and Urban Planning. 157: 214–​220.
Ernstson, H., van der Leeuw, S.E., Redman, C, Meffert, D.J., Davis, G., Alfsen, C., and Elmqvist, T. (2010).
Urban transitions: on urban resilience and human-​dominated ecosystems. AMBIO 39(8), 531–​545.
Fink, J.H. (2011). Cross-​sector integration of urban information to enhance sustainable decision making.
IBM Journal of Research and Development. 55(1.2): 12:1–​12:8.
Forman, R.T.T. (2014). Urban Ecology: Science of Cities. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Frantzeskaki, N. and Kabisch, N. (2016). Designing a knowledge co-​production operating space for urban
environmental governance –​Lessons from Rotterdam, Netherlands and Berlin, Germany. Environmental
Science & Policy. 62: 90–​98.
Gagliano, S.M., Kemp, E.B. III, Wicker, K.M., and Wiltenmuth, K.S. (2003). Active Geological Faults
and Land Change in Southeastern Louisiana: Executive Summary. Baton Rouge, LA: Coastal
Environments, Inc. (prepared for the US Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, Contract No.
DACW 29-​00-​C-​0034).
Garvin, E.C., Cannuscio, C.C., and Branas, C.C. (2012). Greening vacant lots to reduce violent crime: A
randomized control trial. Injury Prevention. 19: 198–​203.
Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and the Study of
Civics. New York: Ernest Benn.
Göçmen, A. and LaGro, J. (2016). Assessing local planning capacity to promote environmentally sustainable
residential development. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. 59(8): 1513–​1535.

79
James A. LaGro, Jr.

Godschalk, D.R. (2003). Urban hazard mitigation: creating resilient cities. Natural Hazards Review.
4(3): 136–​143.
Grimm, N.B., Faeth, S.H., Golubiewski, N.E., Redman, C.L., Wu, J., Bai, X., and Biggs, J.M. (2008). Global
change and the ecology of cities. Science. 319: 756–​760.
Harnik, P. (2010). Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Hodges, R.A. and Dubb, S. (2012). The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads. East
Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.
Hough, M. (2004). Cities and Natural Process: A Basis for Sustainability, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge.
Jacob, J.S. and Showalter, S. (2007). The Resilient Coast: Policy Frameworks for Adapting the Built
Environment to Climate Change and Growth in Coastal Areas of the US Gulf of Mexico. College
Station, TX: Sea Grant Texas at Texas A&M University.
Josephson, P.R. (2002). Industrialized Nature: Brute Force Technology and the Transformation of the
Natural World. Washington, DC: Island Press/​Shearwater Books.
Koop, S.H.A., Koetsier, L., Doornhof, A., Reinstra, O.,Van Leeuwen, C.J., Brouwer, S., Dieperink, C., and
Driessen, P.P.J. (2017). Assessing the governance capacity of cities to address challenges of water, waste,
and climate change. Water Resources Management. 31: 3427–​3443.
LaGro, J. (2013). Site Analysis: Informing Context-​Sensitive and Sustainable Site Planning and Design.
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.
Lehmann, S. (2010). Green urbanism: Formulating a series of holistic principles. Sapiens (Surveys and
Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society. 3(2): 1–​11.
Leigh, N.G. and Blakely, E.J. (2016). Planning Local Economic Development: Theory and Practice, 6th edn.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Leinberger, C. (2008). The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
Louv, R. (2008). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-​Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill,
NC: Algonquin Books.
Marsh, W.M. (2010). Landscape Planning: Environmental Applications. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.
Masten, A.S. and Barnes, A.J. (2018). Resilience in children: development perspectives. Children. 5, 98: 1–​16.
McHarg, I. (1969). Design with Nature. New York: Doubleday/​Natural History Press.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 147: 38–​49.
Mileti, D. (1999). Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States.Washington,
DC: Joseph Henry Press.
Miller, T.R., Chester, M., and Muñoz-​Erickson, T. (2018). Infrastructure for a stormy future: A more
integrated and systemic approach is needed to ensure the nation’s resilience in the face of a changing
climate. Issues in Science and Technology. Winter: 47–​58.
Moffat, S. and Kohler, N. (2008). Conceptualizing the built environment as a social-​ecological system.
Building Research & Information. 36(3): 248–​268.
New York City Parks (2017). Design and Planning for Flood Resiliency: Guidelines for NYC Parks.
New York: City of New York Parks and Recreation.
Nolan, J.R. (2016). Enhancing the urban environment through green infrastructure. Environmental Law
Reporter. 46: 10071–​10086.
Nursey-​Bray, M.J.,Vince, J., Scott, M., Haward, M., O’Toole, K., Smith,T., Harvey, N., and Clarke, B. (2014).
Science into policy? Discourse, coastal management and knowledge. Environmental Science & Policy.
38: 107–​119.
Pyke, C., Warren, M.P., Johnson, T., LaGro, J., Scharfenberg, J., Groth, P., Freed, R., Schroeer, W., and Main,
E. (2011). Assessment of low impact development for managing stormwater with changing precipitation
due to climate change. Landscape and Urban Planning. 103: 166–​173.
Ramaswami, A., Weible, C., Main, D., Heikkila, T., Siddiki, S., Duvall, A., Pattison, A., and Bernard, M.
(2012). A social-​ecological-​infrastructural systems framework for interdisciplinary study of sustainable
city systems. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 16(6): 801–​813.
Reese, A. (2001). Stormwater paradigms. Stormwater Magazine, July–​August. Santa Barbara, CA: Forester
Media, Inc.
Roy, S., Byrne, J., and Pickering, C. (2012). A systematic quantitative review of urban tree benefits, costs,
and assessment methods across cities in different climatic zones. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening.
11(4): 351–​363.

80
 Urban open space systems

Sallis, J.F., Spoon, C., Cavill, N., Engelberg, J.K., Gebel, K., Parker, M., Thornton, C.M., Lou, D., Wilson,
A.L., Cutter, C.L., and Ding, D. (2015). Co-​benefits of designing communities for active living: an
exploration of literature. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 12: 30.
Schaffer, D. and Vollmer, D. (2010). Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Research and Development on Urban
Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Schwab, J.C. (ed.) (2010). Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning. Planning Advisory
Service Report 560. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association.
Steiner, F. (2008). The Living Landscape: An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning, 2nd edn.
Washington, DC: Island Press.
Tibbetts, J. (2005). Combined sewer systems: down, dirty, and out of date. Environmental Health Perspectives.
113(7): A464–​467.
Uhlir, E.K. (2005). The Millennium Park effect. Economic Development Journal. 4(2): 7–​11.
United Nations (2014). A World of Cities. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Population Facts, No.2014/​2.
United Nations (2017). New Urban Agenda. Habitat III: UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable
Urban Development.
Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (2014).Vermont Green Infrastructure Strategic Plan
2014–​2019. Montpelier,VT: Watershed Management Division, Agency of Natural Resources.
Weisshohn, P. (2019). Indexing the vulnerability of biotopes to landscape change. Ecological Indicators.
102: 316–​327.
Whalen, P.J., Toth, L.A., Koebel, J.W., and Strayer, P.K. (2002). Kissimmee River restoration: a case study.
Water Science and Technology. 45(11): 55–​62.
Wheeler, S.M. (2013). Planning for Sustainability: Creating Livable, Equitable, and Ecological Communities,
2nd edn. New York: Routledge.
White, G.F. (1945). Human Adjustments to Floods: A Geographical Approach to the Flood Problem in the
United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Wilson, E.O. (2017). The Origins of Creativity. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon,T., and Davis, I. (2004). At Risk: National Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and
Disasters, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge.
Wolch, J.R., Byrne, J., and Newell, J.P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The
challenge of making cities “just green enough.” Landscape and Urban Planning. 125: 234–​244.
Zhang, X. and Li, H. (2018). Urban resilience and urban sustainability: What we know and what do not
know? Cities. 72: 141–​148.
Zou, L., Kent, J., Lam, N.S.N., Cai, H., Qiang, Y., and Li, K. (2016). Evaluating land subsidence rates and
their implications for land loss in the Lower Mississippi River Basin. Water. 8(1), 1–​15.

81
 Part II
Urban systems under stress
 8
Climate justicescape and
implications for urban resilience
in American cities
Chingwen Cheng

Introduction
Climate Justicescape refers to spatial patterns of climate justice. Climate justice in the global con-
text has revealed disparity between contributors to climate change and victims of climate change
impacts (Schlosberg and Collins 2014). The inequitable negative impacts in vulnerable nations
can result in significant social impacts such as climate refugees from island nations as a result of
sea level rises.To put climate justice in local context, climate justice refers to disparities of vulner-
ability and adaptive capacity to cope with climate change. When communities have insufficient
coping capacity for the shocks and disturbances in the coupled natural and human systems, they
are likely to become more vulnerable to the adverse effects of uncertainty and extreme variation
under climate change and result in climate injustice (Cheng 2013; 2016).
Climate change is linked to increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather and
associated hazards such as heat waves, droughts, heavy downpours, floods, hurricanes, and winter
storms across the United States (IPCC 2014; Melillo et al. 2014). The aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina in 2005 was a wakeup call that revealed climate justice issues (Myers et al. 2008) when
hundreds of people were killed, thousands were strained in the shelters, and millions were
displaced –​th emajority of them were considered socially vulnerable groups (e.g. the minorities,
the poor, the elderly, children) (Colten 2006). As population continues to grow in American
cities, more people are likely to be exposed to a range of extreme events and climate change
associated hazards. Some have argued that equity planning is overlooked in American cities
(Schrock et al. 2015), thus addressing climate justice should be a priority in urban resilience
planning.
Resilience refers to the capacity to absorb disturbance and retain the same functions of
a social-​ecological system (Holling 1973; 2001). Urban resilience emphasizes the capacity to
move forward and the ability to transform cities into new development pathways in the face of
dynamic change (Folke 2016). Resilience theory is pertinent for studying the concept of vul-
nerability.Vulnerability reflects the dynamic phases in resilience and applies to multiple levels of
inter-​linked social–​ecological–​technological systems (SETS) (Grimm et al. 2017; Cheng 2013).
An integrated SETS approach as a framework applied for vulnerability assessment to evaluate
climate justice is corresponding to three dimensions of vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity, and

85
Chingwen Cheng

adaptability (Polsky, Neff, and Yarnal 2007). Climate justice assessment in SETS framework
considers ecological vulnerability as climate change associated hazards to which communi-
ties are exposed. Social vulnerability includes demographic variables associated with sensitivity
and adaptive capacity to climate change impacts. Technological vulnerability is considered an
inverse of the adaptive capacity to cope with climate change impacts through interventions
in infrastructure design. The concept of SETS describes the interlinked complex systems and
interactions between social, ecological, and technological drivers, processes, and outcomes in the
real world (Grimm et al. 2017). Applying SETS framework in spatial planning allows a compre-
hensive understanding of intersections between the systems. The construct of climate justice is
underpinned by the complex SETS and only by intersecting those three dimensions spatially can
we start to reveal climate justicescape.
To build technological adaptive capacity, green infrastructure is considered as a “no-​regret”
strategy for climate change adaptation (Casal-​Campos et al. 2015). Green infrastructure, a system
with both natural and man-​made open space that can provide multiple ecosystem services –​pro-
visional, supporting, regulating, and cultural –​benefits the health and wellbeing of communities
(Benedict and McMahon 2006; Demuzere et al. 2014), is considered one of the fundamental infra-
structure systems in cities. Just as transportation is important to provide a means of transporting
people, goods, and services essential to the functioning of cities, green infrastructure offers multiple
essential functions to sustain cities. For example, a healthy green infrastructure system provides
clean air, water, food, and shelter to sustain all living beings. In the context of enhancing urban
resilience, green infrastructure is particularly critical in regulating and mitigating climate change-​
induced floods (e.g. Cheng et al. 2017). Lacking access to green infrastructure resources therefore
can be an indicator of infrastructure vulnerability in a community. As a result, green infrastructure
plays a vital role in addressing climate justice in communities. Past spatial assessment of vulnerability
based on the hazards-​of-​place (HOP) model (Cutter 1996) included a Social Vulnerability Index
(SoVI) and measures the biophysical vulnerability of a community based on its geographic context,
which is in consonance with the ecological vulnerability defined in this chapter. This paper aims
to fill the gap of knowledge in incorporating technological vulnerability assessment, in particularly
using green infrastructure as an indicator for assessing climate justicescape.

Methodology
Climate Justicescape was evaluated using the framework of integrated spatial social-​ecological-​
technological vulnerability assessment including the following procedures:

(1) The county is the unit of analysis for 48 states in this study. A total of 3,108 counties were
analyzed.
(2) Constructing a Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI). Social vulnerability indicators to climate
change associated hazards have been identified in decades of hazard and resilience studies
in American cities (e.g. Cutter et al. 2003; Cutter et al. 2013; Flanagan et al. 2011). A SoVI
was constructed following methods provided by Cutter et al. (2003) using statistical methods
applied to 15 variables that were standardized with z-​scores and summed up the results
from principal component analysis using varimax rotation and Kaiser criterion for compo-
nent selection. Data sources are from 2010–​2014 American Community Survey (US Census
Bureau 2010). Indicators included the percent of the population over 65 years, age below 17,
female, minority (non-​white), education less than high school, living under the poverty level,
mobile homes, per capital income, civilian over age 16 that is unemployed, households with
no vehicle available, single parent household with children under age 18, and persons above

86
 Climate justicescape

age five who speak English “less than well”. The SoVI was ranked from one to ten based on
each decile: one being the least and ten being the most vulnerable.
(3) Ecological vulnerability, which relates to climate change associated hazards was measured by
the total number of events of all hazard types associated with climate change (i.e. droughts,
floods, heavy precipitation, winter storms, tropical storms, extreme heat, extreme cold, and
wild fires), and the economic loss (as a proxy for the magnitudes and impacts of the hazards)
from 2005 to 2015.The data was provided by the National Weather Service.The costs of eco-
nomic losses were adjusted for inflation to the year 2015.The overall Ecological Vulnerability
Index was the average of the two variables that were ranked from one to ten; one being the
least and ten being the most vulnerable.
(4) Technological vulnerability refers to a lack of access to green infrastructure. It was measured
by the percent coverage of urban and water land covers. Land cover data was provided
through publicly accessible National Land Cover Database 2011 (NLCD 2011). There are
16 classes in NLCD and seven of them are urban, water, and barren land covers compared
to the vegetated land covers (i.e. forests, shrubs, wetlands, grasses, agriculture lands). Green
Infrastructure Vulnerability Index was constructed by the decile ranking of the percentage
deficiency of green infrastructure (urban and water land covers) in each county. Each index
was then ranked from one to ten based on each decile; one being the least and ten being the
most vulnerable.
(5) A Climate Justice Index was calculated by averaging rankings of the social, ecological, and
technological vulnerability indices above.
(6) Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-​Ord Gi*) was used via Geographic Information System (GIS) spa-
tial analysis to identify statistically significant clusters of high rankings (Hot Spot) and low
rankings (Cold Spot) within a given spatial variable.

Results

Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI)

Table 8.1 illustrates the results from principal component analysis. Four components were iden-
tified and explained with 71.72 per cent variance. The SoVI scores range from -​4.04 to 10.07.
It is worth noting that the scores are a relative rather than an absolute value. In other words, a
county with a value of 10 is relatively more vulnerable than a county with a value of 1 yet it
does not mean the county is 10 times more vulnerable. Figure 8.1 illustrates the spatial analysis
of SoVI ranking and results of hotspot analysis.The counties with the highest SoVI are clustered
primarily in the south and southwest.

Ecological Vulnerability Index

Figure 8.2 illustrates the numbers of hazard events associated with climate change in the United
States between 2005 and 2015. The number of events happened each year varied from 2,043 in
2005 to 1,409 in 2010, with an average of 1,708 per year. Figure 8.3 illustrates the total number
counts of damage and total loss in 2015 US dollars each year from 2005 to 2015 in the United
States. The total counts of damage per year varied from 790 in 2005 to 2,904 in 2007. Even
though 2005 had the lowest numbers of total counts of damages, the total loss was the greatest
in 2005 of $350.1 million because of Hurricane Katrina. The second largest loss was in 2012 of
$295.4 million because of Hurricane Sandy. The third most detrimental year was in 2006 with
a total of $126.9 million yet with the second lowest total number of 1,065 damage counts. The

87
Chingwen Cheng

Table 8.1 Results of principal component analysis with social vulnerability variables

Component Description of each standardized variable Factor Variance

loading explained

1 Percentage of persons below poverty estimate 0.87 25.11

Percentage of civilian (age 16+) unemployed estimate 0.73
Percentage of persons with no high school diploma 0.61
(age 25+) estimate
Percentage of single parent households with children under 0.53
18 estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of persons (age 5+) who speak English “less than 0.78
well” estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of households with no vehicle available estimate 0.70
Per capita income estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS –​0.61
2 Percentage of persons aged 65 and older estimate, –​0.77 19.18
2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of persons aged 17 and younger estimate, 0.73
2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of single parent households with children under 0.63
18 estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage minority (all persons except white, non-​Hispanic) 0.76
estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of occupied housing units with more people than 0.64
rooms estimate
3 Per capita income estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS –​0.63 18.07
Percentage of persons with no high school diploma 0.53
(age 25+) estimate
Percentage of civilian noninstitutionalize d population with a 0.66
disability estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of housing in structures with 10 or more units –​0.78
estimate
Percentage of mobile homes estimate 0.83
4 Percentage of persons aged 17 and younger estimate, –​0.59 9.36
2010–​2014 ACS
Percentage of persons in institutionalized group quarters 0.82
estimate, 2010–​2014 ACS

Total 71.72

remaining years appeared to have relatively high total number counts of damages, yet the total
loss did not exceed $30 million annually. Therefore, it is imperative for Ecological Vulnerability
Index to take into account both the frequency and magnitude of hazards. Figure 8.4 illustrates
the results of the spatial analysis of Ecological Vulnerability Index showing clustered patterns of
high vulnerability in parts of the midwest and west, and almost the entire northeast.

Technological Vulnerability Index

The percentage of non-​vegetated land covers in US counties ranges from 3.6 per cent to 30.8
per cent with an average of 9.6 per cent and standard deviation of 5.3 per cent. Figure 8.5
illustrates the spatial analysis of Technological Vulnerability Index and highlights areas with high

88
Figure 8.1 Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for the continental United States illustrating decile ranking and HotSpot
spatial analysis of counties with high social vulnerability
Chingwen Cheng

Figure 8.2 Climate change associated hazards by types and frequency in the United States,
2005–​2015

Figure 8.3 The number of total hazard events in the United States 2005–​2015 and total eco-
nomic loss in 2015 million US dollars

deficiency of green infrastructure land covers. The hotspots of high technological vulnerability
areas are predominately in densely urbanized areas such as in the megaregion of the northeast,
the Great Lakes (e.g. Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis) and Florida, as well as counties
around New Orleans in Louisiana, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in California, Salt
Lake City in Utah, and in Atlanta, Georgia.

90
 Climate justicescape

Climate Justice Index and Climate Justicescape

Figure 8.6 illustrates the decile rankings of Climate Justice Index as well as clustered high climate
justice areas across the continental United States. Climate Justicescape –​spatial patterns of climate
justice index –​overlaid with cities that have high social vulnerability rankings in the ninth and
tenth deciles are highlighted.The Climate Justicescape reveals several climate justice cities including,
but not limited to, Boston (Massachusetts), New York (New York), Philadelphia and Pittsburg
(Pennsylvania), Baltimore (Maryland), Chicago (Illinois), Detroit (Michigan), Minneapolis
(Minnesota), Cleveland and Columbus (Ohio), Charlotte (North Carolina), Orlando (Florida),
Houston and Dallas (Texas), Seattle (Washington), Portland (Oregon), San Diego (California), as
well as the special district of Washington, DC.

Discussion

Gaps in Urban Resilience through Climate Justicescape

Climate Justicescape examines spatial information that can be used to inform urban resilience
planning. Urban resilience emphasizes the capacity to persist in the face of change and the
capacity of people, communities, societies, cultures to adapt or even transform into new devel-
opment pathways in the face of dynamic change (Folke 2016). Both biophysical capacity and
institutional capacity of a place can affect the urban resilience of a community. The hotspots of
Climate Justice Index indicate where the communities are exposed to more frequent and intense
climate change associated hazards, where residents may be highly sensitive and vulnerable to
hazards, and where the region may have the least biophysical capacity for adaptation. Climate
Justicescape can help to identify the following gaps when planning for urban resilience.

(1) Gaps between urban and rural communities. As shown in Figure 8.6, not only large cities are
facing climate injustice but also small communities in rural areas of the United States. The
disparity of available resources for communities to build adaptive capacity can be a drastic
factor for socially vulnerable communities encountering disasters, while large cities tend to
have more access to resources for risk management and climate change adaptation.Therefore,
navigating the distribution of resources coupled with Climate Justicescape can particularly help
to find rural communities that are experiencing climate injustice and seek further research
for understanding their needs.
(2) Gaps between calculated and perceived risks. The empirical study in this project demonstrated
risks based on past events. In a pilot study conducted by Cheng et al. (2017) in Michigan’s
Huron River watershed, residents living in climate justice cities do not perceive to be more
vulnerable to future risks compared to residents living in non-​climate justice areas. The
research indicated the potential threats in adaptive capacity building of urban resilience in
communities when the gaps exist in risk information communication derived from the
disparity between calculated and perceived risks. Further research can combine with risk
perception studies in climate justice hotspots. Moreover, climate change scenarios and popu-
lation change over time can be further studied to identify future Climate Justicescapes.
(3) Gaps in making climate justice accountable.The Rockefeller Foundation has funded 100 Resilience
Cities in the world. The political will and resources have made it possible for cities around the
world to put urban resilience and climate change adaptation as one of their top agendas in
planning.With great power comes great responsibility.While the resilient city officers and urban
planners have been charged to make policies for adapting to climate change, Hughes (2015) has

91
Figure 8.4 Ecological Vulnerability Index for the continental United States illustrating decile ranking and HotSpot spatial
analysis of counties with high ecological vulnerability
Figure 8.5 Technological Vulnerability Index for the continental United States illustrating in decile ranking and HotSpot
spatial analysis of counties with a lack of green infrastructure land covers
Figure 8.6 Climate Justice Index in decile raking and Climate Justicescape in American cities illustrating cities that are
within HotSpot of counties with high climate justice index
 Climate justicescape

revealed that current adaptation policies in the United States have neglected building resilience
for vulnerable communities. Similarly, Schrock et al. (2015) found current municipal plans
in over 200 American cities have overlooked achieving equity goals. As more resources have
become available for building adaptive capacity for resilient cities, it is critical to make equity
and climate justice count. One of the goals in community and urban planning should therefore
be to address social vulnerability and inequitable capacity in coping with climate change.
(4) Gaps in making green infrastructure count for adaptive capacity. Green infrastructure has been iden-
tified as one critical strategy for climate change adaptation (Demuzere et al. 2014). Green
infrastructure, for example, has great potential to be implemented at various scales to enhance
adaptive capacity for mitigating climate change-​induced flooding (Cheng et al. 2017). The
US Green Building Council conducted a review of 28 cities’ climate action plans in 2016
and found 75 per cent of the plans mentioned green infrastructure in various depths for
implementing climate change adaptation. As green infrastructure has been promoted as a
policy-​making force in community development and urban planning, the question is how we
prioritize the investment in building green infrastructure systems that can ensure that they
meet the need to mitigate climate change-​induced hazards while addressing climate justice.

Conclusion
Climate justice and green infrastructure has a place for understanding the need for building
adaptive capacity to achieve urban resilience in local communities. While large cities have more
resources to build urban resilience, there are considerable rural areas in the United States that
remain in high vulnerability to climate change and require more resources to manage and adapt.
Priority should therefore be given to communities that show high vulnerability and low adaptive
capacity. This study applied SETS vulnerability assessment framework for understanding the
spatial pattern of Climate Justicescape that can be employed for identifying gaps in urban resili-
ence planning and to help in prioritizing resources in investing in socially vulnerable commu-
nities and using green infrastructure for building adaptive capacity in achieving urban resilience.
Finally, urban resilience should enhance both biophysical and institutional capacity to ensure
equity planning and make climate justice central to climate action plans and planning policies in
order to enable vulnerable communities build resilience to climate change.

Acknowledgement
This work is primarily supported by the Seed Grant from the Herberger Institute for Design
and the Arts (HIDA) at Arizona State University (ASU) and partially supported by the National
Science Foundation (NSF) Sustainability Research Network (SRN) the Urban Water Innovation
Network (UWIN) (grant 1444758), and the NSF Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability
Research Network (grant 1444750). The author would like to thank research assistants Wan-​
Hwa Cheng, Joomee Lee, and Lianzheng Mu for their contribution of data collection and pre-
liminary analysis to this work.

References
Benedict, M.A., and McMahon, E.T. (2006). Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities.
Washington, DC: Island Press.
Casal-​Campos, A., Fu, G., Butler, D., and Moore, A. (2015). An integrated environmental assessment of green
and gray infrastructure strategies for robust decision making. Environmental Science & Technology.
49(14): 8307–​14.

95
Chingwen Cheng

Cheng, C. (2013). Social Vulnerability, Green Infrastructure, Urbanization and Climate Change-​induced
Flooding: A Risk Assessment for the Charles River Watershed, Massachusetts, USA. Open Access
Dissertations. https://​scholarworks.umass.edu/​open_​access_​dissertations/​781/​.
Cheng, C. (2016). Spatial climate justice and green infrastructure assessment: A case for the Huron River
watershed, Michigan, USA. GI_​Forum. 1: 179–​190.
Cheng, C., Ryan, R.L., Yang, E.Y.-​C., Yu, Q., and Brabec, E. (2017). Assessing climate change-​induced
flooding mitigation for adaptation in Boston’s Charles River Watershed. Landscape and Urban Planning.
167: 25–​36. doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2017.05.019.
Colten, C.E. (2006). Vulnerability and place: Flat land and uneven risk in New Orleans. American
Anthropologist. 108(4): 731–​734.
Cutter, S.L. (1996).Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Progress in Human Geography. 20(4), 529–​539.
https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​030913259602000407.
Cutter, S.L., Boruff, B.J., and Shirley, W.L. (2003). Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social
Science Quarterly. 84(2): 242–​261.
Cutter, S.L., Emrich, C.T., Morath, D.P., and Dunning, C.M. (2013). Integrating social vulnerability into
federal flood risk management planning. Journal of Flood Risk Management. 6(4): 332–​344.
Demuzere, M., Orru, K., Heidrich, O., Olazabal, E., Geneletti, D., Orru, H., Bhave, A.G., Mittal, N., Feliue,
E., and Faehnle, M. (2014). Mitigating and adapting to climate change: Multi-​functional and multiscale
assessment of green urban infrastructure. Journal of Environmental Management. 146: 107–​115. doi.
org/​10.1016/​j.jenvman.2014.07.025.
Flanagan, B.E., Gregory, E.W., Hallisey, E.J., Heitgerd, J.L., and Lewis, B. (2011). A social vulnerability index
for disaster management. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. 8(1).
Folke, C. (2016). Resilience (Republished). Ecology and Society. 21(4): 44. doi.org/​ 10.5751/​
ES-​09088-​210444.
Grimm, N.B., Pickett, S.T.A., Hale, R.L., and Cadenasso, M.L. (2017). Does the ecological concept of
disturbance have utility in urban social–​ ecological–​ technological systems? Ecosystem Health and
Sustainability. 3(1): E01255. doi.org/​10.1002/​ehs2.1255.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 4:1–​23
Hughes, S. (2015). A meta-​analysis of urban climate change adaptation planning in the US Urban Climate.
14: 17–​29. doi.org/​10.1016/​j.uclim.2015.06.003.
IPCC (2014). Summary for policymakers. In: C.B. Field, V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D.
Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel,
A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.): Climate Change 2014: Impacts,
Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to
the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge,
United Kingdom, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1–​32.
Melillo, J.M., Richmond, T.C., and Yohe, G.W. (eds.) (2014). Climate Change Impacts in the United
States: The Third National Climate Assessment. US Global Change Research Program, 841 pp.
doi:10.7930/​J0Z31WJ2.
Myers, C.A., Slack, T., and Singelmann, J. (2008). Social vulnerability and migration in the wake of dis-
aster: The case of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Population and Environment. 29(6): 271–​291.
NLCD 2011 Land Cover (2011 Edition, amended 2014) -​National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA) Land
Use Land Cover. www.mrlc.gov.
Polsky, C.D., Neff, R., andYarnal, B. (2007). Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: The
vulnerability scoping diagram. Global Environmental Change. 17(3), 472–​485.
Schlosberg D. and Collins L.B. (2014). From environmental to climate justice: Climate change and the dis-
course of environmental justice. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. 5: 359–​374.
Schrock, G., Bassett, E.M., and Green, J. (2015). Pursuing equity and justice in a changing climate: Assessing
equity in local climate and sustainability plans in u.s. cities. Journal of Planning Education and Research.
35(3), 282–​295. doi: 10.1177/​0739456x15580022.
US Census Bureau (2010). 2010–​2014 American Community Survey 5-​year estimates. www.census.gov/​
programs-​surveys/​acs/​technical-​documentation/​table-​and-​geography-​changes/​2014/​5-​year.html/​

96
 9
Assessing urban vulnerability
to extreme heat-​related
weather events
Sanglim Yoo

Extreme heat-​related weather events in urban areas

Overall, 2018 was observed to be the fourth warmest year on record after 2016, 2017, and 2015
since 1880 (Hausefather 2018). In the early summer months of 2018, the northeastern and mid-
western United States and Canada suffered from extreme heat waves, resulting in dangerous
conditions. The warming trend of US cities has become significant since the late 1970s, and the
rate and magnitude of this trend have become more severe since the late 1990s (Habeeb et al.
2015; Stone et al. 2012; US EPA 2016). The increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves
are among the most visible and well-​documented effects of climate change. As climate change is
predicted to continue to increase global temperatures, the number of days of extreme heat and
related weather phenomenon will likely grow. More than 60 per cent of the US population lives
in cities (US Census 2015), where the combined effects of urban heat islands and summertime
extreme heat events produce a myriad of harmful outcome to people’s health and the air and
water quality in cities.
As the warming trend of US cities continues, there has been increased attention to the frequency
of heat extremes and their social and environmental impacts.The term Urban Heat Islands (UHIs)
indicates that urban areas have higher air and surface temperature than their rural surroundings (see
Figure 9.1; Arnfield 2003; Hart and Sailor 2009; Oke 1982).The annual mean air temperature of a
city with 1 million people or more can be 1.8–​5.4°F (1–​3°C) warmer than its surroundings during
the daytime. In the evening, the difference can be as high as 22°F (12°C) (Oke 1987; Oke 1997).
The UHIs can affect urban communities by increasing summertime peak energy demand, air con-
ditioning costs, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, heat-​related illness and mortality, and
water quality (US EPA 2017). Climate change may exacerbate these trends by leading to longer,
more severe, and more frequent higher temperatures. Urban areas already suffering from the heat
island effect will bear the brunt of these harsher heat events, such as heat waves.
Heat waves are excessively hot periods during which the air temperatures of both urban
and rural areas increase significantly. They are among the most damaging climate extremes
to human society. According to US EPA (2008), citing NOAA’s US climate extremes index,
unusually hot summer day highs have become more common nationwide over the last few
decades (see Figure 9.2). The record also shows the occurrence of extraordinarily hot summer

97
Figure 9.1 Typical urban heat island effects in a US city by day and night
Credit: US EPA 2017

Figure 9.2 Area of contiguous 48 states with unusually hot summer temperatures, 1910–​2015
Credit: US EPA 2016
 Extreme heat-related weather events

Figure 9.3 United States disaster mortality, 1999–​2012

Source: Earthquakes mortality, USGS National Earthquake Information Center; tornado and flood mortality,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), heat wave mortality, Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC). Data compiled by the author

night lows has increased at an even faster rate. For urban residents, the UHI effect further
exacerbates the heat stress caused by heat waves. The interaction of rising temperatures, more
heat waves, and the heat island effect will be increasingly harmful to people’s health and to the
air and water quality in our communities. Exposure to extreme heat can overwhelm a person’s
ability to thermoregulate and lead to physiologic heat stress, heat-​related illness or even death
(Luber et al. 2006).
Despite their severity, heat waves and heat-​related weather events get less public attention
than other natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, or earthquakes, because
the former fail to generate property damage and “media perfect” scenes of destruction that
the latter typically leave behind. The truth is, the total number of deaths by heat waves has
outnumbered other disaster mortality (see Figure 9.3). That is the reason heat waves are com-
monly known as “the silent killer” (Goering 2017; NOAA 2014). Figure 9.3 shows annual dis-
aster mortality in the United States between 1999 and 2012 for earthquakes, tornados, floods,
and heat waves. Surprisingly, more people died in heat waves than in all other extreme weather
events combined. Tornadoes or hurricanes may get all the attention from media, but the data
indicate that heat is the number one weather-​related killer in the United States. Unfortunately,
deadly heat waves are going to be a much bigger problem in the coming decades, becoming
more frequent and occurring over a greater portion of the planet due to climate change
(Miller 2018).

99
Sanglim Yoo

Is everyone hot in the urban area?

The question that arises is whether people living in the same urban area are equally affected by
heat waves. The answer is no, since temperatures rise differently at different locations within the
same city or town, disproportionally affecting its residents. Some people may have their own
heat-​mitigation strategy while others do not. Thus, identifying the population groups that are
severely affected by heat waves and their whereabouts will provide valuable information for
setting up a proper heat mitigation strategy.
In Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Klinenberg (2002) analyzed the historic
heat wave in Chicago in 1995, focusing on how socio-​economic processes increased vulner-
ability among a certain population. Over the course of less than a week, when temperatures in
the city topped 100 degrees, many of the most vulnerable residents were found dead and alone in
their sweltering homes. While many of the city officials at the time of the heat wave considered
this disaster to be a meteorological tragedy, Klinenberg (2002) examined the social factors that
helped contribute to and compound an already taxing situation. He argues for a “geography of
vulnerability” linked to race, place, and the specificities of elderly living and offers historical and
ethnographic evidence to explain the statistical differences between the high heat wave death
rates of African Americans in North Lawndale and the relatively lower heat-​related mortality
rates for Latinos in nearby Little Village. In two adjacent neighborhoods of Chicago, why did so
many more elderly African Americans fall victim to the heat than Latinos?
According to Klinenberg (2002), it was difference in social ecology that best explains what
happened to so many people in July 1995. After conducting what he calls a social autopsy in his
book, he concludes that being poor, an ethnic minority, old and without a social network all
increased the risk of heat-​related death. This finding is considered groundbreaking as it was one
of the pioneering studies that explained the relationship between heat-​related death and social
characteristics (Huang, Zhou and Cadenasso 2011). Klinenberg (2002) stresses that emerging
isolation and privatization, extreme social and economic inequalities, and concentrated zones of
affluence and poverty pervasive in contemporary cities create hazards for vulnerable residents in
all seasons. Some of his findings were comfirmed by subsequent studies that found a person’s age,
ethnicity, income, education, housing conditions, and pre-​existing health conditions to be major
risk factors during heat waves (e.g., Cutter et al. 2000; Cutter et al. 2003; Johnson and Wilson
2009; Hamilton and Erickson 2012; Huang et al. 2011). Those risk factors can be regarded as
the social vulnerability of environmental hazards and are commonly assessed using a variety of
indicators highlighting a person’s or system’s sensitivity to a certain risk or phenomenon, called
a Social Vulnerability Index.

Social vulnerability to heat waves

The following formula is often used in disaster management research and practice:
Risk = Hazard × (Vulnerability –​Resources) Eq. (1)
where Risk is the likelihood or expectation of loss, Hazard is a condition posing the threat of
harm, Vulnerability is the extent to which persons or things are likely to be affected, and Resources
are those assets in place that will diminish the effect of hazards (Dwyer et al. 2004; Flanagan
et al. 2011). In this formulation, social vulnerability to environmental hazards means the rela-
tive potential for physical harm and social disruption to subpopulations of societies and their
larger subsystems based on socioeconomic status, such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, family
structure, residential location and other demographic variables (Cutter, et al. 2003). Thus social

100
 Extreme heat-related weather events

vulnerability is the result of both social inequality and place inequality (Cutter et al. 2003), and
these two aspects of the social vulnerability should be addressed simultaneously.
However, disaster management often ignores the social vulnerability component, only
focusing on the physical hazard component (Flanagan et al. 2011). This is mainly due to the
difficulty in quantifying the social vulnerabilities, which also explains why social losses are gen-
erally absent in after-​disaster assessment (Cutter et al. 2003). Against this backdrop, the hazard-​
of-​place model of vulnerability, first introduced by Cutter (1996), was developed to examine the
components of social vulnerability.
In the above conceptualization of hazard and place, risk interacts with mitigation to produce
the hazard potential (Cutter 1996; Cutter et al. 2000; Cutter et al. 2003). Risk stands for an
objective measure of the likelihood of a hazard event, and mitigation means an effort to lessen
risks or reduce their impacts (Cutter et al. 2003). As Klinenberg (2002) describes in his book, the
hazard potential is either weakened or enhanced by the geographic filter of the place as well as
its social fabric. Essential components of biophysical vulnerability include the identification of
potential hazards, their frequency, and their location impacts. Biophysical vulnerability is largely
dependent upon the characteristics of the environmental and natural systems, while social vul-
nerability to disaster or hazard is generally dependent upon the following social factors (Cutter
1996; Cutter et al. 2000; Cutter et al. 2003; Lundgren and Jonsson 2012):

• lack of access to resources, such as information, knowledge or technology;

• limited access to political power and representation;
• social capital and social network;
• certain beliefs and customs;
• weak buildings or weak individuals;
• type and density of infrastructure and lifelines.

Then, as in Figure 9.4, social and biophysical vulnerability interact to produce the overall place
vulnerability. Place vulnerability has a feedback loop to the initial risk and mitigation inputs,

Geographic
Risk Context
■ Elevation Biophysical
■ Proximity Vulnerability

Hazard Place
Potential Vulnerability
Social
Fabric Social
■ Experience Vulnerability
Mitigation
■ Perception
■ Built environ-
ment

Figure 9.4 The hazards-​of-​place model of vulnerability

Source: Above figure in Cutter et al. (2003) is modified from Cutter (1996). Above figure was illustrated by
the author based on Cutter et al. (2003)

101
Sanglim Yoo

allowing for the enhancement or reduction of both risk and mitigation, which in turn would
lead to increased or decreased vulnerability (Cutter et al. 2000). This study focuses on the social
vulnerability to heat-​related weather events and its various social components.
As interest in social vulnerability to hazards grows, more indices have been formulated for
identifying and mapping population groups that may experience differential consequences from
natural hazards. Here I introduce two popular methods for social vulnerability mapping: (1)
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry (ATSDR)’s Social Vulnerability Index (ATSDR SVI), and (2) The Hazards &
Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina’s Social Vulnerability Index
(SoVI). Both models aim to locate the most socially vulnerable communities by using public data
from the US Census to represent various aspects of social vulnerability.Then I discuss studies that
have investigated social vulnerability to heat-​related weather events, including those by Wilhelmi
and Heyden (2010) and Reid et al. (2009), among others. The former provided an extreme heat
vulnerability framework to explain the components of extreme heat vulnerability and adaptation
at both individual and community levels, and the latter is one of the earliest studies that mapped
the heat vulnerability of all US urban areas.

Agency for toxic substances and disease registry’s Social

Vulnerability Index (atsdr svi)
The ATSDR defines social vulnerability as the resilience of communities when confronted by
external traumatic events on human health and stresses such as natural or human-​caused disasters
and disease outbreaks (ATSDR 2018). The ATSDR SVI was created by the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR) to save lives and identify populations that need more resources to improve the effect-
iveness of disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery (Flanagan et al. 2011). The
ATSDR SVI uses US Census variables at the census tract level to help local officials iden-
tify communities that may need support in preparing for hazards or recovering from disasters
(ATSDR 2018). Census tract-​level data were used for policy and planning since census tracts are
designed to be demographically homogeneous (Krieger 2006). The domains that form the basis
of ATSDR SVI include the following: (1) socio-​economic status, (2) household composition
and disability, (3) minority status and language, and (4) housing and transportation (Flanagan
et al. 2011). Table 9.1 summarizes census tract-​level variables used to construct the ATSDR SVI
(see Figure 9.5).
To construct the final SVI, each of the variables, except per capita income, is ranked from
highest to lowest across all census tracts in the United States (Flanagan et al. 2011). Per capita
income is ranked from lowest to highest, as a higher value indicates less vulnerability (Flanagan
et al. 2011). Census tracts within individual states and the District of Columbia were ranked to
enable the mapping and analysis of relative vulnerability within each. The census tracts of the
entire United States were also ranked against one another for relative vulnerability in multiple
states or across the United States. Census tract-​level rankings and county-​level rankings are based
on a percentile ranking which ranges from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater vulner-
ability. Each variable’s percentile rank is calculated by using the following formula:
Percentile Rank = (Rank –​ 1)/​(N-​1) Eq. (2)
where N denotes the total number of data points. Census tracts and counties in the top 10 per
cent, i.e., at the 90th percentile of values, are given a value of 1 to indicate high vulnerability, and
those below the 90th percentile are given a value of 0. Then, an overall percentile rank for each

102
 Extreme heat-related weather events

Table 9.1 US Census variables used to construct ATSDR SVI 2016

Overall Domain Variables Description

Vulnerability

Socio-​economic Below Poverty Persons below poverty estimate,

Status 2012–​2016 ACS
Unemployed Civilian (age 16+) unemployed
estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS
Income Per capita income estimate,
2012–​2016 ACS
No High School Diploma Persons (age 25+) with no high school
diploma estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS
Household Aged 65 or Older Persons age 65 and older estimate,
Composition 2012–​2016 ACS
& Disability Aged 17 or Younger Persons age 17 and younger estimate,
2012–​2016 ACS
Civilian with a Disability Civilian noninstitutionalized
population with a disability estimate,
2012–​2016 ACS
Single-​Parent Households Single parent household with children
under 18 estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS
Minority Status Minority Minority (all persons except white,
& Language nonHispanic) estimate,
2012–​2016 ACS
Speak English “Less Than Persons (age 5+) who speak English
Well” “less than well” estimate,
2012–​2016 ACS
Housing & Multi-​Unit Structures Housing in structures with 10 or more
Transportation units estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS
Mobile Homes Mobile homes estimate,
2012–​2016 ACS
Crowding At household level (occupied housing
units), more people than rooms
estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS
No Vehicle Households with no vehicle available
estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS
Group Quarters Persons in institutionalized group
quarters estimate, 2012–​2016 ACS

census tract as well as each county is calculated as the sum of the domain percentile rankings to
construct the final SVI. This method allows the user to interpret the scores easily. For example, a
census tract that has a ranking of .135 (or 13.5 per cent) is more socially vulnerable than one that
is ranked 13.5 per cent. This model uses hierarchical design as the researchers grouped variables
by social vulnerability themes, as opposed to SoVI, which grouped variables based on principal
components analysis (Tate 2012).

The Social Vulnerability Index (sovi)

The Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI), created by Cutter, Boruff, and Shirley (2003), examines
the spatial patterns of social vulnerability to natural hazards for US counties to describe and

103
Sanglim Yoo

Figure 9.5 ATSDR SVI 2016, showing overall vulnerability of the United States
Source: Data retrieved from ATSDR. Map drawn by the author in ArcGIS

understand the social burdens of risk. It represents the pre-​existing conditions that drive social
vulnerability to hazards irrespective of the hazards themselves (Cutter and Emrich 2017).
The purpose of SoVI is to quantify social vulnerability to environmental hazards in the
United States.When mapped, the results show an uneven capacity for disaster risk reduction and
pinpoint areas where policy and resources for disaster risk management would be most useful
(Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute 2013). The SoVI is used for assessing differences
across the United States in overall capacity of communities to prepare for, respond to, and recover
from hazards (Cutter and Emrich 2017). A major strength of SoVI is in its comparative nature,
which helps determine where resources and social programs might be used more effectively to
reduce vulnerability prior to an event. It has been published since 2000, and the most current
version is SoVI 2010–​14 utilizing the US Census’ Five-​Year American Community Survey,
2010–​2014.
The SoVI 2010–​ 14 uses variables at the county level from the US Census’ American
Community Survey. The variables are proxies for characteristics known to influence hazards
vulnerability based on the research evidence over the past 60 years and include socio-​economic
status, gender, race and ethnicity, age, special needs populations, education, occupation, and
more (Cutter and Emrich 2017). The input data are normalized using percentages, per capita,
or density (per square mile) function, then the standardized variables are analyzed using the
principal components analysis (PCA). The PCA is a mathematical procedure that transforms a

104
 Extreme heat-related weather events

Table 9.2 Summary of US Census tract level variables used to construct SoVI 2010–​20141

Variable Name Description Component

QPOVERTY % Persons living in poverty Factor 1:

QBLACK % African American (Black) population Race and Social Status
QFAM % Children living in married couple families
QFHH % Families with female-​headed households with no spouse
present
QCVLUN % Civilian labor force unemployed
QNOAUTO % Housing units with no car available
QSERV % Employment in service occupations
MHSEVAL Median dollar value of owner-​occupied housing units Factor 2:
QRICH200K % Families earning more than $200,000 per year Wealth
PERCAP Per capita income
MDGRENT Median gross rent for renter-​occupied housing units
QASIAN % Asian population
QESL % Population speaking English as a second language Factor 3:
with limited English proficiency Ethnicity (Hispanic)
QHISP % Hispanic population
QED12LES % Population over 25 with less than 12 years of education
PPUNIT Average number of people per household
QSSBEN % Households receiving Social Security benefits Factor 4:
QAGEDEP % Population under 5 years or age 65 and over Age (Old)
MEDAGE Median age
QFEMALE % Female Factor 5:
QFEMLBR % Female participation in the labor force Gender (Female)
PPUNIT Average number of people per household Factor 6:
QNRRES % Population living in nursing facilities Special Needs
QRENTER % Renter-​occupied housing units
QNATAM % Native American population Factor 7:
Race (Native Americans)
Cumulative Variance Explained = 70.776%

number of possibly correlated variables into a smaller number of uncorrelated variables called
principal components or factors (NIST/​SEMATECH 2012). For the United States as a whole,
these seven factors explain 71 per cent of the variation in the data. For each state at the census
tract level, the amount of variation explained ranged from a low of 66.8 per cent (in South
Carolina with six factors) to 79.6 per cent (in the District of Columbia with seven factors)
(Cutter and Emrich 2017).
The components and their directional adjustments are placed into an additive model to
compute the overall SoVI score. The final SoVI score for the factors presented in Table 9.2 is
calculated based on the following equation:

SoVI= Factor 1 –​Factor 2 + Factor 3 + Factor 4 + Factor 5 + Factor 6 + Factor 7 Eq. (3)

Each factor is weighted equally as there is no theoretical basis for determining weights. Factor
2, which is wealth, has negative value as it is the only factor that negatively contributes to the

105
Sanglim Yoo

Figure 9.6 Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) 2010–​2014 for South Carolina census tract
Source: Data retrieved from Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute, map drawn by the author

overall social vulnerability. The final SoVI scores are mapped based on standard deviations from
the mean and illustrated in Figure 9.6 and Figure 9.7.

Social vulnerability to heat

Studies of social vulnerabilities, including the above-​ summarized vulnerability indices, are
powerful since they offer information about the geographic distribution of potentially vulner-
able populations to environmental disasters. However, these approaches are limited in explaining
differential vulnerabilities to extreme heat-​related weather events across various social groups
within neighborhoods, mainly due to the disproportionate adaptive capacity or sensitivity
among urban residents (Wilhelmi and Heyden 2010). Flanagan et al. (2011) also point out that
researchers in a recent study on heat vulnerability did not use ATSDR SVI or SoVI, but instead
incorporated variables of social vulnerability such as age, poverty, income, education, race, and
ethnicity, and living alone, with health data, vegetation cover, household air conditioning data,
and climate data to identify areas for intervention and further investigation. In this context,
Wilhelmi and Heyden (2010) proposed an extreme heat vulnerability framework indicating that
social vulnerability to urban heat needs to be studied at a local level as it is affected by external
drivers such as climate change and macro-​level economic factors as well as by internal drivers in
the system such as a person’s or system’s adaptive capacity.

106
 Extreme heat-related weather events

Figure 9.7 Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) 2010–​2014 for South Carolina counties
Source: HVRI n.d.

In Figure 9.8,Wilhelmi and Heyden (2010) define the vulnerability of the system as a function
of three interactive components: exposure (i.e. climate and synoptic weather conditions that
are exacerbated by the reflective, storage, and transportation characteristics of urban materials
and vegetation), sensitivity (i.e. the extent to which a system or population can absorb impacts

107
 External Adaptation/
Extreme Heat Vulnerability
Drivers Response

EXPOSURE SENSITIVITY ADAPTIVE

Micro-level
CAPACITY
environmental Urban design/
and social land use change
Climate variability and Age and Household-level
perturbations
heat waves health conditions knowledge, attitudes,
and stressors
and practice
Targeted warnings
Intra-urban Socio economic and House hold resources
Climate change distribution of heat socio-cultural factors
Social capital Community-based
programs
Urban land use and Community resources
Urbanization/ Neighborhood stability and risk reduction
urban heat island Public health
urban program
education and
development Quantitative environmental Quantitative demographic Quantitative and qualitative
modeled or measured data
out reach
and health data interview data

Population Public assistance

change

Impacts: Heat-related mortality and morbidity

Figure 9.8 Extreme heat vulnerability framework

Source: Figure illustrated by the author based on Wilhelmi and Heyden (2010)
 Extreme heat-related weather events

without suffering long-​term harm), and adaptive capacity (the potential of a system or popu-
lation to modify its features and behavior so as to better cope with existing and anticipated
stresses). Each component consists of a set of dynamic, spatially variable indicators, which in
turn are affected by external drivers, such as climate change, macro-​scale socio-​economic and
environmental stressors, and urbanization trajectories (Wilhelmi and Heyden 2010). Differences
in exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity will create more or less vulnerable population
segments (Wilhelmi and Heyden 2010). According to their framework, the exposure compo-
nent builds on quantitative data from models or measurements and the sensitivity on quantitative
aggregated demographic data, but the adaptive capacity is studied using quantitative data from
household-​level interviews in addition to surveys. Their extreme heat vulnerability framework
provides a step toward including drivers of vulnerability at multiple scales, connecting people
and place-​based vulnerability assessment approaches and enhancing the ability of communities
and stakeholders to develop proactive programs to mitigate risk and respond effectively to heat
emergencies.
Reid et al. (2009) map vulnerability to extreme heat in the urban areas of the United States
using tract-​level census data to create a cumulative heat vulnerability index for intervention
and further research. They argue that while understanding vulnerability to heat at an indi-
vidual biomedical level (e.g. a person’s pre-​existing health conditions) is important, community-​
level factors (e.g. median household income of a census tract) are equally important because
understanding how factors beyond the individual level contribute to differing levels of risk may
help in finding preventive solutions. As extreme heat events are geographically heterogeneous
throughout the United States, published literature on mapping heat vulnerability has mostly
focused on smaller geographic areas such as a city or a county. The work of Reid et al. (2009) is
one of the pioneering studies that expands heat vulnerability mapping to a national scope using
variables identified as significant in public health and epidemiologic literature proven to increase
heat-​related vulnerability in urban areas.
Applying similar methodologies used to map social vulnerability to environmental hazard
by Cutter et al. (2003), Reid et al. (2009) also used the PCA approach to analyze variables for
inclusion in the final heat vulnerability index and selected four factors indicating social/​envir-
onmental vulnerability: social isolation, prevalence of no air conditioning, proportion of elderly
residents, and numbers of people with diabetes. Of the vulnerability factors in Table 9.3, Factor
3, the prevalence of no air conditioning shows the most national spatial variability, and regions
with highest air conditioning prevalence show some of the lowest heat vulnerability values
(Reid et al. 2009). They argue that efforts should be made to create incentives for people to use
air conditioning during a heat wave because the economic costs of air conditioning deter even
some of those who have some kind of air conditioning system in their homes from turning it on
during a heat wave (Sheridan 2007). Promoting the use of air conditioning during the heat wave
should be done with caution, however, as its use will eventually intensify the UHIs because this
will increase the energy use to generate electricity and heat from the outdoor AC unit will act
as a major contributor of UHIs. This kind of solution should be implemented with caution and
cannot be used as a sole heat wave adaptation strategy. Other than that, modification of the built
environment, such as increasing urban green spaces by planting more trees and natural vegetation
(a part of Factor 1, see Table 9.3), can reduce heat exposure and accumulation in a more sustain-
able manner (Reid et al. 2009).
The final heat vulnerability index was calculated by cumulatively adding all of the factors.
A national map of heat vulnerability by Reid et al. (2009) shows the location of hot spots of
heat vulnerability through the entire United States (see Figure 9.9). Note that heat vulnerability

109
Sanglim Yoo

Table 9.3 Variables used for heat-​related vulnerability2

Variable Description Category Factor

Below poverty line % population below poverty line Demographic Social/​environmental

Race other than % population of a race other than Demographic Vulnerability
white white
Less than high % population with less than a Demographic
school diploma high school diploma
No green space % Census tract area not covered Land cover
in vegetation
Live alone % population living alone Demographic Social isolation
Age ≥65 living alone % population ≥65 of age living Demographic
alone
No central AC % households without central AC Air conditioning Prevalence of no AC
No AC of any kind % households without any AC Air conditioning
Diabetes % population ever diagnosed Diabetes prevalence Proportion of elderly/​
with diabetes diabetes
Age ≥65 years % population ≥65 years of age Demographic
Cumulative Variance Explained = 75.7%

Figure 9.9 National map of heat vulnerability by census tract

Source: Reid et al. (2009)

varies nationally and is concentrated in central city areas. From their heat vulnerability map, a
nationally varying pattern of heat vulnerability and its concentration in the urban areas, espe-
cially in central city areas, can be observed. Regardless of access to air conditioning, downtowns
of metropolitan areas are always more vulnerable than areas farther from the city center or

110
 Extreme heat-related weather events

outside it (Reid et al 2009).This finding confirms that the UHIs is one of the major contributors
to urban heat vulnerability and also shows why attention needs to be paid primarily to urban
areas and their socially vulnerable groups of people at the time of heat-​related weather extreme.
As heat warning systems and interventions are often implemented at the municipal or local
levels, identifying these regions within cities is essential.
Due to the spatiotemporally heterogeneous nature of heat, a within-​city analysis of heat
vulnerability assessment may offer more information about local heat vulnerability than the
national map, although urban planners and public health professionals would still need to observe
common trends for the entire United States to prepare climate change adaptation and heat miti-
gation plans for their communities.

Linking vulnerability and resilience

The discussion of various aspects of vulnerability to environmental hazards above shows that
adaptive capacity and sensitivity are not the only factors determining the vulnerability to a cer-
tain exposure (Lundgren and Jonsson 2012). A person’s or a community’s resilience will also
make them more or less vulnerable to disaster exposure. Resilience is commonly defined as the
ability of a social system to respond and recover from disasters and includes those conditions
that allow the system to absorb impacts and cope with and recover from an event (Cutter et al.
2008). Meanwhile, as previously defined, vulnerability is the pre-​hazard inherent characteristics
or qualities of social systems that create the potential for harm. Even though vulnerability
and resilience are conceptualized differently, resilience is not a simple flipside of vulnerability
because the former is linked to the adaptive capacity of the latter (Gallopín 2006). The use-
fulness of a vulnerability model depends on the adaptive capacities of the individual and the
community to alleviate the disaster-​related stressors. Shim and Kim (2015) illustrated this by
focusing on how a community can cope with hazards and disasters by (1) reducing its vulner-
ability elements, (2) mobilizing socio-​economic resources, and (3) utilizing the existing bio-
physical infrastructure.
The disaster resilience of place (DROP) model by Cutter et al. (2008) is one of the frameworks
that puts vulnerability and resilience on a continuum of solving a place-​based problem to
show that they are neither totally mutually exclusive nor totally mutually inclusive. There are
characteristics that influence only the vulnerability or resilience of a community, while some
characteristics influence both. This model views the resilience and vulnerability of a place as
separate but often linked concepts (Cutter et al. 2008).This makes the DROP model more com-
prehensive than other resilience models that tend to separate the two.
The DROP model was designed to present the separate but linked relationship between vul-
nerability and resilience at the community level. The DROP model begins with the antecedent
conditions, which are represented as nested triangles in Figure 9.10. Antecedent conditions are a
product of place-​specific multiscalar processes that occur within and between social, natural, and
built environment systems (Cutter et al. 2008). Even though the DROP model is designed to
explain the social resilience of places and community, this model includes other types of resili-
ence (e.g. resilience of the ecosystem and built environment) in the model. Thus, the DROP
presents resilience as both an inherent or antecedent condition and a process (Cutter et al. 2008).
Antecedent conditions include both inherent vulnerability and inherent resilience. The con-
cept illustrates how this inherent process occurs at the local scale, resulting in community-​level
endogenous factors, as well as on the broader scales (larger triangles) that embody exogenous
factors. Then the antecedent conditions can be viewed as a snapshot in time or as a static state,
yet the post-​event processes embedded within the model allow the model to be dynamic as well

111
 + Mitigation
–
Antecedent Conditions Post-Event

High

No
Hazard

s
Event or Absorptive

Bu
- Characteristic Coping Disaster Capacity Degree

ilt
+ +

tem
- Immediate – Responses Impact Exceeded? of

ys
En
Inherent effects

S
Recovery

vir
Vulnerability Yes

ial
on

c
Yes Adaptive

So
me
Inherent

nt
Resilience
Resilience?
- Improvisation
Low
- Social Learning
Natural Systems

No

Short-Term Long-Term

+ Preparedness
–
Figure 9.10 Schematic representation of the disaster resilience of place (DROP) model
Source: Figure illustrated by the author, based on Cutter et al. (2008)
 Extreme heat-related weather events

(Cutter et al. 2008). The authors state that antecedent conditions interact with the hazard event
characteristics to produce immediate effects. Then the immediate effects are lessened or ampli-
fied by the presence or absence of mitigating actions and coping responses in the community,
the members of which are themselves a function of antecedent conditions. Therefore, the total
hazard or disaster impact is presented as a cumulative effect of the antecedent conditions, event
characteristics, and coping responses.
The DROP model sees the degree of recovery as a continuum ranging from high to low. If
a community’s absorptive capacity is not exceeded, higher rates of recovery are reached quickly.
If the absorptive capacity is exceeded, and the adaptive resilience process does not occur, a lower
degree of recovery may result. This is illustrated in the diagram with the “no” arrow following
adaptive resilience. However, if the absorptive capacity is exceeded and the adaptive resilience
process does occur, the community may be more likely to achieve a higher degree of recovery.
Regardless, overall recovery is an ongoing process and can continue until the next event. Both
the degree of recovery and the potential knowledge gained from the adaptive resilience process
influence the state of the social, natural, and built environment systems and the resultant ante-
cedent conditions for the next event.

Conclusion: Building the resilience of a community

Extreme weather-​related events may become increasingly routine under changing climatic
conditions or changes in economic and social circumstances (Cutter 2013). Heat vulnerability
varies spatially, on local, regional, national and international scales (Reid et al. 2009), and this het-
erogeneous nature of heat vulnerability denotes that heat mitigation strategies and plans should
be established at the different levels of governance.
To improve the resilience of a community at all levels of governance, practitioners can benefit
from the existing literature on vulnerability, heat vulnerability, and resilience:

(1) Risks can be lowered by identifying their different types and levels and developing strat-
egies to deal with them accordingly. Vulnerability index tools and their individual variables
discussed above can be utilized for risk identification and risk management strategy develop-
ment. For example, FEMA is using Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute’s SoVI as one
of its sources for constructing the national risk index for 18 natural hazards by calculating
standardized risk values for every US Census tract. Public employees, local officials, commu-
nity planners, research institutions, insurance companies, and individual property owners are
able to use it to develop risk management and mitigation plans.
(2) Risk management also requires multiple collaborators and stakeholders. For example,
after the city of Chicago’s 1995 deadly heat wave, the city created the Chicago Office of
Emergency Management & Communications (OEMC), a collaborative program integrating
all city departments with public utilities and the National Weather Service as partners.
Though created in 1995, OEMC became the city’s one-​stop shop for emergency response
after the 9/​11 bombings.
(3) Heat waves, together with other environmental hazards, are local phenomenon. Even though
heat vulnerabilities can be addressed at the national level by standardized criteria, such as
CDC’s SVI and SoVI, communities are unevenly affected by hazards since they vary in size,
antecedent conditions, and the levels of hazards to which they are exposed. Thus a one-​size-​
fits-​all strategy that does not consider the uniqueness and complexities of a community’s bio-
physical and socio-​economic structure cannot be effective (Cutter et al. 2013). For example,
frequent rains in the midwestern United States allow for tree planting and increasing green

113
Sanglim Yoo

spaces to reduce the UHIs and lessen the thermal stress of the area. However, the same miti-
gation plan in a desert area will require more economic cost and efforts.
(4) Resilience has many different sides, such as ecosystem, environmental, economic, institu-
tional, and social resilience. There have been many efforts to measure a community’s resili-
ence (e.g. Cutter et al. 2010; Sherrieb et al. 2009), but there is no consensus regarding the
resilience measures, variables, or items. Some common core elements include critical infra-
structure performance after disasters, social factors that influence the capacity to recover,
the ability of structures to withstand the impact from disasters as related directly to building
codes and their enforcement, the ability of businesses and markets to recover, and caring for
a special needs population in times of crisis (Cutter et al. 2013).
(5) To enhance disaster resilience, individuals, communities, neighborhoods, the private sector,
and government at all levels need to make coordinated efforts with shared responsibility
(Cutter et al 2013). Only then, can resilienc lead to sustainability.

Notes
1 Modified from Cutter and Emrich (2017).
2 Modified from Reid et al.(2009)

References
Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (2018). The Social Vulnerability Index. https://​svi.cdc.
gov/​.
Arnfield, A.J. (2003). Two decades of urban climate research: a review of turbulence, exchanges of energy
and water, and the urban heat island. International Journal of Climatology. 23(1): 1–​26 DOI: 10.1002/​
joc.859.
Cutter, S.L. (2013). Building disaster resilience: Step toward sustainability. Challenges in Sustainability.
1(2): 72–​79. DOI: 10.12924/​cis2013.01020072.
Cutter, S.L., Barnes, L., Berry, M., Burton, C., Evans, E., Tate, E., and Webb, J. (2008). A place-​based model
for understanding community resilience to natural disasters. Global Environmental Change. 18: 598–​
606. DOI: 10.1016/​j.gloenvcha.2008.07.013.
Cutter, S.L., Boruff, B.J., and Shirley, W.L. (2003). Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social
Science Quarterly. 84(2): 242–​261. DOI: 10.1111/​1540–​6237.8402002.
Cutter, S.L., Burton, C.G., and Emrich, C.T. (2010). Disaster resilience indicators for benchmarking baseline
conditions. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. 7(1): 1–​22. DOI: 10.2202/​
1547–​7355.1732.
Cutter, S.L. and Emrich, C.T. (2017). Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI): Methodology and Limitations.
https://​data.femadata.com/​FIMA/​Documentation/​Social%20Vulnerability%20-​%20SoVI/​Social%20
Vulnerability%20Index%20Primer.pdf.
Cutter, S.L., Mitchell, J.T., and Scott, M.S. (2000). Revealing the vulnerability of people and places: a case
study of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
90(4): 713–​737. DOI: 10.1111/​0004-​5608.00219.
Dwyer, A., Zoppou, C., Nielsen, O., Day, S., and Roberts, S. (2004). Quantifying social vulnerability: A
methodology for identifying those at risk to natural hazards. Geoscience Australia Record.
Flanagan, B.F., Gregory, E.W., Hallisey, E.J., Heitgerd, J.L., and Lewis, B. (2011). A social vulnerability index
for disaster management. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. 8(1): 1–​22.
DOI: 10.2202/​1547–​7355.1792.
Gallopín, G.C. (2006). Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity. Global
Environmental Change. 16(3): 293–​303. DOI:10.1016/​J.GLOENVCHA.2006.02.004.
Goering, L. (2017). Feature: Silent killer: Sweltering planet braces for deadly heat shocks. www.reuters.com/​
article/​us-​singapore-​landrights-​farming-​feature/​with-​farms-​atop-​malls-​singapore-​gets-​serious-​about-​food-​
security-​idUSKCN1P202A.

114
 Extreme heat-related weather events

Habeeb, D., Vargo, J., and Stone, Jr. B. (2015). Rising heat wave trends in large US cities. Natural Hazards.
76(3): 1651–​1665. DOI: 10.1007/​s11069-​014-​1563-​z.
Hamilton, B. and Erickson, C.L. (2012). Urban heat islands and social work: opportunities for intervention.
Advances in Social Work. 13(2): 420–​30.
Hart, M.A. and Sailor, D.J. (2009). Quantifying the influence of land-​use and surface characteristics on
spatial variability in the urban heat island. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. 95 (3): 397–​406.
DOI: 10.1007/​s00704-​008-​0017-​5.
Hausefather, Z. (2018). State of the climate: Warm starts to 2018 despite La Niña event leading to a rela-
tively cooler start to the year, compared to recent record warmth. Carbon Brief. www.carbonbrief.org/​
state-​of-​the-​climate-​warm-​start-​to-​2018-​despite-​la-​nina-​conditions.
Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute (2013). http://​artsandsciences.sc.edu/​geog/​hvri/​front-​page.
Huang, G., Zhou,W., and Cadenasso, M.L. (2011). Is everyone hot in the city? Spatial pattern of land surface
temperatures, land cover and neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics in Baltimore, MD. Journal of
Environmental Management. 92: 1753–​1759. DOI: 10.1016/​j/​jenvman.2011.02.006.
Johnson, D.P. and Wilson, J.S. (2009). The socio-​ spatial dynamics of extreme urban heat events: the
case of heat-​ related deaths in Philadelphia. Applied Geography. 29(3): 419–​ 34. DOI: 10.1016/​
j.apgeog.2008.11.004.
Klinenberg, E. (2002). Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Krieger, N. (2006). A century of census tracts: Health and the body politic (1906–​2006). Journal of Urban
Health. 83(3): 355–​361. DOI: 10.1007/​s11524-​006-​9040-​y.
Luber, G., Sanchez, C., and Conklin, L. (2006). Heat-​related deaths –​United States, 1999–​2003. Morbidity
and Mortality Weekly Report. 55(29):796–​798.
Lundgren, L. and Jonsson, A. (2012). Assessment of Social Vulnerability: A Literature Review of Vulnerability
Related to Climate Change and Natural Hazards. CSPR Briefing. Norrköping: Linköping University.
Miller, B. (2018). Deadly heat waves becoming more common due to climate change. https://​edition.cnn.
com/​2017/​06/​19/​world/​killer-​heat-​waves-​r ising/​index.html.
NIST/​SEMATECH e-​Handbook of Statistical Methods. (2012). www.itl.nist.gov/​div898/​handbook/​.
NOAA (2014). Excessive heat, a “silent killer”: Heat exhaustion or heatstroke? Know the signs of heat
illness. www.noaa.gov/​stories/​excessive-​heat-​silent-​killer.
Oke,T.R. (1982).The energetic basis of the urban heat island. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological
Society. 108(455): 1–​24. DOI: 10.1002/​qj.49710845502.
Oke. T.R. (1987). Boundary Layer Climates. New York: Routledge.
Oke, T.R. (1997). Urban climates and global environmental change. In: R.D. Thompson and A. Perry
(eds.): Applied Climatology: Principles & Practices. New York: Routledge, 273–​287.
Reid, C.E., O’Neill, M.S., Gronlund, C.J., Brines, S.J., Brown, D.G., and Diez-​Roux, A.V. (2009). Mapping
community determinants of heat vulnerability. Environmental Health Perspectives. 117(11): 1730–​1736.
DOI: 10.1289/​ehp.0900683.
Sheridan, S.D. (2007). A survey of public perception and response to heat warnings across four North
American cities: An evaluation of municipal effectiveness. International Journal of Biometeorology.
52(1): 3–​15. DOI: 10.1007/​s00484-​006-​0052-​9.
Sherrieb, K., Norris, F., and Galea, S. (2009). Measuring capacities for community resilience. Social Indicators
Research. 99(2): 227–​247. DOI: 10.1007/​s11205-​010-​9576-​9.
Shim, J.H. and Kim, C. (2015). Measuring resilience to natural hazards: towards sustainable hazard mitiga-
tion. Sustainability. 7: 14153–​14185. DOI:10.3390/​su71014153.
Stone, B., Vargo, J., and Habeeb, D. (2012). Managing climate change in cities: Will climate action plans
work? Landscape and Urban Planning. 107 (3): 263–​271. DOI: 10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2012.05.014.
SVI 2016 Documentation, ATSDR –​The Social Vulnerability Index. (2018). https://​ svi.cdc.gov/​
Documents/​Data/​2016_​SVI_​Data/​SVI2016Documentation.pdf.
Tate, E. (2012). Social vulnerability indices: A comparative assessment using uncertainty and sensitivity ana-
lysis. Natural Hazards. 63(2): 325–​347. DOI: 10.1007/​s11069-​012-​0152-​2.
US Census Bureau (2015). US cities are home to 62.7 percent of the US population, but comprise just
3.5 percent of land area. www.census.gov/​newsroom/​press-​releases/​2015/​cb15-​33.html.
US Census Bureau (2016). Annual estimate of the resident population 2010–​2016. American Community
Survey 5 –​ year estimates. https://​factfinder.census.gov/​faces/​tableservices/​jsf/​pages/​productview.
xhtml?src=bkmk.

115
Sanglim Yoo

US Environmental Protection Agency (2017). Learn about heat islands. www.epa.gov/​ heat-​islands/​
learn-​about-​heat-​islands.
US Environmental Protection Agency (2016). Climate Change Indicators in the United States, 2016, 4th
edn. www.epa.gov/​climate-​indicators.
US Environmental Protection Agency (2008). Reducing urban heat islands: Compendium of strategies.
Draft. www.epa.gov/​heat-​islands/​heat-​island-​compendium.
Wilhelmi, O.V. and Hayden, M.H. (2010). Connecting people and place: a new framework for reducing
urban vulnerability to extreme heat. Environmental Research Letters. 5: 1–​7. DOI:10.1088/​1748–​
9326/​5/​1/​014021.

116
 10
Critical infrastructure
and climate change
Suwan Shen

Introduction
Networked urban infrastructure systems are the backbone of society and the economy. The
day-​to-​day operations of society and responses to emergency situations all depend on urban infra-
structure systems such as the power grid, transportation networks, telecommunication systems,
water distribution networks, and wastewater treatment facilities.The US federal government (US
White House Office 2003) identified a variety of critical infrastructure sectors that are vital for
national security, including but not limited to electrical power grids, transportation, water supply
systems, telecommunication, emergency services, gas and oil storage, banking and finance, and
government. However, past extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina demonstrated how
vulnerable these critical infrastructures can be to climatic hazards, which are projected to increase
in both intensity and frequency with climate change. The consequences of such vulnerability
would be of particular concern in relatively restricted urban areas where 80.7 per cent of the US
population and 54.8 per cent of the world population lives (Revi et al. 2014; US Census Bureau
2010;World Bank 2018).Therefore, understanding the vulnerability of network infrastructure and
its relevance to urban resilience is indispensable in the face of climate change.
This chapter explores the factors contributing to critical infrastructure’s vulnerability and
potential adaptability to climate change in the broad context of urban resilience. It begins with
a review of climate change impacts on urban infrastructure sectors, followed by a summary of
the physical, social, and institutional factors that contribute to infrastructure vulnerability. Then
the relationship between critical infrastructure vulnerability and urban resilience is examined.
Finally, it discusses the potential and limitations of the current infrastructure transformation
trend towards climate resilience.

Climate change impacts on critical urban infrastructure

It has been widely recognized that climate change will pose serious threats and risks to urban
infrastructure systems. A series of studies have been conducted regarding the implications of
climate change on infrastructure systems in urban areas, covering both sector-​specific and
integrated assessments. For example, Koetse and Rietveld (2009) outlined the potential impacts

117
Suwan Shen

of sea level rise, increased temperatures, storm surges, flooding, and precipitation on transpor-
tation based on empirical literature. Ruth et al. (2007) investigated the possible future needs
for water infrastructure in Hamilton, New Zealand given a range of climate and population
projections. Taking advantage of extensive data provided by recent continuous monitoring of
the wastewater system, Langeveld et al. (2013) looked into the impacts of climate change on
wastewater system and identified weak components through the case of Eindhoven wastewater
system in the Netherlands. Rübbelke and Vogele (2011) revealed how electricity exchanges
between countries in Europe are threatened by the more frequent drought and heat-​wave
occurrence due to climate change.
At the global level, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report
(2014) assessed the exposure and sensitivity of water supply, wastewater, sanitation, energy supply,
transportation, telecommunication, built environment, green infrastructure, and health services
to climate stressors in urban areas. In the United States, the Third National Climate Assessment
(2014) affirms that urban infrastructures such as roads, rail lines, airport, buildings, energy and
identified water supply are damaged by sea level rise, heavy downpours, and extreme heat. At the
regional and city scale, among a number of in-​depth assessments conducted, the US Gulf Coast
Study (Savonis et al. 2007) and Kirshen et al. (2008) are noteworthy as providing an overview of
possible direct and cascading impacts across urban infrastructure sectors in the Gulf Coast and
Boston region. Besides, cities such as London, New York, Seattle, Shanghai, Mumbai, Mexico
City, Tokyo, and others have conducted similar studies (Willbanks et al. 2007). Hunt and Watkiss
(2011) reviewed the state of the art in quantification and evaluation of climate impacts at the
city-​scale, including city-​specific built infrastructures.
According to the literature, climate change could have varying degrees of impacts on urban
critical infrastructure through urban temperature variation, sea level rise, storm surge, coastal
flooding, drought, and inland flooding caused by changes in precipitation patterns. Although
climate impacts would differ by location, there are similarities in the types of impacts for urban
areas in coastal regions, which experience the disproportionately rapid expansion of urban
growth. Table 10.1 gives an example of the type of impacts climate stressors could have on crit-
ical urban infrastructures in coastal cities.
Considering infrastructure systems are physically clustered and functionally integrated in
urban areas, the impacts of climate change could be magnified due to the interdependencies
and cascading effects between critical infrastructure systems. Among the growing literature with
respects to infrastructure interdependency, Kröger (2008) carried out an initial assessment of the
inter-​and intra-​dependence of electricity, gas supply, rail transport, communication, and urban
water infrastructures (i.e. water supply and wastewater treatment).Wilbanks and Fernandez (2014)
summarized the current knowledge on the importance and dependencies of electric power, nat-
ural gas, petroleum, communication, water distribution, transportation, and public health and sani-
tation infrastructures. Kirshen et al. (2008) presented the potential interactions between energy,
health, transportation, water supply, and water treatment infrastructures with the projected tem-
perature variation, changing rainfall pattern, increased river, sea level rise, and coastal flooding.
Their findings are encapsulated in the interdependency heatmap below (Figure 10.1).

Critical urban infrastructure vulnerability

To better understand the weakness of urban critical infrastructure when confronted with threats,
numerous studies developed approaches and metrics to evaluate the vulnerability of infrastructures.
Murray et al. (2008) provided an overview of the vulnerability analysis approaches and
classified the large body of literature into four types, i.e. “scenario-​specific”, “strategic-​specific”,

118
Table 10.1 Potential impacts of climate change on critical urban infrastructures in coastal regions

Urban Climate stressor

infrastructure
Temperature Coastal flooding, Drought caused Inland flooding,
sector
increase sea level rise, and by shifting rainfall increase in intense
storm surge patterns precipitation

Energy reduce the efficiency disrupt electricity water scarcity affects disrupt electricity
of water cooling distribution hydropower distribution
for large electricity systems due to supplies, increase systems
generation, an increase of competition
changes in storms between
hydropower and hydropower and
wind power, drinking water
changes in supply
demand for energy
consumption such
as cooling
Transportation increase the road disrupt flooded impact inland disrupt flooded
maintenance cost, transport water transport transport
reduce the comfort networks networks networks
in walking/​cycling, including including
may increase the highway, rail, highway, rail,
number of auto airport, and airport, and
trips port; trip port; trip
delay and delay and
cancellation; cancellation;
disrupt the disrupts the
transport of transport of
energy and energy and
necessity supply necessity
supply; increase
incident rate
in extreme
weathers
Water impact residential increased salinity decrease water more non-​
water demand, intrusion supply point source
increase in water pollution,
temperature reduce water
quality
Sewer and impact domestic corrosion due less rainwater in increase overflow
stormwater wastewater to saltwater combined sewer spills for
production intrusion, systems in drier combined
inundation of seasons sewer systems,
pump stations, increase burden
groundwater on stormwater
inundation of infrastructure
pipelines, more
septic tanks in
low-​lying area
at risk
(continued)
Suwan Shen

Table 10.1 (Cont.)

Urban Climate stressor

infrastructure
Temperature Coastal flooding, Drought caused Inland flooding,
sector
increase sea level rise, and by shifting rainfall increase in intense
storm surge patterns precipitation

Communication increase the electrical support N/​A electrical support

malfunction rate in facilities could facilities could
extreme heat; loss be flooded; be flooded;
of service due to cell phone shut down
overload of power towers could of the power
systems in hot days be corroded; systems due to
Loss of overload could
telecommuni­ cause loss of
cation access service
during extreme
weather events

Source: Adapted from Wilbanks and Fernandez (2014), National Research Council (US) Committee on Climate Change
and US Transportation (2008), University of Hawai’i see page 129 at Mänoa Sea Grant College Program (2014), Kirshen
et al. (2008)

Overall Criticality

Infrastructure Disrupted
Energy

Transportation

Water

Sewer and stormwater

Communication
Sewer and
Energy Transportation Water stormwater Communication First-Order Effect
Overall Dependence

Low High

Figure 10.1 Urban critical infrastructure inter-​and intra-​dependencies

Source: Adapted from Kirshen et al. (2008), Wilbanks and Fernandez (2014), Kirshen et al. (2008)

“simulation”, and “mathematical modeling”. The scenario-​specific assessment focuses on the

evaluation of potential impacts of a specific or a small set of disruption scenarios, which is identi-
fied as the most prevalent approach in practice (Murray et al. 2008). Strategy-​specific assessment
analyses the potential consequences given a hypothesized strategy of disruption, which is usu-
ally used to simulate the impacts of targeted attack (Murray et al. 2008). Simulation approach
helps to describe the range of possible impacts using scenario enumeration, which is often used
for scenario prioritization and disruption mitigation prioritization. However, the number of
scenarios increases enormously with the network size. Therefore, the analysis detail is usually

120
 Critical infrastructure and climate change

reduced to accommodate the computational complexity (Murray et al. 2008). Finally, mathemat-
ical modeling uses mathematical properties to identify the extreme case scenarios without com-
plete scenario enumeration, but the problem often needs to be simplified to ensure the solvability
of the model (Murray et al. 2008). These analytical approaches could be broadly applied to
any network infrastructure sectors. For instance, Jenelius and Mattsson (2015) summarized how
these approaches have been applied in transportation studies to estimate the impacts of network
degradations under specific scenarios in urban areas, to assess the economic costs of disruptions,
to identify the critical road segments with a complete enumeration of single link failures, to
screen the worst-case scenarios, or to select best responses.
Despite the similarity in approaches, the metrics and models that are used in different vul-
nerability studies usually differ (Jenelius and Mattsson 2012; Murray 2013). The literature could
also be categorized by the evaluation metrics or performance indicators they choose. Taking the
transportation sector as an example, the vulnerability evaluation could either focus on demand-​
side performance measures such as accessibility or supply-​side performance measures such as
operability (Jenelius et al. 2006).The choice of measures and assessment metrics has political and
social implications. Jenelius et al. (2006) illustrated, in road network vulnerability analysis, how
the same performance measures (i.e. increase in generalized travel cost) could be evaluated differ-
ently based on “equal opportunity” or “social efficiency” perspectives given different underlying
political judgment. There are merits and limitations in different approaches. It would be difficult
for a single evaluation measure to tell the whole story.
Referring to climate change vulnerability, in particular, there are some unique characteristics
that differentiate it from the general vulnerability studies. First, climate change impacts differ by
location and type of hazards. Vulnerabilities studies have to be customized for specific types of
hazards in different locations (Jenelius and Mattsson 2012). There are multiple climate stressors
influencing multiple infrastructure sectors. Each infrastructure sector could be affected directly
or indirectly due to the interdependencies. Second, although thanks to the development in cli-
mate modeling, science provides us some degree of predictability for climate change scenarios,
there is still considerable uncertainty in such projections. Third, infrastructure vulnerability to
climate change depends on the socio-​technical context. For instance, besides the physical struc-
ture, organizational adaptability could affect infrastructure management and transformation,
which in turn determines the level of vulnerability (Rehak et al. 2018). Finally, compared to the
projection of future climatic scenarios, there is an even higher degree of uncertainty in the pro-
jection of prominent social dimensions such as economics, the political incentives to adopt new
technology, and the changes in demography (Adger et al. 2009).
Given the complexity and interconnection with the broad socio-​technical systems, climate
change vulnerability and adaptation have been identified as a “wicked problem”, which by
definition is difficult to frame and “resistant to definitive and final solutions” (Moser et al. 2012;
Termeer et al. 2013). Correspondingly, Moser et al. (2012) approach the wicked problem with
an iterative, deliberately learning-​oriented risk management framework. Shen et al. (2016) put
forward a framework to analyze critical infrastructure’s vulnerability to climate change with
the consideration of uncertainty, interdependency, and potential adaptive capacities. Adopted
from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s definition of vulnerability
(Parry et al. 2007) and Cutter’s place-​based vulnerability concept (Cutter 1996), they define
the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to climate change as “the degree to which infra-
structure systems are susceptible to and unable to cope with the adverse impacts of climate
change, given the geophysical and socioeconomic conditions of a specific geographic region”
(Shen et al. 2016). Following this definition and framework, the factors contributing to critical
infrastructure’s vulnerability to climate change are categorized and outlined as in Figure 10.2.

121
Suwan Shen

type
climate frequency
change
magnitude

elevation
topographic
Exposure slope

scale area

population
development pattern Distribution
economic activity density
redundancy
connectivity
topology
capacity
reversibility
e.g. electrical pump station
supply physical in water supply
e.g. traffic management
cyber needs telecommunication
interdependency
Contributing factors geographic e.g. sewer pipeline under roads
Sensitivity
e.g. economically related
logical infrastructure sectors

population and business growth

population and business exposure
demand
behavior changes
changes due to infrastructure
interdependency
regulation
Institutional management
Infrastructure system coping
capacity competition

protection
Physical
Adaptive capacity relocation
individual socioeconomic
conditions
Contextual capacity adaptive actions
community resilience

Figure 10.2 Factors contributing to critical urban infrastructure’s vulnerability to climate change
Source: Adapted from Shen et al. (2016)

Infrastructure vulnerability and urban resilience

Originated from ecology, the concept of resilience has been applied in a wide range of discip-
lines and contexts (Holling 1973; Meerow et al. 2016). In socio-​ecological systems, the emphasis
shifted from “engineering” resilience, which focuses on resistance to disturbance and speed of
recovery, to “ecological” resilience, which focuses on maintaining the existence of function,
stressing key features like persistence, adaptability, and transformability (Holling 1996; Miller
et al. 2010).
Given that cities have long been recognized as complex systems, there are more and more
urban studies incorporating resilience theory (Meerow and Newell 2016). Urban resilience has
been defined and measured in a variety of literature, which emphasizes different aspects of resili-
ence and components of urban systems (Leichenko 2011). In general, it is referred to as the
ability for the urban system to withstand a variety of shocks and stresses, including climate change

122
 Critical infrastructure and climate change

(Leichenko 2011; Meerow et al. 2016). Leichenko (2011) classified the urban resilience litera-
ture into four categories: urban ecological resilience, urban hazards resilience, urban economy
resilience, and governance resilience. Urban ecological resilience extends upon the ecosystem
resilience notion and defines resilience as the ability for an urban system to absorb disturb-
ance and sustain services including ecosystem services without fundamental changes in identity,
structure, or key processes (Leichenko 2011). Urban hazards resilience emphasize the commu-
nity resilience building and capacity enhancement for urban communities and populations to
recover from hazards in an efficient and effective way (Leichenko 2011). Economic resilience
with its roots in economic geography borrows the ecological resilience theory to study the evo-
lution of urban economic systems and emphasize the linkages between resilience and long-​term
growth of cities in particular (Leichenko 2011). The spatial inequality of economic growth also
leads to the discussion of power and politics influencing the development paths and resilience
(Leichenko 2011). Governance resilience views urban governance and institutional structure as
an influential factor for urban resilience (Leichenko 2011). It discusses, for instance, how leader-
ship, polycentricity, transparency, accountability, flexibility, inclusiveness, or diversity may hinder
or promote resilience building (Tanner et al. 2009).
These resilience concepts and theories are related to each other but address the problem from
different perspectives. Depending on their emphasis, the main conceptual divergence among the
literatures is related to the “definition of urban”,“the understanding of system equilibrium”,“the
conceptualization of resilience”, “the mechanisms of system change”, the definition of “adapt-
ability”, and the “timescale of action” (Meerow et al. 2016). Meerow et al. (2016) proposed
an inclusive definition, trying to incorporate different perspectives and conceptual inconsist-
encies. They defined urban resilience as “the ability of an urban system and all its constituent
socio-​ecological and socio-​technical networks across temporal and spatial scales to maintain
or rapidly return to desired functions in the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to
quickly transform systems that limit current or future adaptive capacity” (Meerow et al. 2016).
Leichenko (2011) summarized four key characteristics of resilient cities, namely diversity, flexi-
bility, adaptive governance, and learning capacity and innovation. Despite the lack of consensus
on the definition and measurement of urban resilience, it is broadly acknowledged that (1) cities
and urban regions need to become resilient to climate change; (2) resilience is a desired goal for
adaptation and mitigation efforts in academic and policy arenas; (3) climate change resilience
enhancement in urban regions should be in line with the efforts to achieve urban sustainability
(Leichenko 2011).
In the context of critical infrastructure, Rehak et al. (2018) define resilience as the intrinsic
ability of infrastructure systems to perform and maintain functions when negatively affected by
stresses. They classify the resilience of critical infrastructure system into technical resilience and
organizational resilience (Rehak et al. 2018). Technical resilience refers to the technological and
physical protection of infrastructure, which is determined by the technological structure, the
security measures, and the disruptive events (Rehak et al. 2018). Organizational resilience, on the
other hand, is determined by the organization management and internal processes throughout
the disaster management cycle, including organizational structure, management process in the
prevention phase, implementation of technological innovations, involvement in research and
education, as well as innovation ability and flexibility to learn from previous response and
recovery operations (Rehak et al. 2018). With regard to climate change, factors such as exposure
to climatic hazards, redundancy, capacity, infrastructure interdependency, and physical protection
all influence infrastructure technical resilience. Organizational resilience involves the institu-
tional capability and organizational management of the infrastructure system (Rehak et al. 2018).

123
Suwan Shen

In terms of climate change, it is influenced by factors such as institutional coping capacity and
corresponding demand management.
The objective of infrastructure vulnerability reduction is to perform and maintain infrastruc-
ture functions when faced with the negative impacts of climate change so that human wellbeing
could be maintained or improved, which is consistent with the objective of urban resilience
(Brown et al. 2016; Rehak et al. 2018). Despite the distinctions in disciplinary origins, concepts,
theories, methodologies, and practice, the analytical concept of vulnerability and resilience are
generally considered as complementary to each other (Miller et al. 2010). Miller et al. (2010)
explains that vulnerability research aimed at identifying causes of vulnerability and opportunities
for adaptation while resilience research aimed at identifying the ecological, biophysical, and social
factors influencing short-​and long-​term sustainability. Both concepts require an investigation
into the underlying socio-​political and environmental processes but from different perspectives.
In this way, Miller et al. (2010) argues that vulnerability and resilience analysis could be com-
plementary in terms of integrated socio-​ecological analyses, system approach, slow versus fast
changes, analysis scale, adaptation, perturbations, and different knowledge systems. Specifically,
Miller et al. (2010) identified the synergies and overlaps in vulnerability and resilience approaches
with respect to the response to stress, the interaction of changes, system and actor dynamics, the
role of diversity, and the common concern for cross-​scale issues and processes. Although there
is some argument about whether vulnerability researchers address both short-​term response
and long-​term adjustment (Miller et al. 2010), resilience is usually perceived as the “flipside” or
“determinant” of vulnerability (Meerow et al. 2016). Vulnerable systems are considered as not
resilient and resilient systems are viewed not vulnerable (Rehak et al. 2018).
Even though resilience and vulnerability are highly related and complementary concepts,
there are several characteristics of resilience noteworthy in the context of climate change. First,
resilience serves as a boundary concept that allows the synergy between multiple knowledge
domains, such as climate change adaptation, sustainability, and disaster risk reduction (Adger et al.
2011; Meerow and Newell 2016). This is especially important when talking about the vulner-
ability and resilience of critical infrastructure to climate change. Urban infrastructure plays a vital
role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation. The exposure of urban infrastructure to
climatic stressors is partly determined by the transformation in infrastructure sectors to mitigate
climate change.The transformation for mitigation would in turn affect the urban infrastructure’s
ability to adapt to climate change. Therefore, one crucial question we need to ask is whether
the vulnerability reduction actions would contribute to long-​term sustainability and vice versa,
whether actions that contribute to long-​term sustainability would also reduce the vulnerability.
Second, there is emerging literature that explicitly discusses the issues of equity in urban
resilience (Leichenko 2011; Meerow and Newell 2016). It is recognized that the adverse impacts
of climate change would be experienced disproportionately by the poor, who are more likely to
locate in hazard-​prone regions, suffer more direct losses, and need more resources to recover from
the losses (Freeman and Warner 2001). The disadvantaged groups are normally more dependent
on public infrastructure to maintain livelihood and require more assistance if infrastructures
fail (Freeman and Warner 2001). Further, there may be conflicts between resilience at different
regions or scales. Resilience enhancement for some regions may come at the expense of resili-
ence reduction in other regions or scales (Leichenko 2011). Consequently, it is prudent to
explicitly address the equity implications of infrastructure vulnerability and resilience to climate
change. Meerow et al. (2016) illustrated how the equity consideration could be incorporated
through a “five Ws” operational framework of urban resilience, which is “resilience for who, to
what, when, where, and why”.

124
 Critical infrastructure and climate change

Adaptation trends in infrastructure sectors

To reduce urban infrastructure’s vulnerability to the identified climatic and non-​climatic stressors
(Figure 10.2), numerous adaptive actions and strategies have been proposed (Arnbjerg-​Nielsen
and Fleischer 2009; Broto and Bulkeley 2013; Kim et al. 2017; Kirshen et al. 2008; Liao 2012;
Wilby and Dessai 2010). Bobylev (2013) summarized four key strategies to adapt urban infra-
structure for climate change, including the consideration of climate change adaptation in spatial
development, the increase of infrastructure flexibility, mainstreaming adaptation in legislation
(e.g. building codes), and incorporating climate change into operational safety and reliability
management. These adaptive responses require not just incremental but also transformative
changes in infrastructure sectors through interdisciplinary collaborations (Moser et al. 2012).
This section gives an overview of the transformative trends in infrastructure sectors and discusses
their relevance to climate change adaptation.

Decentralization
The topology of the network infrastructure affects the exposure, connectivity, and redundancy
of the infrastructure to climate change. As a result, one of the key policy questions is whether
infrastructure should be centralized or decentralized in a changing climate (Howard and Bartram
2010). Decentralized infrastructure has often been viewed as more climate resilient than the con-
ventional centralized utility because of its flexibility and spatial dispersion of the risk (Howard
and Bartram 2010). Some 350,000 people affected by the flooding of the Mythe pumping
station in Gloucester, England, 2007 demonstrated how centralized systems would suffer severe
disruption if a critical component is at risk (Howard and Bartram 2010). Distributed commu-
nity water systems, on the other hand, have shown to be more resilient, providing potable water
access for Mawlamyine village, Myanmar, during severe floods (Gallego-​Lopez and Essex 2016).
Furthermore, the flexibility of decentralization could prevent the investment of vulnerable large
infrastructure that may lead to maladaptation. However, Howard and Bartram (2010) contend
that decentralized infrastructure may reduce the risks from extreme events but will come at the
expense of increased maintenance costs.

New forms of governance

The management of infrastructure systems is as important as the physical structure in adapting
to climate change. As the traditional centralized management of utilities by the government
is criticized as inefficient, many countries have experimented with innovative management
structures, including different degrees of decentralization, privatization, and social participation
(Engle and Lemos 2010). Numerous municipal energy utilities in Germany have been privatized
with the intent to increase productive efficiency, better meet customer demands, and promote
socio-​technological innovation (Monstadt 2007).
Democracy and decentralized management have been theorized as efficient tools for building
adaptive capacity to climate change (Olsson et al. 2004). The transition from a centralized water
management to a decentralized tri-​party, stakeholder-​driven, river basin management system
in Brazil has shown to be suitable for climate change adaptation (Engle and Lemos 2010).
Nevertheless, while it is generally agreed that decentralized physical network is more resilient
to climate change, there is dissent about decentralization in management structure. Lemos
(2008) pointed out that both democracy and knowledge use is important in building adaptive

125
Suwan Shen

capacity, but the relationship between the two could be contradictory.While decentralization may
increase the end-​user’s participation in infrastructure operation and maintenance, it may suffer
from a lack of access to skilled professionals. The limited access to staff with greater technical
skills may make infrastructure more susceptible to deterioration from extreme events and result
in greater risk of service failure and public health and safety hazards (Howard and Bartram 2010).
On the other hand, a centralized management framework with appropriate stakeholder
participation may result in better governance and service delivery (Howard and Bartram
2010). Lynch (2012) affirmed that a centralized management with concerted citizen action in
Peru’s water regime is more likely to address the equity issues and reduce the vulnerability of
disadvantaged communities (Lynch 2012). The choices about the management structure when
confronted with climate change need to consider stakeholder representation, equity, account-
ability, knowledge use, staff availability, service demand trends, and management skills (Engle and
Lemos 2010; Howard and Bartram 2010).

Balancing resilience and sustainability

In response to climate change, a broad variety of infrastructure related strategies have been developed
to either mitigate climate change for long-​term sustainability or adapt to the urgent climatic
risks.These strategies include, for example, carbon-​neutral communities, compact urban form to
reduce auto dependency, renewable energy production, water recycling and reuse, decentraliza-
tion of infrastructure networks, and flood mitigation. In some cases, responses could contribute
to both sustainability and resilience. Cases in point are the decentralization of water supply in
Brazil and the tropical storm management in Caribbean islands (Adger et al. 2011).
Yet in other cases conflicts exist. While renewable energy may support sustainability, it may
make the energy sector more susceptible to climatic changes. As an example, Adger et al. (2011)
found that although the expansion of biofuels globally could contribute to greenhouse gas
reduction in the short term, the strategy may imperil long-​term resilience given the increased
climate risk in both energy and food sectors. Hamin and Gurran (2009) pointed out that if
relocation is adopted to protect the new council library for Byron Shire, Australia from the
expanded flood zone, it would undermine the objective to reduce local vehicle miles travelled
and greenhouse gas emissions (Hamin and Gurran 2009). Chelleri et al. (2012) illustrated that a
sole wind-​powered electricity system would be less resilient and adaptable to long-​term climate
risk compared with a more diverse and flexible energy portfolio.Thus, adaptation strategies need
to be evaluated for both objectives and trade-​offs need to be assessed to balance resilience and
sustainability.

Conclusion
In the face of climate change, critical infrastructure’s vulnerability is closely interwined with
urban resilience. As discussed in this chapter, the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to climate
change is not only a technical problem but a “wicked problem” that is influenced by a variety
of socio-​technical factors. A lot of these factors, as well as the infrastructure services itself, are
influential factors that determine urban resilience. Reducing critical infrastructure’s vulnerability,
therefore, plays a vital role in building urban resilience. Moving forward to adapt critical infra-
structure systems to climate change, on one hand, we need enhancement in climate modelling
tools to develop more accurate and detailed climate projection models that could be used for
engineering practice at the local level. On the other hand, given the level of uncertainty in

126
 Critical infrastructure and climate change

climate models and future conditions, we need to apply the existing infrastructure system mod-
elling tools and vulnerability analysis approaches to prioritize infrastructure disruption scenarios.
To assess the impacts, we need not only to examine the weakness in physical infrastructures
but more importantly to identify the most affected populations. Furthermore, we need to
think beyond the technical protection strategies within each infrastructure silo to address broad
questions related to infrastructure interdependency and cascading effects, organizational man-
agement and adaptability, coordination with climate mitigation and long-​term sustainability, and
regional inequality and potential conflict. Finally, for adaptation strategies we need to investigate
the long-​term institutional and financial management feasibility in addition to their technical
feasibility, as well as answer the old question of who benefits and who pays. Thinking infrastruc-
ture vulnerability and urban resilience holistically would make sure the vulnerability reduction
in one sector in one urban area does not come at the cost of another sector, another region, or
another community.

References
Adger, W.N., Brown, K., Nelson, D.R., Berkes, F., Eakin, H., Folke, C., Galvin, K., Gunderson, L., Goulden,
M., O’Brien, K., Ruitenbeek, J., Tompkins, E.L. (2011). Resilience implications of policy responses to
climate change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. 2(5): 757–​766.
Adger, W.N., Dessai, S., Goulden, M., Hulme, M., Lorenzoni, I., Nelson, D.R., … Wreford, A. (2009). Are
there social limits to adaptation to climate change? Climatic Change. 93(3–​4): 335–​354.
Arnbjerg-​Nielsen, K. and Fleischer, H. (2009). Feasible adaptation strategies for increased risk of flooding in
cities due to climate change. Water Science and Technology. 60(2): 273.
Bobylev, N. (2013). Urban physical infrastructure adaptation to climate change. Global Change, Energy
Issues and Regulation Policies: Dordrecht: Springer, 77–​102.
Broto, V.C. and Bulkeley, H. (2013). A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities. Global
Environmental Change. 23(1): 92–​102.
Brown, C., Shaker, R.R., and Das, R. (2016). A review of approaches for monitoring and evaluation of
urban climate resilience initiatives. Environment, Development And Sustainability: 1–​18.
Chelleri, L., Kunath, A., Minucci, G., Olazabal, M., Waters, J.J., and Yumalogava, L. (2012). Multidisciplinary
perspectives on urban resilience. A workshop report. Basque Centre for Climate Change. Bilbao, Spain.
Cutter, S.L. (1996).Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Progress in human geography. 20(4): 529–​539.
Engle, N.L. and Lemos, M.C. (2010). Unpacking governance: building adaptive capacity to climate change
of river basins in Brazil. Global Environmental Change. 20(1): 4–​13.
Freeman, P. and Warner, K. (2001).Vulnerability of infrastructure to climate variability: How does this affect
infrastructure lending policies? Report Commissioned by the Disaster Management Facility of The
World Bank and the ProVention Consortium. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Gallego-​Lopez, C. and Essex, J. (2016). Designing for Infrastructure Resilience. Evidence on Demand.
London: Department for International Development.
Hamin, E.M. and Gurran, N. (2009). Urban form and climate change: Balancing adaptation and mitigation
in the US and Australia. Habitat international. 33(3): 238–​245.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems.Annual review of ecology and systematics.
4(1): 1–​23.
Holling, C.S. (1996). Engineering resilience versus ecological resilience. Engineering within ecological
constraints. 31(1996): 32.
Howard, G. and Bartram, J. (2010). The Resilience of Water Supply and Sanitation in the Face of Climate
Change.Vision 2030, Technical report. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Hunt, A. and Watkiss, P. (2011). Climate change impacts and adaptation in cities: a review of the literature.
Climatic Change. 104(1): 13–​49.
Jenelius, E. and Mattsson, L.-​G. (2012). Road network vulnerability analysis of area-​covering disruptions: A
grid-​based approach with case study.Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 46(5): 746–​760.
Jenelius, E. and Mattsson, L.-​G. (2015). Road network vulnerability analysis: Conceptualization, implemen-
tation and application. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. 49: 136–​147.

127
Suwan Shen

Jenelius, E., Petersen,T., and Mattsson, L.-​G. (2006). Importance and exposure in road network vulnerability
analysis. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 40(7): 537–​560.
Kim, Y., Eisenberg, D.A., Bondank, E.N., Chester, M.V., Mascaro, G., and Underwood, B.S. (2017). Fail-​
safe and safe-​to-​fail adaptation: decision-​making for urban flooding under climate change. Climatic
Change. 145(3–​4): 397–​412.
Kirshen, P., Ruth, M., and Anderson, W. (2008). Interdependencies of urban climate change impacts and
adaptation strategies: a case study of Metropolitan Boston USA. Climatic Change. 86(1–​2): 105–​122.
Koetse, M.J. and Rietveld, P. (2009). The impact of climate change and weather on transport: An overview
of empirical findings. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. 14(3): 205–​221.
Kröger, W. (2008). Critical infrastructures at risk: A need for a new conceptual approach and extended ana-
lytical tools. Reliability Engineering & System Safety. 93(12): 1781–​1787.
Langeveld, J., Schilperoort, R., and Weijers, S. (2013). Climate change and urban wastewater infrastruc-
ture: there is more to explore. Journal of hydrology. 476: 112–​119.
Leichenko, R. (2011). Climate change and urban resilience. Current opinion in environmental sustain-
ability. 3(3): 164–​168.
Lemos, M.C. (2008). Whose water is it anyway? Water management, knowledge, and equity in NE Brazil.
In: J.M. Whiteley, H.M. Ingram, R.W. Perry, T.C. Arnold, and M. Baer (eds.): Water, Place, and Equity.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Liao, K.-​H. (2012). A theory on urban resilience to floods –​a basis for alternative planning practices.
Ecology and Society. 17(4).
Lynch, B.D. (2012).Vulnerabilities, competition and rights in a context of climate change toward equitable
water governance in Peru’s Rio Santa Valley. Global Environmental Change. 22(2): 364–​373.
Meerow, S. and Newell, J.P. (2016). Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why? Urban
Geography: 1–​21.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and urban
planning. 147: 38–​49.
Melillo, J.R., Richmond, T.C., and Yohe, GW. (2014). Climate change impacts in the United States: The
third national climate assessment. National Climate Assessment Report. Washington, DC: US Global
Change Research Program, 418–​440.
Miller, F., Osbahr, H., Boyd, E.,Thomalla, F., Bharwani, S., Ziervogel, G., … Rockström, J. (2010). Resilience
and vulnerability: complementary or conflicting concepts? Ecology and Society. 15(3).
Monstadt, J. (2007). Urban governance and the transition of energy systems: Institutional change and
shifting energy and climate policies in Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
31(2): 326–​343.
Moser, S.C., Williams, S.J., and Boesch, D.F. (2012). Wicked challenges at land’s end: Managing coastal vul-
nerability under climate change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 37.
Murray, A.T. (2013). An overview of network vulnerability modeling approaches. GeoJournal. 78(2):
209–​221.
Murray, A.T., Matisziw, T.C., and Grubesic, T.H. (2008). A methodological overview of network vulner-
ability analysis. Growth and Change. 39(4): 573–​592.
National Research Council (US). Committee on Climate Change and US Transportation. (2008). Potential
impacts of climate change on US transportation. Transportation Research Board Special Report 290.
Washington DC.
Olsson, P., Folke, C., and Berkes, F. (2004). Adaptive comanagement for building resilience in social–​
ecological systems. Environmental management. 34(1): 75–​90.
Parry, M., Parry, M.L., Canziani, O., Palutikof, J.,Van der Linden, P., and Hanson, C. (2007). Climate Change
2007-​Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Working Group II Contribution to the Fourth Assessment
Report of the IPCC (Vol. 4). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rehak, D., Senovsky, P., and Slivkova, S. (2018). Resilience of critical infrastructure elements and its main
factors. Systems. 6(2): 21.
Revi, A., Satterthwaite, D.E., Aragón-​ Durand, F., Corfee-​ Morlot, J., Kiunsi, R.B.R., Pelling, M.,
Roberts, D.C., and Solecki, W. (2014). Urban Areas. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and
Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B.,V.R. Barros, D.J.
Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi,Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova,
B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L.White (eds.)] Cambridge,
United Kingdom and New York: Cambridge University Press.

128
 Critical infrastructure and climate change

Rübbelke, D. and Vögele, S. (2011). Impacts of climate change on European critical infrastructures: The case
of the power sector. Environmental science & policy. 14(1): 53–​63.
Ruth, M., Bernier, C., Jollands, N., and Golubiewski, N. (2007). Adaptation of urban water supply infra-
structure to impacts from climate and socioeconomic changes: the case of Hamilton, New Zealand.
Water Resources Management. 21(6): 1031–​1045.
Savonis, M.J., Burkett, V.R., and Potter, J.R. (2008). Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on
Transportation Systems and Infrastructure: Gulf Coast Study, Phase I. A Report by the US Climate
Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research [Savonis, M. J., V.R.
Burkett, and J.R. Potter (eds.)]. Washington, DC: Department of Transportation.
Shen, S., Feng, X., and Peng, Z.R. (2016). A framework to analyze vulnerability of critical infrastructure to
climate change: the case of a coastal community in Florida. Natural Hazards. 84(1): 589–​609.
Tanner, T., Mitchell, T., Polack, E., and Guenther, B. (2009). Urban governance for adaptation: assessing cli-
mate change resilience in ten Asian cities. IDS Working Papers. 2009(315), 01–​47.
Termeer, C., Dewulf, A., and Breeman, G. (2013). Governance of Wicked Climate Adaptation Problems
Climate change governance (pp. 27–​39): Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
University of Hawai‘i at Mänoa Sea Grant College Program (2014). Climate Change Impacts in Hawai‘i –​
A Summary of Climate Change and Its Impacts to Hawai‘i’s Ecosystems and Communities. A publica-
tion of the University of Hawai‘i at Mänoa Sea Grant College Program. Honolulu, HI.
US Census Bureau (2010). State and county quick facts. Urban, Urbanized Area, Urban Cluster, and Rural
Population, 2010 and 2000: United States. www.census.gov.
US White House Office (2003).The National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures
and Key Assets. Washington, DC: Executive office of the president.
Wilbanks, T.J. and Fernandez, S. (2014). Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and
Vulnerabilities: Technical Report for the US Department of Energy in Support of the National Climate
Assessment: Washington, DC: Island Press.
Wilby, R.L. and Dessai, S. (2010). Robust adaptation to climate change. Weather. 65(7): 180–​185.
Willbanks,T., Lankao, P., Bao, M., Berkhout, F., Cairncross, S., Ceron, J., … Zapata-​Marti, R. (2007). Industry,
settlement and society. Climate Change 2007: Impacts Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution
of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
World Bank (2018). World Urban Population Data 2018. https://​data.worldbank.org/​indicator/​SP.URB.
TOTL.IN.ZS.

129
 11
Policies and practices on urban
resilience in China
Quan Yuan

Introduction
Many developing countries are experiencing rapid urbanization and a large number of people
move from rural areas to cities to enjoy the conveniences that urban civilization has created.The
dense cities, however, are faced with increasingly tough challenges of protecting their inhabitants
from external shocks such as natural disasters. In many countries, local authorities are working
with the national government to improve the capabilities of the cities to cope with potential
damages. Urban land use planning, infrastructure improvements, public financing, and techno-
logical innovations, among others, are the major strategies implemented to minimize the impacts
of disasters on the functioning of cities, and the lives of residents. How do cities understand
urban resilience? What are the recent public policies and practices on urban resilience in cities
in developing countries? When disasters occurred, how did cities respond to the threatening
events? Have these policies and practices achieved short-​term and long-​term goals? A detailed
inquiry on these questions could provide us information on how cities in developing countries
can better address the growing threats from external shocks.
China has a long history of fighting against natural disasters and people in this country have
rich experience in building disaster-​resilient cities and towns. Many historical cities such as
Ganzhou (in the Province of Jiangxi) built a highly comprehensive and efficient drainage system
about a thousand years ago. The traditional wisdom of developing disaster-​resistant settlements
and communities –​the wisdom of maintaining a harmonious relationship with nature –​was
deeply embedded in the Chinese culture. Nevertheless, Chinese cities are suffering a lot from nat-
ural disasters in this era of rapid urbanization and massive urban development. In the recent two
decades, China has witnessed the most dramatic urbanization in human history.The urbanization
rate in China grew from 36 per cent in 2000 to 56 per cent in 2017 and, during this period,
310 million people became new urban dwellers. The country now has more than 100 cities of
over one million residents and the number of megacities is still steadily growing. The growth of
urban population, however, has unfortunately far outpaced the upgrade of urban infrastructure
including drainage, flood levees, and utility systems. Relevant public policies and emergency
response plans are also outdated in the face of increasing threats from all types of external shocks.
Meanwhile, disadvantaged populations who have limited knowledge and information about the

130
 Urban resilience in China

threats are more vulnerable to the loss of life and property, suggesting an issue of environmental
injustice in disaster prevention. Several major natural disasters in recent years have tested the cap-
abilities of cities to recover, and, on the other hand, facilitated the introduction of a few national
and local policies and practices in promoting urban resilience. These strategies nonetheless have
very mixed results in spite of substantial institutional and financial support.

Theoretical progress in China

Theories and Context

The theoretical discussion on urban resilience in China has been largely limited to the literature
review of existing theories from developed countries and the application of these theories in the
context of Chinese cities. A number of recent studies reviewed the literature on the definitions,
dimensions, and conceptualization of urban resilience. Huang and Huang (2015), for instance,
discussed how the definitions of urban resilience by Alberti (2000), Resilience Alliance (2007),
and Bruneau and Chang (2003) differ. The study highlighted the “TOSE” framework developed
by Bruneau and Chang (2003) in that the framework covers four important dimensions of urban
resilience –​technical, organizational, social, and economic. These dimensions, which include the
major operational factors of urban resilience, are also included in many other versions of definitions
of the concept. Shao and Xu (2015) reviewed three generations of research on urban resilience
and summarized that the concept has been extended from “engineering resilience” to “ecological
resilience” and “evolutionary resilience”. Similarly, Ouyang and Ye (2016) found that the research
on urban resilience has increasingly focused on the social and institutional dimensions. They fur-
ther argued that the concept should emphasize more on specific urban contexts. To promote
the so-​called “context resilience”, policymakers need to consider the geographic and historical
characteristics, cultures and traditions, and institutional models in the local contexts (Cai et al. 2012).
In terms of context-​ based resilient development, researchers in China have contrasted
Chinese cities with cities in developed countries, where resilience-​oriented development has
been better endorsed by the government, and the public. Shao and Xu (2015) criticized the
recent urban development in many Chinese cities as it focused much more on the engineering
dimension rather than the ecological and social dimensions. In spite of the massive investment
in transportation infrastructure and real estate, those cities are still quite vulnerable to different
types of shocks ranging from natural disasters to man-​made disturbance. Huang and Huang
(2015) stressed that Chinese cities have been experiencing an unprecedented urbanization and
industrialization. The explosive growth in urban population and the significant intensification
of economic activities make it increasingly difficult for the cities to protect citizens, regardless
of socioeconomic status and resources, from the threats of those shocks. Chinese cities, as mega-​
clusters of people and economic activities, are thus eagerly looking for strategies for improving
urban resilience to achieve sustainability and long-​term productivity. On the other hand, Xu
et al. (2014) pointed out that relevant theories, methods, standards, and data collection on urban
resilience are still very limited in China. Although many cities have participated in various col-
laboration frameworks that promote urban resilience, detailed operable policies and strategies
have not been developed or further integrated into the current planning system.

Urban Resilience Index Systems

Another cluster of studies on urban resilience focuses on the urban resilience index system.
An urban resilience index system refers to a systematic inventory of indicators hypothesized to

131
Quan Yuan

influence the ability of a city or a region to recover from a future unknown stress (University
of California Berkeley 2011). Xu et al. (2014) emphasized the significance of the index system
in promoting resilient development, especially in making operable plans and evaluating these
plans. This study, together with a few others (e.g. Chen et al. 2016), reviewed a list of index
systems including the 10 Essentials of City Resilience (United Nations International Strategy
for Disaster Reduction, 2012), the Resilience Capacity Index (University of California, Berkeley,
2011), the City Resilience Index (Rockefeller Foundation and ARUP, 2015) and so forth. Chen
et al. (2016) also contrasted these urban resilience index systems with index systems that were
created to assess sustainable and low-​carbon development in China.The authors found that these
two groups of index systems have many shared indices, but some indicators need to be adjusted
and revised in accordance with the context of Chinese cities.
Chen et al. (2016) created an urban resilience index system based on the context of Chinese
cities by referring to the aforementioned established index systems. Three layers of indicators
were selected based on a survey of urban planners, government officials, and real estate agents
using the Analytic Hierarchy Process method. Four “criterion layer” indicators, 12 “field layer”
indicators, and a total of 35 “factor layer” indicators were included in the system (see Table 11.1).
Chen et al. (2016) emphasized the significance of urban management, a critical component
of a city’s soft power. This “criterion layer” indicator demonstrates the capability of a city to
effectively react to disasters and emergencies and organize its residents to mitigate potential
hazards. Out of the four “principal layer” indicators, the social dimension appeared to be the
most important one. This dimension in particular focuses on the socially disadvantaged popu-
lation, including low-​educated population, unemployed population, and population in poverty.
The authors argued that education attainment, and access to social resources, can greatly affect
vulnerability to external shocks. The other three “principal layer” indicators, economic, infra-
structure, and urban management were assigned similar weight in the system. Innovation, social
cohesion, and resource efficiency stood out among the “field layer” indicators. The index system
also highlighted several “factor layer” indicators including public participation, and government
expenditure on education.
Liu and Zeng (2014) generated another urban resilience index system and further studied
the changes in urban resilience index using longitudinal data from Wuhan. The index system
comprised of four categories of indicators: ecological resilience, economic resilience, engin-
eering resilience, and social resilience.The selection of the indicators in the system was primarily
based on the literature review, but it also took into consideration the data availability for each
indicator. Therefore, the authors acquired longitudinal socio-​economic data between 1990 and
2010 from Wuhan, China, and used the data to calculate the urban resilience index for every five
years. Figure 11.1 shows the standardized changes in the overall urban resilience index as well as
four categories of urban resilience indicators. In general, all indices increased during the period,
and the increases were more significant in 2000–​2010 than in 1990–​2000. The authors finally
pointed out that these indices appeared to be interrelated and therefore it would be unrealistic
to achieve some of the goals at the sacrifice of others.
Chen (2015), on the other hand, conducted a comparative study on the changes in urban
resilience index across several major Chinese cities. She adopted a similar four-​category index
system to that in Liu and Zeng (2014). Five major cities in the Yangtze River Delta –​Shanghai,
Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Nanjing –​were selected as the observations in the study, and
data from 2010 and 2013 were collected to evaluate how the urban resilience in those cities
changed over time. Figure 11.2 displays the results. The author found that the overall urban
resilience indices in the five cities were moderate in spite of an increase during 2010–​2013.
These cities became less resilient in terms of ecological performance, while the other resilience

132
Table 11.1 The urban resilience index system
Target layer Criterion layer Weight Field layer Weight Factor layer Weight

Urban Resilience Social resilience 0.3386 Education 0.2214 Share of population with associate degree 0.0972
Index System Teacher/​student ratio 0.0517
Share of govt. expenditure on education 0.0725
Labor and poverty 0.0329 Unemployment rate 0.0176
Pct. of population in poverty 0.0153
Regional attractiveness 0.0843 # of doctors/​thousand people 0.0528
# of hospital beds/​thousand people 0.0225
Area of urban shelter per capita 0.0090
Economic resilience 0.2370 Economic prosperity 0.0882 Gross Domestic Products per capita 0.0285
Disposable income per capita 0.0413
Fixed asset investment 0.0184
Economic elasticity 0.0362 Share of Secondary Industry in GDP 0.0200
Share of Tertiary Industry in GDP 0.0162
Innovation 0.1126 Annual new innovations/​thousand people 0.0441
Higher education degrees/​thousand people 0.0426
Employment training services 0.0259
Urban infrastructure 0.2250 Key infrastructure 0.0756 Public transit mileage per capita 0.0224
resilience Coverage of mobile services 0.0061
Coverage of internet services 0.0075
Density of sewer system 0.0396
Environmental management 0.0539 # of days with excellent/​good air quality 0.0194
Coverage of qualified centralized drinking water 0.0248
Coverage of urban park/​green in 500m radius 0.0047
Integrated species index 0.0050
Resource efficiency 0.0955 Average commute time 0.0065
Pct. of water recycling 0.0372
Energy consumption per GDP dollars 0.0146
Pct. of green building 0.0372
Urban management 0.1994 Social cohesion 0.1003 Public participation 0.0776
resilience # of resident associations, non-​profit organizations, etc. 0.0227
Emergency management 0.0532 Emergency monitoring information platform 0.0268
Natural disaster alarm platform 0.0126
Coverage of digital city management system 0.0138
Planning 0.0459 Professional consulting organizations 0.0287
Risk-​oriented land use planning 0.0172

Source: Chen et al. 2016

Quan Yuan

Figure 11.1 Changes in standardized urban resilience indices of Wuhan during 1990–​2010
Source: Liu and Zeng (2014)

Figure 11.2 Changes in urban resilience indices in cities in the Yangzi River Delta during 2010
and 2013
Source: Chen (2015)

indicators all improved during the period. Another important finding in this study was that
urban resilience is not necessarily linked to the size of cities. Shanghai, for example, one of the
four direct-​controlled municipalities and the largest city in China, has much more economic and
institutional resources than other cities. But its urban resilience indices were the lowest.

Policies and practices

Although the studies demonstrated a steady increase in urban resilience among Chinese cities,
the recent external shocks, especially natural disasters, have still caused the cities great losses.

134
 Urban resilience in China

According to the statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China, natural disasters including
floods, droughts, earthquakes, and typhoons caused 881 deaths and economic losses of more
than $44 billion in 2017 (Xinhuanet 2018). Given the tremendous losses, different levels of
governments have developed policies and strategies to reduce the impacts of these external
shocks on the cities and residents. Two cases, urban flooding and earthquakes, will be discussed
in this chapter to illustrate how policymakers have taken measures to strengthen the resilience of
cities and discusses whether the policies and practices have fulfilled the expectations.

Urban Flooding and Sponge Cities

Urban flooding has become one of the most threatening natural disasters in the world. As it
normally occurs in the high-​density urban areas, the overall exposure of citizens to the threats
of urban flooding is increasing as cities grow in size. In the last decade, urban flooding has
greatly affected cities in China and attracted growing attention from the public. Since 2009,
urban flooding impacted more than 50 million people and caused at least 500 deaths each year
(Xu 2015). Table 11.2 shows a summary of several major urban flooding events in China in the
recent years.
Several studies (Xu 2015; Bi et al. 2016; Li et al. 2016) have discussed why urban flooding
has become more and more prevalent in Chinese cities. First, the urban drainage systems are
outdated and inadequate to drain off the floodwater in time. Many of the drainage systems
in Chinese cities were designed and built decades ago and they were not configured for
accommodating heavy rainfall. Second, the widespread massive construction of impermeable
pavement such as asphalt roads has greatly reduced the capacity of the cities to drain the sur-
face runoff. In some cities, the artificial concrete riverbanks, which were built to avoid the
overflow of storm water, nonetheless have also largely restricted the capacity of the natural
riverbanks to retain water and mitigate the impacts of urban flooding (Yu et al. 2009). Third,
the aquatic ecosystem including wetlands, rivers, and lakes has been more and more converted
into urban built-​up areas. The damaged ecosystem can therefore no longer adapt to extreme
rain storm events.

Table 11.2 A summary of major urban flooding events in China in recent years

City Date Average volume Negative consequences

of rainfall

Beijing 7/​21/​2012 170 mm/​24 hours 79 deaths; economic loss of $1.7 billion; 1.6 million
people affected; 63 flooded road segments;
cancellation of more than 500 flights
Nanchang 8/​22/​2012 140 mm/​24 hours 1 death; 13,000 people affected; economic loss of
$1.7 million
Yan’an 7/​2013 398 mm/​24 hours 42 deaths; 1 million people affected
Wuhan 7/​6/​2013 334 mm/​24 hours 49 flooded road segments
7/​23/​2015 161 mm/​24 hours 360,000 people affected; economic loss of $9.9 million
7/​2016 560 mm/​7 days 730,000 people affected; economic loss of $319 million
Ningbo 10/​2013 496 mm/​24 hours 2.5 million people affected; economic loss of $3.3
billion
Shenzhen 5/​11/​2014 223 mm/​24 hours 150 flooded road segments; cancellation of 5,000
bus trips

Source: Xu 2015

135
Quan Yuan

The July 2012 Beijing flood was a typical case of urban flooding and the event captured the
attention of the entire world. Within a day of the flooding, 56,933 people had been evacuated,
79 people were killed, and at least 8,200 homes were damaged or destroyed (see Table 11.2).
The flooding was primarily created by the heaviest rain in the last six decades. However,
empirical studies found that urban land use changes, the poor condition of the drainage infra-
structure, and the damage on the aquatic ecosystem also greatly led to the tragic consequences
(Chen 2013; Sun 2014). From 1993 to 2007, land area of 241 square kilometers was converted
to built-​up area from other land uses in the central area of Beijing. About 80 per cent of the
land converted was agricultural land, and 6 per cent was once rivers and lakes (Sun 2014).
Such substantial land use changes have made the urban surface less permeable and less cap-
able of retaining storm water. Based on the results from the econometric models, Sun (2014)
found that the share of impermeable surface, and the share of built-​up area in the central area
of Beijing were both highly significantly associated with the likelihood of urban flooding.
Meanwhile, the land use changes dramatically altered the organization of the aquatic eco-
system. The models developed by Sun (2014) showed that the places with lower river densities
suffer most from higher probability of urban flooding. The damage on the aquatic ecosystem
therefore resulted in increased vulnerability of the cities to urban flooding. Finally, Chen
(2013) stated that a significant proportion of the drainage system in the central area of Beijing
was built in the 1950s or even in the Ming Dynasty. The designed capacity was outpaced by
the explosive growth of the urban population and thus is inadequate to counteract the shocks
of heavy rain storms.
This urban flooding event not only alerted Beijing, the capital city of China, to take more
efforts on disaster prevention, but also largely contributed to the adoption of a nationwide policy,
the “Sponge City Initiative”, in 2013. On December 12, 2013, in the Central Urbanization
Work Conference, President Xi Jinping promoted the concept of “Sponge City” as a means of
mitigating the impacts of urban flooding and making the best use of rain water. The goal of the
“Sponge City” concept is to make cities work like sponges –​effectively collecting, storing and
treating (excess) rainwater. Since then, flood prevention has rocketed up the state agenda and
the Sponge City initiative was launched in 2015 with 16 “Pilot Sponge Cities”, before being
extended to 30 (Roxburgh 2017). The policy has become a top-​down initiative directly led by
the central government to promote urban resilience. By 2020, the government required 20 per
cent of the built-​up area of each pilot city to reach the standards of sponge city, meaning at least
70 per cent of storm water runoff should be captured, reused, or absorbed into the ground. By
2030, 80 per cent of the built-​up area in each city should meet these standards. The first batch
of “Pilot Sponge Cities” received an investment of more than $12.5 billion. The central govern-
ment, local governments, and the private sector shared the investment.
In response to the requirements of the central government, the municipal governments of
quite a few cities, many of which were among the “Pilot Sponge Cities”, have formulated and
adopted their own plans and policies on promoting resilience development to prevent urban
flooding. Table 11.3 lists a few local plans and policies adopted in recent years. These plans and
policies had quite a few shared strategies, such as promoting the usage of permeable pavement
and preserving the components of the aquatic ecosystem. According to the aforementioned
research findings, many of these strategies are indeed effective remedies for the severe urban
flooding problem.
Based on these documents, a large number of sponge city related projects, many of which
were led by local governments, have been launched in these cities. For instance, the city of
Wuhan has recovered 11 lakes from the built-​up area and renovated 300 buildings to meet the
standards of sponge city development since 2015.

136
 Urban resilience in China

Table 11.3 A summary of sponge city related plans and policies in selected cities in China

City Date Title of plan/​policy Examples of measures

Wuhan 8/​2015 Guidelines on sponge Preserving lakes, wetlands, and other components
city planning and of the aquatic ecosystem; promoting the usage of
design of Wuhan permeable pavement in both new (50%) and old
(40%) communities.
5/​2016 Regulations on sponge Identifying the spots that are vulnerable to urban
city development flooding and retrofitting the spots using urban
and management of design techniques; encouraging the public–​
Wuhan private partnership (PPP) in sponge city projects
Xiamen 8/​2015 Technical guidelines Curbside greenbelt should be built lower than the
on sponge city road surface (sunken green space) to collect the
development of storm water
Xiamen
Qingdao 9/​2016 Special plan of sponge Identifying flooding spots using simulation models;
city development of constructing a drainage tunnel and a water
Qingdao retention facility to address the potential threats
at these spots
Shanghai 11/​2016 Special plan of sponge Promoting green roofs and rooftop gardens;
city development of identifying spots that are suitable to be retrofitted
Shanghai in accordance with sponge city requirements in
the short term
Guangzhou 2/​2017 Regulations on sponge Municipal departments of real estate and
city development urban development, urban management,
and management transportation, water resource, and landscaping
of Guangzhou should work together to promote sponge city
development
Shenzhen 9/​2017 Implementation plan Conducting a thorough spatial analysis of urban
of sponge city flooding in the entire municipal city; identifying
development of the areas with high ecological sensitivity; creating
Shenzhen a new land use plan in accordance with the
ecological sensitivity study

In spite of the ambitious Sponge City initiative led by the central government and the detailed
plans and policies adopted by local governments, the overall effects of alleviating urban flooding,
however, have still been marginal. Nineteen of the 30 “Pilot Sponge Cities” still suffered from
serious flooding in recent years, after a large amount of money was devoted to the initiative.Yu
(2016) argued the development of sponge cities would take a long time (at least 5–​10 years)
and require regionwide or even nationwide collaboration to be effective in decreasing flooding.
He also encouraged the use of public–​private partnerships (PPP) in financing the sponge city
projects, but he acknowledged that the PPP had not achieved much success yet. A few recent
studies summarized several major challenges and weaknesses found in the process of promoting
and developing sponge cities.
First, the development of sponge cities is a regional and system-​wise task. However, many
of the current plans or policies divided the cities into pieces and treated them separately. The
functioning of the drainage system, aquatic system, and the green space system all depend on the
connectivity, compatibility, and systematic capacity of the entire ecosystem (Ying and Liu 2017).
To zone the cities into different parts and fix localized problems by urban design and landscaping

137
Quan Yuan

may not really address the regional problem of urban flooding. Second, the retrofit of the old
traditional neighborhoods not only takes time and costs money, but also encounters institutional
and political difficulties (Xinhuanet 2016). In those neighborhoods, residential density is quite
high and the competition for space is fierce. It would be difficult to allocate space for sponge-​city
infrastructure at the sacrifice of existing facilities used for transportation, utilities, and housing
The newly added sunken green space, for instance, can conflict with parking space needs, so
residents complain about such projects. Finally, as a long-​term initiative that incurs immediate
huge capital cost and potentially benefits the cities and citizens, the sponge city initiative has
not been well accepted by the private sector (Jiang et al. 2017). Also, the lack of reliable cost and
benefit information has become a significant barrier to developing an effective framework of
public–​private partnership.

Building Earthquake-​resilient Cities

Another major natural disaster that continuously threatens many Chinese cities is earthquakes.
In the last decade, several serious earthquakes struck Sichuan, Qinghai, and other provinces, and
caused great damage and losses, especially in the urban areas. Why did the earthquakes cause so
much damage? What policies and practices have been adopted to help the affected cities recover
from the disaster? How have these policies and practices achieved the goals of improving urban
resilience? These are the major research questions that can help in understanding how the con-
cept of urban resilience has been integrated into the development of earthquake-​resistant cities.
Morita et al. (2017) emphasized the particular threats of earthquakes to large cities given
the high density of population and economic activities in the cities. Earthquakes can imme-
diately bring about the collapse of buildings and structures, the destruction of the electricity
and transportation networks, the disruption of the food and water supply, and many other col-
lateral damages. Existing studies have discussed several strategies for mitigating the impacts of
earthquakes on cities and citizens. First, improving the capability of buildings to resist earthquakes
is one of the foremost strategies (e.g. Morita et al. 2017; Ye et al. 2008). Using quake-​proof
building materials and adopting quake-​resistant structures can both greatly reduce the causalities
in the buildings. Second, creating earthquake-​resilient communities is another key strategy, and
it includes both the physical and social dimensions (Miller and Rivera 2016). On the one hand,
escape routes and shelters should be included in residential communities. Backup supply of
energy, food, water, sanitation, and medicine is also important to developing earthquake-​resilient
communities. On the other hand, community-​driven earthquake resilience education including
survival tips, excavation plans, and risk recognition can help residents physically and psychologic-
ally prepare for any earthquake events. Socially disadvantaged population are particularly in need
of the information and help. Finally, social cohesion and public participation are fundamental
social and organizational prerequisites to creating earthquake-​resilient urban space.
Chinese cities affected by the recent earthquakes, however, had largely failed to adopt
these strategies prior to the disasters. According to a detailed survey by a group of civil engin-
eering scholars from the Tsinghua University, Xinan Jiaotong University, and Beijing Jiaotong
University (Ye et al. 2008), a significant proportion of the buildings in the cities close to the epi-
center of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake were masonry or frame-​masonry hybrid structures.These
structures, compared to more advanced structures (frame structure, frame-​shearwall structure,
and large-​span steel structure), were found to be significantly more vulnerable to earthquakes
damage.Table 11.4 shows the seismic damage statistics of buildings in different structure types in
those cities. It demonstrates that more advanced structures can significantly improve the quake-​
resistant performance of buildings and protect dwellers from causalities.

138
 Urban resilience in China

Table 11.4 Building seismic damage statistics with regard to structural types

    Building Operational Out of service Not reparable Immediate

     damage before retrofitting demolition
Structural
type

Masonry structure 0% 50% 0% 50%

with timber roof
Reinforced masonry 21% 37% 16% 26%
structures
Frame-​masonry 48% 21% 10% 21%
hybrid structures
Frame structures 54% 32% 7% 7%
Frame-​shearwall 71% 29% 0% 0%
structures
Large-​span steel 57% 43% 0% 0%
structures

Source: Ye et al. 2008

Meanwhile, among those outdated buildings, there were a large number of school buildings,
especially middle school and elementary school buildings. With poor quality and old structures,
only 18 per cent of the school buildings were operational after the earthquake (Ye et al. 2008).
Due to insufficient survival skills and limited information, adolescent students were in particular
exposed to danger (Xie 2009). It further suggested a problem of environmental justice in cre-
ating urban resilience towards disasters like earthquakes. The mechanism that provides socially
disadvantaged people extra support and assistance before or after these disasters has been quite
limited in Chinese cities.
The post-​ disaster recovery can be a good opportunity to rebuild earthquake-​ resilient
cities. Many houses and buildings collapsed and a large proportion of the transport, utility and
sewage infrastructure was damaged during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Rebuilding cities and
increasing their resilience to earthquakes is a major goal of the post-​earthquake recovery. In
addition, millions of people were affected by the disaster and restoring social cohesion and civic
engagement is another challenge in the recovery.
The Post-​Sichuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction Ordinance, was approved by the State
Council of the People’s Republic of China and announced one month after the earthquake. The
ordinance included details on spatial layout, urban housing, urban construction, rural construction,
public services, infrastructure, industrial recovery, disaster prevention and reduction, ecological envir-
onments, mental health care, policy measures, reconstruction funds, and plan implementation (Guo,
2012). This document proposed some innovative approaches to enhance urban resilience, such as
democratic decision-​making, participatory planning, and the screening of areas with future earth-
quake risks. Similarly, Tang et al. (2015) described the implementation of land suitability assessment
(LSA) in the reconstruction process following the 2013 Lushan earthquake.The General Plan for Post
Lushan Earthquake Reconstruction was released two months after the earthquake. The LSA, as a new
geological technique, made a significant difference in the plan by evaluating the land suitability level
for post-​earthquake reconstruction. Physical geographical factors including geological conditions,
risk of disasters, water and land resources conditions, eco-​environmental suitability, and the land use
status quo of the affected area were considered in the assessment. Such technique was found to be
highly important to minimizing the potential risk of future land use development to earthquakes.

139
Quan Yuan

Progress was made in enhancing urban resilience by restoring social cohesion and encour-
aging public participation in the post-​earthquake recovery as well. Teets (2009) studied the
behaviors of civic organizations in the post-​disaster recovery after the 2008 Sichuan earth-
quake. She discovered that many non-​ governmental organizations (NGOs) had effectively
helped the restoration of local civil society. For instance, the Chengdu Urban Rivers Research
Group (CURRG) developed an online platform to provide real-​time information about relief
needs and resolve issues such as training and insurance. The CURRG served as an intermediary
between local governments, NGOs, volunteers, and donors. The collaboration between these
parties greatly supported the disaster relief and the local civic network gained much experience
on public organization and participation. Ying (2009) examined the participatory planning in
the reconstruction after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and showed its significance in rebuilding
the cities in accordance with the expectation of local residents. A Reconstruction Planning Ideas
Brainstorming Meeting took place in the city of Dujiangyan, one of the most affected cities in
the earthquake, and around 20 local residents were invited to the meeting.Ying (2009) stated this
was regarded as a major improvement given that, in the past, local residents would only occa-
sionally be asked to express their opinions after the formulation of plans. Jun Qu, the Head of
Urban Planning Bureau of Dujiangyan, reported that many ideas and opinions from the public
have been adopted in the reconstruction plans. For example, one of the most common concerns
among local residents, housing tenure, was taken into consideration when policymakers made
the decision on the movement of people who lost their homes in the disaster. Participatory
planning has strengthened the mutual trust between local governments and residents.
In spite of the significant progress in rebuilding resilient cities after the earthquakes, many
researchers have raised many concerns regarding the post-​disaster reconstruction process. The
local urban form and livelihoods, which were mentioned in the visions of the recovery plans,
have nonetheless hardly been implemented in the reconstruction stage (Guo 2012). Without the
consideration of the specific urban fabrics including urban form and structure, the reconstruction
is likely to end up as a duplication of certain pre-​designed templates and the principles of urban
resilience are difficult to be adopted in such duplication. In addition, the top-​down approaches
were dominant in the reconstruction process and need to be better integrated with bottom-​up
initiatives.The collaboration between the government, the private sector, as well as the non-​profit
organizations has not been well established and organized.Without effective inter-​party collabor-
ation, the allocation of disaster-​relief resources would hardly be efficient and timely.
Although local residents have been increasingly encouraged to participate in the reconstruc-
tion decision-​making, Ying (2009) admitted that they still “had little say” in the formulation of
the reconstruction plans. In the meantime, as the post-​disaster reconstruction started immedi-
ately after the earthquakes and was implemented in a very fast pace, local residents, who had not
fully recovered psychologically, “either had no passion to care about it or had not generated their
opinions thoughtfully” (Ying 2009). Teets (2009) also pointed out the trust and capacity deficit
of civil society organizations and suggested more transparency and legitimacy in post-​disaster
reconstruction.

Conclusion
Chinese cities have a long history of surviving natural disasters by building resilient communities.
However, in the era of rapid urbanization and massive land development, these cities have been
suffering losses from various external shocks, in particular natural disasters. In general, neither the
theoretical understanding nor the practical experience of developing resilient cities is adequate,

140
 Urban resilience in China

especially given the constantly changing urban fabrics and the less established organizational
framework in these cities.
Researchers in China have extensively reviewed the literature on the definitions and
dimensions of urban resilience and conceptualized it in the context of Chinese cities.They realize
that Chinese cities with the high population and economic activity densities tend to be highly
vulnerable to external shocks. Based on the literature review, researchers have developed a few
urban resilience index systems to help evaluate resilient development across cities and over time.
Empirical studies show that the overall resilience of Chinese cities in general increased during
the last decade. Nevertheless, recent years have witnessed a growing number of natural disaster
events that caused substantial damage to cities all over the country, regardless of size and eco-
nomic power. We have witnessed in this discussion how Chinese cities responded to two major
natural disasters –​urban flooding and earthquakes –​and discussed the policies and practices
adopted to improve urban resilience with regard to the disasters. The cities were physically and
socially vulnerable to the disasters due to the outdated infrastructure and limited awareness of
disaster prevention. Different levels of governments have engaged in the post-​disaster recovery
and a top-​down pattern of policy implementation was found to be common in both cases. In
spite of huge investment, the mismatch between growing threats from these hazards and limited
capabilities to fix the problem in a systematic way have greatly undermined the effectiveness of
recent efforts. The lack of effective collaboration between different levels of governments, and
between the public sector and private sector, may also partly explain the dilemma facing the
Chinese cities. After all, enhancing urban resilience would be a long-​term endeavor, and the
commitment to continued engagement is needed to making real progress. The contribution of
this chapter is that it will assist policymakers in China to adopt more informed and appropriate
approaches to preparing for and recovering from disasters and thereby developing resilient and
just cities.

References
Alberti, M. (2000). Urban form and ecosystem dynamics: Empirical evidence and practical implications.
Achieving Sustainable Urban Form: 84–​96.
Bi, G., Chen, Y., Xu, C., and Liu, Z. (2016). Sponge City Construction under Urbanization Context and
Resource-​Coordinated Development. Shanghai Urban Management. 1: 24–​26. (In Chinese)
Brunea, M, and Chang, S.E. (2003). A framework to quantitatively assess and enhance the seismic resilience
of communities. Earthquake Spectra. 19(4): 733–​752.
Cai: J., Guo, H., and Wang D. (2012). Review on the resilient city research overseas. Progress in Geography.
31 (10): 1245–​1255.
Chen, F. (2015). A comparative study on urban resilience levels among large cities in the Yangzi River Delta.
Proceedings of China Annual National Planning Conference 2015. (In Chinese).
Chen, N., Xiang, H., Ye, Q., and Zhu, X. (2016). An AHP-​based approach for evaluation index system of
resilience city. Journal of Hunan University. 7: 146–​150. (In Chinese).
Chen, X. (2013). A comparative study of the Beijing “7.21” and Shenzhen “6.13” urban flooding events.
Water Resources Development Research. 13(1): 39–​43. (In Chinese).
Guo,Y. (2012). Urban resilience in post-​disaster reconstruction: Towards a resilient development in Sichuan,
China. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 3(1): 45–​55.
Huang, X. and Huang X. (2015). Resilient city and its planning framework. Planning Studies. 39 (2): 50–​56.
Jiang,Y., Zevenbergen, C., and Fu, D. (2017). Can “sponge cities” mitigate China’s increased occurrences of
urban flooding. Aquademia Water Environ. Technol. 1(1): 3–​7.
Li, X., Liu,Y., Shi, F., and Huang, M. (2016). Severe water ecology crisis in urban and rural areas in China
and comprehensive governance of water resources environment. Shanghai Urban Management. 1: 20–​
23. (In Chinese).

141
Quan Yuan

Liu, J. and Zeng, Z. (2014). Development of a resilient city evaluation index system and a relevant empirical
study. E-​Government. 3: 82–​88. (In Chinese).
Miller, D.S. and Rivera, J.D. (eds.) (2016). Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global
Opportunities and Challenges. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Morita, L., Yoshikiko, I. Taiichi, K., Mastsumoto, S, Takahashi, K., Suzuki, Z., and Ishio, H. (2017). Towards
a city where no major earthquakes will occur. Japanese Academic Conference, Civil Engineering and
Architecture Committee, Sub-​Committee on Disaster Prevention and Mitigation of Large Earthquakes.
(In Chinese). www.scj.go.jp/​ja/​info/​kohyo/​pdf/​kohyo-​23-​t249-​1-​cn.pdf.
Ouyang, H. and Ye, Q. (2016). A review on the evolution of resilient city theory: Concept, context and ten-
dency. Planning Studies. 40 (3): 34–​42. (In Chinese).
Resilience Alliance. Urban Resilience Research Prospectus (2007). Australia: CSIRO. www.resalliance.org/​
index.php/​urban_​resilience.
Rockefeller Foundation and ARUP. (2015). City Resilience Index. December. https://​ assets.
rockefellerfoundation.org/​app/​uploads/​20160201132303/​CRI-​Revised-​Booklet1.pdf.
Roxburgh, H. (2017). China’s “sponge cities” are turning streets green to combat flooding. The Guardian.
December 28. www.theguardian.com/​world/​2017/​dec/​28/​chinas-​sponge-​cities-​are-​turning-​streets-​
green-​to-​combat-​flooding.
Shao Y. and Xu, J. (2015). Understanding urban resilience: A conceptual analysis based on integrated inter-
national literature Review. Urban Planning International. 2: 48–​54.
Sun, Z. (2014). Causal factors of local floods in Beijing central city. Geographical research. 33(9):1668–​1679.
(In Chinese).
Tang, Q., Li, Y., and Xu, Y. (2015). Land suitability assessment for post-​earthquake reconstruction: A case
study of Lushan in Sichuan, China. Journal of Geographical Sciences. 25(7): 865–​878.
Teets, J.C. (2009). Post-​earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts: The emergence of civil society in
China? The China Quarterly. 198: 330–​347.
UNISDR (2012). How to make cities more resilient: a handbook for local government leaders. A con-
tribution to the Global Campaign 2010–​2015. www.unisdr.org/​files/​26462_​handbookfinalonline
version.pdf.
University of California Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies. Building Resilient Regions.
Berkeley, CA: The University of California. http://​ brr.berkeley.edu/​rci/​site/​
sources. (Accessed 18
November 2018).
Xinhuanet (2016). Nearly half of the 30 Pilot Sponge Cities are suffering from urban flooding. July 26.
www.xinhuanet.com/​politics/​2016-​07/​26/​c_​1119283044.htm.
Xinhuanet. (2018). Natural disasters caused 881 deaths and direct economic losses of 301.87 billion RMB
in 2017. www.xinhuanet.com/​gongyi/​2018-​02/​02/​c_​129804162.htm.
Xie, L. (2009). Lessons learnt from Wenchuan earthquake. Journal of Nanjing University of Technology. 31
(1): 1–​8. (In Chinese).
Xu, Z. (2015). Policy evolution and local practice of sponge cities with Chinese characteristics. Shanghai
Urban Management. 1: 49–​54. (In Chinese).
Xu, Z.,Wang,Y., Guo, J., and Pan, L. (2014). Strategic thinking on promoting urban planning and construc-
tion of the resilience cities in China. Urban Development Studies. 21 (5): 79–​84. (In Chinese).
Ye, L., Lu, X., Zhe, Q., and Peng, F. (2008). Analysis on building seismic damage in the Wenchuan earth-
quake. 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Beijing, China.
Ying, Y. and Liu, H. (2017). Collaborative and smart: path choice of sponge city based on the practice of
Shenzhen. Urbanism and Architecture. 27: 49–​52. (In Chinese).
Ying, S. (2009). Post-​earthquake reconstruction: towards a much more participatory planning. Theoretical
and Empirical Researches in Urban Management. 4(1S): 27–​37.
Yu, K. (2016). Sponge City: Theories and Practices. Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press.

142
 12
Building urban resilience
to climate change
The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

Fernando Aragón-​Durand*

I dedicate this chapter to the memory of my beloved mom Patricia.

Introduction
Mexico is internationally known as a country that has made substantial progress in tackling
disasters. The National Civil Protection System, established in 1986, has created institutions,
financial schemes and implemented policies aimed at making regions and cities more resilient
to the impact of natural hazards such as floods and earthquakes. It can be said that the country
is well equipped to organize and carry out preparedness, emergency, and restoration actions.
Nonetheless, there is a long way to go when it comes to managing disaster risk and creating safer
and more resilient cities.
The Mexico City Megalopolis (MCM) has “performed” as an “urban laboratory” to “test”
disaster prevention measures and policies that eventually have been replicated by other Mexican
cities. Recently –​September 19, 2017-​a high magnitude earthquake (7.1 degrees on the Richter
scale) impacted MCM so the institutional and organizational capacities were put to the test once
again.To that respect, some claimed that thanks to the improvement of civil protection measures,
such as the enforcement of stringent building codes since the late 1980s, damages were minor
and the death toll was low. One can argue that Mexico City, despite the consequences of past and
recent earthquakes and floods, is in some degree resilient to these natural hazards.
Regarding adaptation to climate change, MCM has made modest progress because, among
other reasons, the emphasis has been placed on climate change mitigation.1 Despite the fact
that the MCM is constantly exposed to weather-​related and climate hazards (heavy rainfalls,
droughts and heat waves) that may be likely amplified by climate change, adaptation policy
and responses are very few, insufficient and disarticulated from urban development planning
and policy. This might be due to the fact that climate change is conceived mainly as an
environmental issue that is being addressed at a policy level by the Mexico City Ministry of
Environment (SEDEMA).

143
Fernando Aragón-Durand

MCM has developed institutions, infrastructure, technical expertise, and finance to build
resilience to floods but the prevailing approach has focussed on technical works so socio-​
ecological measures and responses are not seen as part of the solution. Besides, civil protection,
climate change and urban development agendas are isolated from each other, a situation that may
jeopardize the feasibility and efficiency of policies when it comes to building a more resilient
urban development. With this regard, it is worth noting that the government of Mexico City
has designed a number of hydraulic engineering systems and strategies to prevent disasters of
hydro-​meteorological origin and it is only when floods occurred that the civil protection sector
organizes emergency and restoration actions along with the Water and Sanitation System of
Mexico City (SACMEX). It is in this policy context that climate change adaptation is being
framed.
On one hand, the Ministry of Civil Protection of Mexico City and the 16 Civil Protection
Departments of the Mexico City Alcaldías (formerly known as delegaciones2) are constantly being
urged to tackle floods in compliance to the Mexico City Civil Protection Law. On the other
hand, regarding adaptation, the Mexico City Climate Action Program (2014) and the Local
Strategy of Climatic Action (2014) propose some adaptation actions. It is worth mentioning that
very recently (since 2017) the governments of some alcaldías have finalized their local climate
action plans, of which nine out of 16 have been officially published3 whereas the rest4 of them
are not yet finalized (Estrella-​López 2018). So, few local responses from within alcaldías have been
implemented such as rainwater catchment in some public government buildings (Benito Juárez
and Tlalpan) and schools (Azcapotzalco). Also, it is worth mentioning that MCM has designed
and started implementing the Resilience Strategy5 as part of the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative
sponsored by The Rockefeller Foundation in which five pillars specify the way forward to
achieving a resilient future. In particular Pillar Two promotes water resilience.6
The objective of this chapter is to analyze how resilience to the impacts of climate change
is being built at a megalopolis scale by focussing on the disaster risk management (DRM) and
climate change adaptation (CCA) policies. In particular, the chapter seeks to identify common
values and meanings between the two policies in order to propose ways of improvement. By
understanding how values and meanings are playing out at the policy level one could locate syn-
ergies between the two policies that would foster resilience.
By using the case of MMC, this chapter intends to make a contribution to the knowledge on
resilience to climate change at a megalopolitan scale from a social constructionist perspective; a
perspective rarely employed to analyze urban resilience which has been traditionally addressed
from a positivist approach emphasizing its ecological–​biophysical dimension (Miller et al. 2010).
Moreover, as stated by Tanner et al. (2017:13): “there is a growing acceptance that resilience can
be determined not only by objectively determined indicators, but also by the subjective values
and perceptions of people regarding what makes them resilient”. The following questions guide
the chapter:

• How is the MMC tackling floods and climate change at policy level?
• What are the linkages between DRM and CCA at a megalopolitan scale?
• What are the shared values and meanings between CCA policy and disaster risk reduction
policy that could underpin resilience building?

The chapter is developed in six sections. Section 2 characterizes Mexico City as a megalop-
olis in urban, economic, and environmental terms. Section 3 describes the flood vulnerability
as a chronic and historical feature of Mexico City’s development. This is done with the aim of
understanding the prevailing technical approach to floods and examining current conditions and

144
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

responses that could promote climate change adaptation. Section 4 moves on to analyzing the
impacts of climate change in the MMC, section 5 examines CRM and CCA policy that could
contribute to building resilience and section 6 proposes a way to integrate a constructionist ana-
lysis of meanings and values into urban resilience to climate change.

The Mexico City Megalopolis

Mexico City bloomed in the hydrological basin of Mexico,7 known as the place where four
valleys in the central region meet. These valleys, Valle de México, Valle de Cuautitlán, Valle de
Apan, and Valle de Tizayuca, are delimited by three major mountain ranges that guard the metro-
politan landscape (see Figure 12.1).
Mexico City has sprawled specifically in the Valle de México, covering an area of nearly
1,500 km2. The Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City, as of 2010, covered the total area of Federal
District8 and also includes 59 municipalities of the State of Mexico, and one corresponding to
the state of Hidalgo. The total area spreads over 7,866 km2 whereas only the urbanized area
covers 2,884 km2 (Negrete Salas 2016).
For several decades of the twentieth century, the urban area of Mexico City was circumscribed
to the political limits of the former Federal District and it is divided into 16 alcaldías. Since
Mexico City is located in the southwestern part of the basin of Mexico, a great size of its ter-
ritory is in low terrain that was formerly part of several water bodies such as lakes, rivers, and
ravines. Namely, the alcaldías of Gustavo A. Madero, Azcapotzalco, Miguel Hidalgo, Cuauhtémoc,
Venustiano Carranza, Benito Juárez, Iztacalco, Iztapalapa, Tláhuac, Coyoacán, and Xochimilco,
are located in former lake areas. (Aguilar 2000) The rest of the alcaldías correspond to moun-
tainous terrains or transition areas from plains to mountain ranges: Milpa Alta,Tlalpan, Magdalena
Contreras, Álvaro Obregón, and Cuajimalpa (see Figure 12.2).
In the last century, Mexico experienced an accelerated urban and economic growth. Mexico
City became the most important economic and urban center of the country. One of the most
noticeable factors of this was the emerging patterns of metropolitan and megalopolitan concen-
tration. Mexico City has had, since 1940, an important concentration of the country’s GDP. In
that year, the GDP in the capital city reached 32.4 per cent. By 1950, the GDP rose to 40.4 per
cent, and in 1960 it reached 46 per cent.Therefore, since the twentieth century Mexico City has
played a dominant economic role in contributing to the country’s GDP (Sobrino 2000).
Apart from the growing concentration of economic activity and means of production, it
is important to note that the companies established in Mexico City were far larger and more
modern –​as well as more productive, for they have higher profit rates –​than those in the rest of
the country (Garza 2000a). Some industries have since suffered a drastic reduction in output to
almost 30 per cent by 1998; however, a remarkable development in the economy and concen-
tration of the GDP in Mexico City since the 1940s has placed this city in the peak of economic
investments.
The dramatic growth of Mexico City has not only brought about prominent economic
success but also environmental problems. Environmental problems have proliferated as a conse-
quence of the massive and systematic anthropogenic intervention over a network of ecosystems
that is losing its capacity to regenerate and provide resources. In order to address this problem,
public policies need to consider the social nature in the construction of the environment; not
only in material terms but also in political ones. (Lezama 2000). In other words, this means that
policies oriented to contribute to resilience building should aim at integrating also the political,
ideological, and discursive dimension of the environment, in particular of the natural hazards
(such as floods) that permanently affect urban development, into concrete measures and actions.

145
 Sketchmap 1. Basin of Mexico Hidalgo Puebla
N
a
▲ utl
▲▲ ua
Valle de Tizayuca ▲▲▲ ichic
▲ Ch
e ▲▲▲
r r a d ▲▲▲
▲ Sie ▲▲▲▲
▲▲▲▲ ▲▲▲▲ ▲▲
▲▲▲▲▲ ▲▲▲ ▲
▲▲▲
▲▲
▲▲ Valle de apan
Sierr
Valle de Cuautitlan ▲▲
a de
Guad ▲▲
alupe

▲▲▲
▲▲▲
▲▲▲
▲▲▲
▲▲
Valle de México Basin of Mexico

▲▲▲
sierra
▲▲▲
de
Mexico City Metropolitan Area

▲▲▲
Tlaxcala
Mexico

Patia
▲▲▲
City States

ch
▲▲▲▲ Major mountain ranges

ique
Mexico Valleys
State

Figure 12.1 Basin of Mexico

Source: Author’s own elaboration
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

Figure 12.2 Alcaldías of Mexico City

Source: Author’s own elaboration

Floods, hydraulic works and disaster vulnerability

Floods have been a chronic problem in Mexico City. One of the most severe floods occurred
in 1553 and, while attempting to contain it, the Viceroy Velasco ordered the reconstruction of
the prehispanic albarradón9 of Nezahualpilli. It was not until the seventeenth century that a dike
system was built, taking into consideration the former network of dikes built in Tenochtitlan.
Nevertheless, the dike system proved to be insufficient, and floods continued to affect the City
(Garza 2000). During the late nineteenth century, and under the government of President
Porfirio Díaz (1876–​1910), Mexico City underwent an unprecedented population growth. The
most relevant urban public works were the construction of the Gran Canal del Desagüe (Grand
Canal), paving the metropolitan roads, and the substitution of aqueducts with piped water. By
that time, Mexico City had nearly 345,000 inhabitants, and natural resources within the Valley of
Mexico were largely sufficient to meet the inhabitants’ needs.
The twentieth century brought about great crises within the Basin of Mexico. The urban
structure of Mexico City offers a broad picture of the way the megalopolitan landscape has been
articulated and transformed. Mexico City’s water source from the sixteenth to the nineteenth

147
Fernando Aragón-Durand

centuries was nurtured mainly by two springs: Santa Fe and Chapultepec. However, these
springs were drained. In order to maintain the water distribution in the city, a new project was
implemented with new sources of water namely, the springs of La Noria, Nativitas, Santa Cruz,
and, San Luis located in the alcaldía of Xochimilco. (Espinoza and Cortés 2012) The early twen-
tieth century brought in Mexico City a new challenge with the purpose of building a system of
freshwater. In 1905, an aqueduct of concrete was constructed to distribute the waters from the
Chapultepec and Santa Fe springs to the pipelines of the city.
Floods continued occurring throughout the first half of the twentieth century even with
the Grand Canal. The second half of the twentieth century was critical for Mexico City’s vul-
nerability to floods. In the 1950s, major floods affected the city’s main downtown roads. These
floods showed the vulnerability of the drainage system to land subsidence caused by decades
of groundwater extraction. Floods, therefore, were the result of a complex interaction between
urbanization in an ex-​lacustrine area, permanent ecological deterioration and ground subsid-
ence, poor sanitation, and inadequate policy responses (Aragón-​Durand 2007). The excessive
extraction of underground water within the Basin of Mexico has affected the lacustrine clay and
the lower sediment layers, resulting in a progressive sinking of the terrain. Groundwater extrac-
tion damaged drainage infrastructure (Lesser et al. 1998).
Despite the hydraulic works put into place over the years to solve the flooding crises and as
Mexico City kept on expanding, the draining needs of a metropolis of such scale were not met.
Consequently, these conditions necessitated the construction of a draining system that would not
be affected by subsidence and could operate by gravity without the need for constant pumping.
This gave rise to the Sistema de Drenaje Profundo de la Ciudad de México (Deep Drainage
System of Mexico City). The first stage of this project’s development was concluded in 1975
with the development of the Emisor Central (Central Emitter), a tunnel with a diameter of 6.5
meters, a length of 50 kilometers, and a capacity of 200 m3 per second; as well as a series of vents
with a depth of 50–​237 meters.The most important function of the Emisor Central is to dispose
the waters of the Sistema de Drenaje Profundo out of the Valley of Mexico (Espinoza 2012).
Currently, the drainage system of Mexico City has a primary network of 2,087 kilometers
of sewage pipes and a secondary network of 10,237 kilometers of pipes, 68 pump stations,
numerous dams, reservoirs, and regulation tanks, 111 kilometres of deep collectors (interceptors)
and tunnels. There are also 25 treatment plants in the Federal District and 45 in the munici-
palities of the state of Mexico,10 with a total installed capacity of 10.2 cubic meters per second.
Only 9 per cent of the water is treated, and evidence suggests that the untreated portion might
contaminate the sub-​soil and even the aquifer system (Romero-​Lankao 2010). More recently
in 2008, the city’s government began the construction of a solution, namely, the Túnel Emisor
Oriente (Eastern Tunnel). This tunnel serves as a new drainage alternative to decrease the
flood risks for the city (Tellman et al. 2018). In short the prevailing approach to floods is a
technical–​engineering one.

Climate change in Mexico City Megalopolis

Knowledge of the impact of climate change in MMC is slowly increasing but evidence of how
climate change vulnerability is being amplified as a result of urbanization is very scarce and still
cannot provide reliable information to urban development policy and planning-​even though
this problem is recognized by the Mexico City Climate Action Program (2014) and the Local
Strategy of Climatic Action (2014); no information has been provided to fill the gap. Little
research has been done to inform policy choices and to explain the extent to which populations
and sectors will be put at climate risk in the coming decades. In this sense, strategic sectors such

148
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

as water conservation are key to building resilience so the impact of climate change on water
provision and sanitation should be assessed in the context of increasing demand, deterioration of
catchment areas, degradation of water quality and reduction of recharging areas (Aragón-​Durand
and Delgado-​Ramos 2016).
As described in section 3, MMC has suffered from floods and climate change is expected to
amplify them. As stated by the Ministry of Environment of Mexico City, the greatest climate
change risk is associated with heavy rainfall and flooding (SEDEMA 2014b). Intense precipi-
tation events have already taken place 180 times in the last 30 years and have flooded various
vulnerable areas in Mexico City’s alcaldías, with more extreme effects for poor unserviced
settlements.The situation is expected to worsen as climate change intensifies and as deforestation
increases, especially given the inadequate management of the city’s drainage system. Moreover,
the expected decrease in precipitation during the dry season may result in a greater water ser-
vice disruption than that already experienced in certain urban areas (SEDEMA 2014b, quoted
in Aragón-​Durand and Delgado-​Ramos 2016).
According to the Mexico City Office of Resilience, one of the most serious circumstances
that increase vulnerability in certain sectors of Mexico City is the hydro-​meteorological risk.
Some phenomena associated with this sort of risk are heavy rainfalls, which can result in floods
that seriously destabilize slopes; hailstorms; heatwaves; and strong winds that may cause infra-
structural damage, hence affecting the city (Oficina de Resiliencia CDMX 2016).
At the local level in the MCM, flood risk is being perceived and framed differently amongst
and within the alcaldías. The alcaldía of Cuajimalpa is exposed to the highest landslides risk
and to a lesser extent north of Iztapalapa and the alcaldías of Coyoacán, Gustavo A. Madero,
Cuauhtémoc, and Iztapalapa are exposed to high level of flood risk whereas Xochimilco and
Tláhuac to medium level of risk. Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero have little capacities for
coping with flood impacts. According to Delgado-​Ramos et al. (2015) this situation is not
recognized in the Mexico City Climate Action Program that is focussed on the sewage infra-
structure by highlighting the maintenance to the Deep Drainage System of Mexico City and the
consequences that subsidence has in water provision and sewage.
According to the National Center for Disaster Prevention of Mexico (CENAPRED),
Azcapotzalco, Benito Juárez, Coyoacán, Cuauhtémoc, Gustavo Madero, Iztacalco, Iztapalapa,
Miguel Hidalgo, Tláhuac, Venustiano Carranza, and Xochimilco have the highest level of risk
exposure (see Table 12.1) because, among other reasons, they are located in the central and
east zones of the MCM, which is characterised by a flat topography. Another indirect indicator
of bio-​physical exposure to weather-​related hazards is the number of contingencies reported
between 2000 and 2016. (CENAPRED 2015, 2016, 2017, quoted in Estrella-​López 2018) See
Table 12.1 below.
Besides, another factor that may contribute to flood and landslides vulnerability is the topog-
raphy, which is characterized by high slopes, a condition that is found in the alcaldías located in
the southwestern zones (see Figure 12.2).

Building urban resilience to the impacts of climate change: From flood

risk management to climate change adaptation
Urban specialists have recognized the importance of identifying linkages between disaster risk
reduction and CCA in order to build urban resilience (Solecki et al. 2011; Aragón-​Durand
2011a; Schipper and Pelling 2006; Pelling 2011). These fields are connected through a common
goal, which is reducing the impacts of extreme events and increasing urban resilience to disasters
(Solecki et al. 2011). However, one can argue that in practice in MCM such connections are not

149
Fernando Aragón-Durand

Table 12.1 Flood and landslides risk in the alcaldías of the Mexico City Megalopolis

Delegación Flood risk Landslide risk Weather-​related

contingencies

Alvaro Obregón Medium Very high 1

Azcapotzalco Very high High 0
Benito Juárez Very high High 0
Coyoacán Very high Very high 0
Cuajimalpa Very high Very high 0
Cuauhtémoc Very high Low 0
Gustavo Madero Very high Very high 2
Iztacalco Very high Low 2
Iztapalapa Very high High 2
Magdalena Contreras Low Very high 0
Miguel Hidalgo Very high Very high 1
Milpa Alta Low High 5
Tláhuac Very high High 2
Tlalpan Low Very high 2
V. Carranza Very high Medium 2
Xochimilco Very high Very high 3

Source: National Centre for Disaster Prevention in: Estrella-​López (2018: 27)

easy to identify for several reasons: (1) Different public ministries are in charge of those policies
so institutional barriers play a role, (2) Conceptualizations and meanings of hazard and risk differ
between DRM and CCA, and (3) Priority is given to DRM through the allocation of more
resources to emergency actions instead of investing in disaster risk reduction measures.
MCM has been committed to tackle extreme natural hazards through civil protection and
drainage works. At the local level, alcaldías are not well equipped –​financial resources and human
capacities are limited –​to assess risk and to act before a flood occurs. However, the need to adapt
to climate change will make alcaldías more aware that local and decentralized DRM actions11
could prove to be a feasible and even an efficient way of tackling climate change. This could be
done both by improving existing DRM local measures and designing and implementing adap-
tation actions.
Table 12.2 presents a set of adaptation actions at the level of the alcaldías that is being currently
put into place with the support of SEDEMA. Focus is put on those that contribute to reducing
flood risk and adaptation to climate risk.
It is worth mentioning that the local governments of alcaldías try to stick to the MCM
Climate Action Program and get support from the SEDEMA staff to design climate actions. In
this sense and in order to really foster adaptation it is important that the Alcalde (head of alcaldía)
and his high level staff are aware of the role flood risk management plays in CCA. So far, some
alcaldías have shown more interest than others in conceiving, in practical terms, at least climate
change as a flood risk reduction issue of public concern. It is foreseen that in the short term
governments of alcaldías will still rely on what the SEDEMA can do and the extent of support
SEDEMA can provide to the alcaldías and whether the elected government of Mexico City will
be committed to continue doing so in order to strengthen capacity building for resilience.
In the light of previous analysis of climate change policy of Mexico City, several obstacles
have to be overcome for the SEDEMA and the Secretary of Civil Protection to be able to make
synergies and empower local actions. For example, MCM Climate Action Program 2014–​2020
addresses resilience building through updating the Hazards and Risk Atlas, implementing the

150
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

Table 12.2 Disaster risk management and climate change adaptation action in the alcaldías of the
Mexico City Megalopolis

Axis of the Local Strategy Line of MCM Climate Actions being implemented at the level
of Climate Action MCM Action Program of the alcaldías

Environmental Water conservation and Projects on the use of rainwater in Azcapotzalco

improvement rainwater catchment (public schools) and Benito Juárez and Tlalpan
(administrative premises).
Water security Water bodies conservation Restoration and maintenance of freshwater
pipe networks in Azcapotzalco, Benito Juárez,
Cuajimalpa, Cuauhtémoc. Hydrological
restoration in Parque Fuentes Brotantes and the
Eslava and Buenaventura rivers.
Resilience building Flood risk reduction and Maintenance of the sewage system in
impact mitigation Azcapotzalco, Benito Juárez, Cuajimalpa,
Cuauhtémoc, Miguel Hidalgo, Tláhuac.
Emergency plans and immediate responses in
Tláhuac.
Education and Citizens 'empowerment Environmental education workshops in public
communication schools in Azcapotzalco, Benito Juárez,
Cuajimalpa, Cuauhtémoc, Magdalena C.,
Miguel H., Tláhuac, Tlalpan.

Source: own elaboration based on Estrella-​López (2018)

program of the Hydrometeorological Risk Prevention and the Environmental Fund. However,
there are some shortcomings to be addressed. No vulnerability analysis of key sectors was under-
taken, and the conceptual underpinnings for adaptation focus on identification of meteoro-
logical risks posed by extreme events with no clear distinction between the adaptation agenda
and the existing civil protection agenda. Besides, no connection is identified with climate change
scenarios, and there are no explicit linkages between the proposed resilience-​building actions
and the existing and future environmental, water resources, and soil conservation and urbaniza-
tion regulation actions (Aragón-​Durand and Delgado-​Ramos 2016).
The rationale behind the civil protection tools and intervention is to act once flooding
has occurred, not to address the underlying causes that put people at risk. This has made for a
reactive civil protection system that is not fully integrated with the development agenda of the
city in terms of long-​term climate risk reduction.This has had severe and negative manifestations
and implications in the land use planning of vulnerable areas and the lack of conservation of
surrounding ecosystems that may provide risk reduction services. Each of the 16 alcaldías has a
civil protection unit that in practice functions to only put out fires, and to assist people once an
earthquake strikes or a flood creates havoc. But, as explained above, there are indications that in
some alcaldías climate change actions are beginning to be more common.
Disaster prevention policy in the MCM has exerted a huge influence on society and policy
making. It has shaped the way policymakers, scientists, and lay people perceive weather and
climate-​related events as mainly natural extreme events that can be tackled through civil engin-
eering infrastructure, education, and behavioral change. (Aragón-​Durand 2011).
One way of identifying linkages between DRM and CCA to foster urban resilience is through
understanding discourses, meanings, and values. A discourse analysis is sensitive to the various
ways risk and hazard objects are socially constructed. As analyzed by Aragón-​Durand (2011),
the social constructionist approach to disasters and risk provides theoretical, epistemological,

151
Fernando Aragón-Durand

and methodological bases for understanding how meanings and policy values construct floods
as disaster problems in discursive terms. In the next part, five methodological considerations are
proposed for analyzing meanings and policy values to be applied to urban resilience building.

Urban resilience to climate change as a meaning making process

Under the constructionist perspective, I propose that understandings of natural hazards, flood
risk, disaster, and resilience not only concern the material world or physical conditions, but ideas,
social meanings, and discourses and their implications in policy making, in that they prescribe
and indicate courses of action. Therefore, integrating the analysis of meanings and values into
building resilience to climate change may shed light on how to identify links between flood
risk management and CCA at the discursive level. In this sense, urban resilience building can be
conceived as a meaning making process. As Meerow et al. (2016) propose, “enacting urban resili-
ence is inevitably a contested process in which diverse stakeholders are involved and their motiv-
ations, power dynamics, and trade-​offs play out across spatial and temporal scales. Therefore,
resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why needs to be carefully considered”.
Flood risk management and CCA in the MCM are complex processes not only due to the
great variety of components and interrelations of the socio-​ecological urban system at different
spatial and time scales but also due to the existence of varying interpretations, meanings and
policy values of those institutions and actors involved. Here follows three considerations for a
social constructionist analysis of urban resilience at the policy level based on Aragón-​Durand
(2011).This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but a preliminary one that intends to contribute
to conceiving urban resilience as a meaning making process.

Social Nature of Hazards and Risk in DRM and CCA

The social constructionist view conceives of “nature” as a contested “site”, and no agreeable and
singular meaning or definition can be reached because policy contexts and subjects differ. This
signifies that knowledge and conceptualizations are context-​specific and depend upon who is
defining them and for what purposes. In this vein it is proposed to explore the meanings of hazards
and risk in both fields –​DRM and CCA –​in particular in the different social domains of each one;
namely science, decision-​makers, affected/​vulnerable people, knowledge brokers, among others.
In DRM natural hazards are extreme phenomena capable of causing disasters and damages
but from a social constructionist perspective natural hazards can be conceived as social in nature
and their meanings differ according to the social domains of disaster namely disaster governance,
science, and disaster management and local coping responses.The discursive approach developed
by Aragón-​Durand (2011) evidenced the variety of flood claims and meanings and their rela-
tion with discourses, subject’s identities and institutions when studying the case of peri-​urban
floods in the State of Mexico. Four flood discourses were identified and within each of them
the meanings of floods causality varied.12 One key element in shaping discourses is the type
of evidence and how it is used to support the claim. Even though it was stated by scientists,
policymakers and implementers that Chalco Valley’s floods were real facts, the differing manufac-
ture and use of evidence, which are loaded with values, meanings and contesting beliefs, showed
that the moment disaster causality “enters” the realm of policy the explanation is subject to the
policymaker’s own interpretation.
By analyzing the variety of claims and counterclaims Aragón-​Durand (2011) demonstrated
that risk floods and the floods themselves were not objective situations or events but the result of
a complex process of claim making. In this, the discursive construction of floods played a relevant

152
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

role when excluding blame and responsibility from human action. This was clearly seen in the
technically based claims that intended to portray the flood causes as neutral or even more clearly
in the way policymakers explain them as accidental events. Within the CCA climate change
impacts are more difficult to perceive and measure because changes in the climatic conditions
and variability take place in longer periods of time and because uncertainty prevails regarding
the spatial distribution of impacts. In addition, cause–​effect relations are difficult to elucidate
when drawing climate change scenarios (years 2030, 2050, and 2100). Thomalla et al. (2006)
assert that uncertainty of socio-​economic scenarios and of the global circulation models with
regards to frequency, magnitude and spatial distribution of future climate hazards is the result of
incomplete knowledge about the impacts at national, regional, and local levels. For this reason,
building populations adaptive capacities becomes necessary more than ever and in this context
the articulation of DRM and CCA is pertinent in the design and implementation of socially
sensitive disaster prevention policies in the light of a changing climate.

Meaning Making Process in DRM and CCA

Building urban resilience at a policy level implies a meaning making process of both DRM and
CCA policy discourses. In this vein, it is important to recognize that the boundaries of each
domain (of both policy fields) are given both by the content and meaning of the claims and by
the subject’s values and beliefs with regard to the discourse in which he/​she is positioned. It is
important to acknowledge that there may be competing claims and discourses within a social
domain and, of course, between all domains that inform the given policy field. This is what
Giddens (1984 quoted in Pelling and Manuel-​Navarrete 2011) refer to as structures of significa-
tion, interpretations or meanings to make sense of experience.
In the case of the peri-​urban floods referred to above, the system of meanings varied
according to how the floods were framed in a particular policy discourse. In rhetorical terms it
was found that the floods meant: a) a social condition (living at risk), b) an educational meta-
phor (floods are lessons for risk ignorant or a learning experience), c) socio-​ecological process
(“natural balance” disrupted by urbanization) and d) a “natural” accident (humans cannot cope
with unforeseen natural forces). Rhetoric of climate change and the systems of meanings that
shape adaptation discourses share some similarities with disaster discourses. Adapting to climate
change as an unavoidable social condition in the light of future changes (humanity will be living
at climate risk). The concept of Greenhouse Gases is a rhetorical device to translate complex
atmospheric dynamics into a knowable and manageable situation. As stated by Stone (1989) dif-
ficult conditions become policy problems when individuals come to regard these as amenable
to human action.
Exploring metaphors that underpin disaster risk management and climate change adapta-
tion may provide shared/​common points of convergence and discourse coalition that could
form an advocacy coalition that, in turn, could underpin resilience building in the urban and
development policy arena. According to Sabatier (1993, quoted in Aragón-​Durand 2011:231) an
advocacy coalition consists “of people from a variety of [public and private sector] positions …
who share a particular belief system-​that is, a set of basic values, causal assumptions, and problem
perceptions-​and who show a nontrivial degree of coordinated activity over time.”

Location of the Subject in the Policy Discourse

The examination of the subject’s position within an institution, his/​her identity, and values are as
important as the risk and hazards ‘objects’ in question and how the relationship between the two

153
Fernando Aragón-Durand

can be established and evaluated. Floods and climate risk can be framed differently between the
two policy fields when the subject’s influence and power within the institution he/​she works is
high and determine the terms of reference for the policy making process.
For instance, the image of the government differs according to the type of discourse.When a flood
disaster is discursively constructed as the result of ignorance of hazards and unsafe conditions, the
government claims to be the “expert” when assessing a flooding risky area and perceives inhabitants
as ignorant of their own social condition. Government officials are convinced that inhabitants (“risk
ignorants”) have to be taught to change their behavior and avoid hazards or “co-​exist” with dis-
aster risk and in this sense educating vulnerable people is conceived as the adequate policy response.
Government officials decide which are the objectives and content of the policy instrument (such as
information campaign, practice of emergency drills, the use of early warning systems, etc) without
taking into consideration inhabitants’ knowledge, coping practices, values and local contexts. Climate
change adaptation policy in Mexico City draws, in some cases, from this type of policy formulation
when environmental government officials in the alcaldías design adaptation strategies that are meant
to capacitate people in the light of climate change as described above in Table 12.2.

Concluding remarks
Building urban resilience to climate change in the MCM involves flood risk management and
climate change adaptation. Civil protection system is the policy foundation for disaster risk man-
agement from where climate change adaptation is being designed. Information systems, institu-
tional capacities and planning tools and programs at megalopolis and alcaldía level can contribute
to climate change adaptation and thus to resilience building.
Chronic floods have tested urban systems and local communities in the MCM, which has
developed institutions, infrastructure, technical expertise and finance to build resilience to floods
but the prevailing approach has focussed on technical works. In this sense, reduction of flood
vulnerability of people employing a participatory approach to risk management is needed in all
alcaldías. Climate change adaptation policy and planning in the MCM is still in its infancy; few
adaptation actions are being implemented at the level of alcaldías which in itself is a good step
forward to resilience building.
It is expected that climate change will amplify the magnitude of extreme weather events in
the MCM. In this vein, tackling floods is a priority for Mexico City government. One way of
identifying linkages between DRM and CCA to foster urban resilience is through understanding
of how discourses, meanings, and values are playing out at the policy level. A discourse analysis
is sensitive to the various ways risk and hazard objects are socially constructed. Three consider-
ations are presented for approaching urban resilience from a social constructionist perspective
focusing on the meaning making process.

Notes

* I would like to thank Esteban Riva-​Palacio Gómez for his research assistantship and enthusiasm, Julián
Estrella-​López for his information on Mexico City climate change policy and the sketchmaps and Dean
Mohammed Chaim for his valuable comments.
1 According to the Mexico City Ministry of Environment (quoted in Aragón-​Durand and Delgado-​
Ramos 2016) between 2008 and 2012 when the Climate Change Action Plan of Mexico City was put
into place, 5.8 million tons of CO2e were mitigated and the expected increase of GHG emissions for
that period was neutralized as for direct emissions were concerned.
2 A delegación is the political and administrative territorial unit in which Mexico City is divided. Each
delegación is led by a Jefe Delegacional (Head of the Delegación), who is elected by popular and direct vote.

154
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

The new Political Constitution of Mexico City (2017) states that delegaciones have become alcaldías.The
main difference between a delegación and an alcaldía is that the latter’s management will be supervised by
a group of 10–​15 people who will form a council that will ultimately evaluate administrative actions.
Alcaldías will have autonomy in the economic administration, for there will not be a dependence of any
sorts from the budget that is currently given to the delegaciones from the Finance Ministry of Mexico
City. Nevertheless, when it comes to territory demarcation, both delegaciones and alcaldías remain exactly
the same. (Corona 2017)
3 Climate Change Action Plans at alcaldía level published as of 2018 are the following: Milpa Alta (2015),
Benito Juárez (2016), Azcapotzalco, Cuauhtémoc, Miguel Hidalgo, Magdalena Contreras, Cuajimalpa,
Tláhuac, and Tlalpan (all published in 2017)
4 Alcaldías of Alvaro Obregón, Coyoacán, Gustavo A. Madero, Iztacalco, Iztapalapa, Venustiano Carranza,
and Xochimilco.
5 According to the Head of the Resilience Office of Mexico City, as of August 2018, such strategy has
initiated its implementation (Interview on June 20, 2018)
6 The five pillars are: (1) Foster regional coordination, (2) Promote water resilience, (3) Plan for urban
and regional resilience, 4) Improve mobility and 5) Develop innovation and adaptive capacity. See
CDMX 2016.
7 Hereafter the Hydrological Basin of Mexico is referred to as the Basin of Mexico.
8 The Federal District, created in 1824 as a means to establish a permanent residence of the federal
authorities in Mexico City, has recently changed its name to Mexico City according to the new Political
Constitution of Mexico City (2017).
9 The word albarradón refers to a stone wall, or levee bridge, to prevent a place from flooding. A modern
albarradón would be a dike.
10 A project that made a remarkable progress in treated water is the Planta de Tratamiento de Aguas
Residuales Atotonilco (Residual Water Treatment Plant of Atotonilco). This plant treats the residual
water of Valley of Mezquital, Hidalgo.This location was chosen strategically because along the plant’s
surroundings one can find the outfall of the Túnel Emisor Central, the irrigation channels for agricul-
tural purposes are born there, and the flow of the Túnel Emisor Oriental reaches this area. The treated
water is used for agricultural irrigation, where approximately 700,000 people are benefited. Of these
people, 300,000 are exposed to sanitary threats that come from direct contact with the water.The Planta
de Tratamiento is considered to be the largest in Latin America, bearing a capacity to process up to
35 m3/​s, and up to 47 m3/​s during raining season. (SEMARNAT, n.d.)
11 Wilkinson and Aragón (2019) documented how decentralized DRM actions at local level in the State
of Yucatán, México, can promote climate change adaptation in the long run.
12 Discourse of inadvertence by “ignorance” and inadvertence by carelessness, discourse of accidental caus-
ality and structural causality.

References
Aguilar, A.G. (2000). Localización geográfica de la cuenca de México. La Ciudad de México en el fin del
segundo milenio. Mexico City: Colegio de México, AC.
Aragón-​Durand, F. (2007). Urbanisation and flood vulnerability in the peri-​urban interface of Mexico City.
Disasters: 477–​494.
Aragón-​Durand, F (2011). Disaster Discourses, Policy Values and Responses: The Social Construction of
Urban Floods in the Peri-​urban Interface of Mexico City. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
Aragón-​ Durand, F (2011a). Adaptación al cambio climático y gestión del riesgo a desastres en
México: obstáculos y posibilidades de articulación, en Cambio climático, Amenazas Naturales y Salud, cap.
IV, pp.131–​158 Programa LEAD MÉXICO, El Colegio de México.
Aragón-​Durand, F. and Delgado-​Ramos, G. (2016). Mexico City. In: S. Bartlett and D. Satterthwaite
(eds.): Cities on a Finite Planet: Towards transformative responses to climate change. London &
New York: Routledge, 149–​168.
CDMX (2016). CDMX Resilience Strategy. SEDEMA and 100 Resilient Cities.
Corona, S. (2017). CDMX, el paso de alcaldía a alcaldía. www.eleconomista.com.mx/​politica/​CDMX-​el-​
paso-​de-​delegacion-​a-​alcaldia-​20170611-​0020.html.
Delgado-​Ramos, G,A. De Luca,V.Vázquez (2015).Adaptación y mitigación del cambio climatico en México.
Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades. Mexico City: UNAM.

155
Fernando Aragón-Durand

Espinoza, V., Collado, J., Morales, J. and Hernández, J. (2012). El gran reto del agua en la Ciudad de
México: pasado, presente y prospectivas de solución para una de las ciudades más complejas del mundo.
Mexico City: Sistema de Aguas de la Ciudad de México.
Estrella-​López, J (2018). La Acción Climática de los Gobiernos Delegacionales de la Ciudad de México.
Mexico City: Tesis de Maestría en Ciencias de la Sostenibilidad. Instituto de Ecología-​Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México
GAR (2015). Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva: United Nations.
Garza, G. (2000). Introducción. La Ciudad de México en el fin del segundo milenio. Mexico City: Colegio
de México, AC.
Garza, G. (2000a). Superconcentración, crisis y globalización del sector industrial, 1930–​1998. La Ciudad de
México en el fin del segundo milenio. Mexico City: Colegio de México, AC.
IPCC (2018). Annex I: Glossary (R. Matthews (ed.)). In: V. Masson-​Delmotte, P. Zhai, H.O. Pörtner, D.
Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-​Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J.B.
R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M.I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, and T. Waterfield
(eds.): Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C
above pre-​industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of
strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts
to eradicate poverty.
Lesser Illades, J. and Cortés, M. (1998). El hundimiento del terreno en la ciudad de México y sus implicaciones
en el sistema de drenaje. Ingeniería Hidráulica en México. XIII (3): 13–​18.
Lezama, J.L. (2000). Degradación del medio ambiente. La Ciudad de México en el fin del segundo milenio.
Mexico City: Colegio de México, AC.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: a review. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 147: 38–​49.
Miller, F., Osbahr, H., Boyd, E., Thomalla, F., Bahrwani, S., Ziervogel, G., Walker, B., Birkmann, J., van der
Leeuw, S., Rockström, J., Hinkel, J., Downing, T., Folke, C., and Nelson, D. (2010). Resilience and
vulnerability: complementary or conflicting concepts? Ecology and Society. 15(3). https://​doi.org/​
10.5751/​ES-​03378-​150311.
Negrete Salas, M.E. (2016). Estructura urbana y procesos de organización del espacio metropolitano. La
Ciudad de México en el siglo XXI: realidades y retos. Ciudad de México: Miguel Ángel Porrúa.
Oficina de Resiliencia CDMX (2016). Estrategia de Resiliencia de la CDMX, transformación adaptativas,
incluyente y equitativa. Ciudad de México. www.100resilientcities.org/​wp-​content/​uploads/​2017/​07/​
CDMX-​Resilience Strategy-​Spanish.pdf. (Accessed June 20, 2018).
Pelling, M. (2011). Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation. London &
New York: Routledge.
Pelling, M. and Manuel-​Navarrete, D. (2011). From resilience to transformation: the adaptive cycle in two
Mexican urban centers. Ecology and Society. 16(2):11 www.ecologyandsociety.org/​vol16/​iss2/​art11/​
Research.
Revi, A., Satterthwaite, D.E., Aragón-​Durand, F., Corfee-​Morlot, J., Kiunsi, R.B.R., Pelling, M., Roberts,
D.C., and Solecki, W. (2014). Urban areas. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and
Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (C.B. Field, V.R. Barros, D.J.
Dokken,K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova,
B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea and L.L. White (eds.)). Cambridge,
United Kingdom and New York: Cambridge University Press, 535–​612.
Romero-​Lankao, P. (2010). Water in Mexico City: what will climate change bring to its history of water-​
related hazards and vulnerabilities? Environment and Urbanization. 22 (1): 157–​178.
SEDEMA (2014a) Estrategia Local de Acción Climática. 2014–​2020. México City: Centro Mario Molina.
SEDEMA (2014b) Programa de Acción Climática, 2014–​2020. Ciudad de México.
Schipper, L. and Pelling, M. (2006). Disasters risk, climate change and international development: Scope for,
and challenges to, integration. Disasters. 30 (1): 19–​38.
SEMARNAT (s.f.) Planta de Tratamiento de Aguas Residuales Atotonilco. National Water Commission
(Conagua), n.d. www.conagua.gob.mx/​Conagua07/​Publicaciones/​Publicaciones/​SGAPDS-​19-​11.pdf.
(Accessed November,2018).
Sobrino, J. (2000). Participación económica en el siglo XX. La Ciudad de México en el fin del segundo
milenio. México City: Colegio de México, AC.

156
 The case of Mexico City Megalopolis

Solecki, W., Leichenko, R., and O’Brien, K. (2011). Climate change adaptation strategies and disaster
risk reduction in cities: connections, contentions, and synergies. Current Opinion in Environmental
Sustainability. 3: 135–​141. DOI 10.1016/​j.cosust.2011.03.001.
Stone, D. (1989). Causal stories and the formation of policy agendas. Political Science Quarterly.
104(2): 281–​300.
Tanner, T., Bahadur, A., and Moench, M. (2017). Challenges for Resilience Policy and Practice.
London: Overseas Development Institute.
Tellman, B., Bausch, J., Eakin, H., Andries, J., Mazari-​Hiriat, M., Manuel-​Navarrete, D,. and Redman, C.
(2018). Adaptive pathways and coupled infrastructure: seven centuries of adaptation to water risk and
the production of vulnerability in Mexico City. Ecology and Society. 23 (1).
Thomalla, F., Downing, T., Spanger-​Siegfired, E., Han, G., and Rockstrom, J (2006). Reducing hazard
vulnerability: towards a common approach between disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation.
Disasters. 30(1): 39–​48.
Wilkinson, E. and Aragón-​Durand, F. (2019). Local level climate risk management in Mexico: Mission
impossible? LEAD Program. México City: El Colegio de México. In Press.

157
 13
Resilient urban water services
Åse Johannessen, Christine Wamsler, and Sophie Peter

Introduction
The sustainable development of cities is increasingly threatened by a worldwide water crisis
including dysfunctional urban water services (drinking water, sanitation, and drainage), polluted
and depleted water resources, droughts, and floods (World Economic Forum 2017). At the same
time, the causes and impacts of the water crisis are exacerbated by climate change (IPCC 2012).
Despite a shared understanding of the importance of addressing the water crisis by inter-
national, national, and local stakeholders, there is a peculiar lack of action and even resistance
in addressing the situation (OECD 2017; World Economic Forum 2017). This hits hardest the
urban poor, who are most at risk.
Consequently, addressing inequity to foster resilience is increasingly seen as a key factor,
both in theory and in practice (Harris et al. 2017; Sovacool et al. 2015; Yarina 2018; Ziervogel
et al. 2017). At the same time, scientists and practitioners struggle to find alternatives to current
approaches, which are dominated by sectoral and engineering-​based concepts in the domains of
urban risk, water, sanitation, drainage, spatial planning, and watershed management ( Koop et al.
2017; Smith et al., 2013).
Against this background, this chapter provides new knowledge on the interface between risk,
vulnerability, and the resilience of urban water services, and linkages with social equity. Based on
the analysis of the urban water system in Metro Cebu, the Philippines, it aims to contribute to
new thinking around urban water governance and management to support resilience and social
equity.

Theoretical framework
The analytical framework for this study was developed on the assumption that urban water ser-
vices can be compared to complex adaptive systems, which require the establishment of certain
feedback loops to be considered resilient (Holland 1995; Levin et al. 2013). There are two kinds
of feedback: “reinforcing” (or positive) feedback amplifies or accelerates a change from a starting
or equilibrium point; while “balancing” (or negative) feedback dampens, slows down or corrects
a change in a system that is moving away from the starting point (Meadows 2008). For example,

158
 Urban water services

if water resources that are consumed and removed from the urban system are not fed back into
it, there is scarcity. Other examples include demand management or supply augmentation that
aims to renew resources. Negative feedback loops are, therefore, especially relevant for urban
resilience as they act as a balancing force against exponential growth (i.e. positive feedback) that
could occur if, for example, water use is unchecked.
The influence of feedback loops is inherently linked to the social and ecological dimension of
resilience, notably the ability of human societies to adapt to changing environmental conditions
(Adger et al. 2005), for instance, through adapting policies, plans, and practices. In turn, such
abilities are linked to, for example, economic status, political power, gender, human, and social
capital, age and disability (Morrow 2008).
Thus, here positive feedback loops are equivalent to the main risks or water crisis issues, and
the factors that create them, whilst at the same time considering the people most affected by
these risks. Conversely, negative feedback loops are considered as equivalent to the solutions put
in place to correct and balance the situation.

Methodology
This chapter presents a case study (Yin 2009) of urban water services’ resilience in Metro Cebu,
the Philippines (see Figure 13.1). The research was carried out in the context of the WASH &
RESCUE (WAter, Sanitation and Hygiene in RESilient Cities and Urban areas adapting to
Extreme waters) project. It was conducted during 2014–​2017 and included a literature review,
interviews with 21 key stakeholders from different backgrounds and fields (see Table 13.1) and
field visits to two barangays1. During these field visits, walk-​through analyses, as well as partici-
patory observation and group discussions during a community meeting were conducted. The
analyses involved data coding based on the analytical framework (see Section 2) as well as joint
workshops with the project team and relevant stakeholders, during which the preliminary results
were discussed, validated and revised.
Metro Cebu is an interesting case for studying resilience and social inequity in urban water
services. It is a fast-​growing city in one of the most disaster-​prone regions of the world.The area,
which is regularly hit by tropical cyclones, storms, and floods (UNISDR 2015), had approxi-
mately 2.8 million people in 2015 and is expected to reach 3.8 million in 2030 (OECD 2017).
It has seen rapid economic growth, mainly underpinned by business process outsourcing com-
panies, tourism, and the manufacturing industry (OECD 2017; Tholons 2016). This, in turn,
has driven expansion in the real estate industry, which was, in 2012, the fastest-​g rowing sector
(Garcia-​Yap 2013). At the same time, income inequality in urban areas has risen in the Philippines
since 1998 (Reyeset al. 2017).

Results
Our study revealed that Metro Cebu’s current approach to urban water services lacks important,
balancing feedback loops. This is eroding resilience in terms of the emergence of increasingly
serious water management issues. The escalating water crisis affects poor urban communities
most, increasing both their exposure and vulnerability.We identified several main risk factors that
hamper urban water resilience and illustrated them in Figure 13.2.These are the inadequate man-
agement of: (1) spatial planning (including for drainage); (2) waste; and (3) water (Figure 13.2).
The influencing factors and their interlinkages are described in the following sections. In short,
they include actions such as paving, which have reduced the permeability of the urban surface,
and that, together with inadequate waste management, contribute to the clogging of drains,

159
Å. Johannessen, C. Wamsler, and S. Peter

Table 13.1 Interviewees and their field of work and affiliation

Field of work of interviewee Interviewee’s affiliation

Water provider Two founding members of a water

Groundwater, water infrastructure,
stormwater etc.
City-​based researchers
City and regional authorities (mayors,
councilors, officials)
Environmental inspectors, oversight and
quality control of urban water services
Developers/​consultants/​private sector
Environmental actors –​land use planning and
management in the watershed
Civil society (Residents, Community and user
groups, NGOs)
association
Five members of the Drainage Department (a group
interview where one person provided most of the
answers), The City Engineering Office
Two water experts (professor /​engineer)
Community liaison officer
Former Vice Mayor
Division chief working on pollution control
Five persons who were part of the management of
GENVI Development Corp. Monterrazas de Cebu
(a group interview where two persons provided
most of the answers)
Executive Director for a civil society coalition in Cebu
Woman resident in the Tinago barangay
Woman working in the Tinago barangay
Woman leading the purok formation in Guadeloupe

consequently increasing floods. Floods, in turn, lead to unsafe environments, for instance through
increased risk of contamination and disease transmission. The aim of surface water management
has thus become to channel water, as fast as possible, to the sea, at the expense of attempting to
capture it as a resource. Reduced urban surface permeability also reduces groundwater recharge
while, at the same time, existing groundwater resources are being polluted by inadequate sani-
tation practices. In addition, the overuse of groundwater leads to not only its reduction, but also
salinization from coastal aquifers. Only by looking at all of these different factors together is an
understanding of urban water resilience possible.

The main risks, or water crisis issues, in Metro Cebu

In the following sections, the factors that relate to inadequate water management, waste manage-
ment and spatial and drainage planning are presented in more detail.

Inadequate Water Management: Uncontrolled Extraction of Water and

Subsequent Salinization2
Most of the water supply in Metro Cebu comes from groundwater, which is under heavy pressure
from over-​extraction. Because the local water utility, Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) can
only meet around half of total demand, smaller private providers have been encouraged to supply
drinking water (OECD 2017). However, these suppliers are not monitored or regulated at the
local and regional level by the Manila-​based National Water Resource Board, which means that,
in practice, access to water resources is open to all (OECD 2017).
The current shortage is estimated to be 153,000 cubic meters per day, and it is expected that
demand will triple by 2040 (JICA and MCDCB 2015). Given the high demand and dwindling

160
Figure 13.1 Metro Cebu is located on the eastern side of the island of Cebu in the Central Philippines
Source: Google Maps
Å. Johannessen, C. Wamsler, and S. Peter

Figure 13.2 Main risk factors that hamper urban water resilience in Metro Cebu linked to inad-
equate spatial planning/​drainage, waste, and water management
Source: Authors

resources, several proposals have been put forward to ensure supply, notably a pipeline to Bohol,
but none have been deemed feasible or implemented.
Saltwater intrusion is another major challenge to Philippine water resources (OECD 2017).
Unregulated pumping of groundwater for drinking is depleting reserves, leading to salt water
infiltration from the sea, and making the extracted water increasingly unusable for human con-
sumption (Figure 13.2). Combined with the rise in sea level, it is estimated that 25 per cent of
all wells will be contaminated by 2025 (JICA and MCDCB 2015). In addition, the water supply
is susceptible to drought, an event that recurs approximately every fourth year (OECD 2017).
Consequently, calls are growing for more comprehensive approaches to improve resilience.
Better demand management and green infrastructure (more recently also called ecosystem or
nature-​based solutions) are increasingly seen as a critical complement to dams and reservoirs
(OECD 2017). However, in practice, short-​term thinking dominates. In the words of an inter-
viewee: “There is short term thinking about the recharge of sources of drinking water.We prefer
resilience measures that have an immediate effect. But if we really want to maintain the sources
of city water, we should take a holistic approach. Not just trying to find solutions for coping with
dirty water, and responding by boiling, treating and filtering it.”

Inadequate Waste Management: Pollution of Water Resources by Waste Water

Resources are also being polluted by, for example, waste water that leaks from septic tanks, and
the dumping of liquid waste into local water bodies (see Figure 13.2) (OECD 2017). Although
the 2004 Clean Water Act prescribes certain measures (relating to the abatement and control of
land-​based pollution of water bodies), they have been poorly implemented and monitored due
to a lack of technical knowledge, capacity, and funds. For example, although the Act prohibits
pollution of groundwater by e.g. allowing substances to seep into the soil or sub-​soil, half of
household septic tanks have never been emptied, making them a source of pollution (Republic
Act 9275, OECD 2017). Separate systems for drainage and blackwater are considered very costly.

162
Figure 13.3 Salinity map for the years 1975, 1985, and 1995 showing salt water infiltration
Source: The Water Research Center, 1995
Å. Johannessen, C. Wamsler, and S. Peter

In addition, investing in sanitation is very low on the list of political priorities. One reason for
this is thought to be the lack of opportunities for politicians to make financial gains. Another
important root cause is the lack of public awareness about the causes of diarrhoea. Although
public awareness and training are seen as key measures in tackling the sanitation crisis, related
actions are lacking.

Inadequate Waste Management: Solid Waste Clogging Drains

Solid waste frequently clogs Metro Cebu city’s drains and thus regularly causes floods, which has
raised its political priority (see Figure 13.2) (OECD 2017). Clogged drains also contribute to
dengue fever, which is widespread in the city (Undurraga et al. 2017). At the same time, the solid
waste disposal facility at the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill reached its maximum capacity in 2010,
although it remained opened until December 2016 (IGES 2017). Similar solid waste challenges
are found in many other growing cities (UN Habitat 2010) and the problem will grow as con-
sumption continues to increase linearly, ultimately ending in disposal (OECD,2017).

Inappropriate Drainage: Channeling Freshwater Out of Town and Limiting

Infiltration
Metro Cebu regularly experiences severe flooding, especially after heavy rainfall in the rainy
season (OECD 2017). Several interviewees testified that flooding has increased in recent decades.
The city’s current drainage system is characterized by regular blockages caused by sediment and
solid waste, which results in flooding.
Inadequate drainage is one aspect of broader urban planning problems, as infrastructure is
poorly planned and lags behind rapid urbanization (OECD 2017). Metro Cebu’s role model is
Yokohama in Japan, which is expected to provide much of the funding for new infrastructure.
The anticipated solution is to widen roads and build bigger stormwater pipes with the aim of
channeling water out of town and into the sea as fast as possible, reducing groundwater infiltra-
tion. However, the drainage master plans remain stuck at the planning stage (Villar 2018).
Although some improvements are underway, traditional approaches dominate. For example, so-​
called green infrastructure, ecosystem, or nature-​based solutions have received very little attention.
Only a few pioneering private sector actors have, for example, adopted sustainable urban drainage
systems (SUDS) that are designed to retain and infiltrate water into groundwater through ponds,
dams, and trees, and reduce flows and floods, especially in the rainy season (Voskamp and Van de
Ven 2015; OECD 2015). At the same time, although a roadmap for sustainable economic devel-
opment has been drawn up (JICA and MCDBC 2015), SUDS are still not on the political agenda,
and local actors describe how they “hit a wall” when trying to promote them.

Inadequate Spatial Planning: Increasing Hard Surfaces in Urban Development

The approach to urban planning and development is characterized by an overall lack of controls
and corruption (OECD 2017), which negatively influence resilience and sustainability. Urban
planners reported that urban development projects, such as paving a parking lot adjacent to a
big shopping mall, had increased local flooding. At the same time, they stated that they lacked
the means to disseminate related knowledge or do things differently. A representative from the
drainage department admitted that “in an ideal world we would prevent but, in reality, we tend to
be reactive”. Current measures continue to reduce permeable surfaces, contributing to increased
flooding and reduced groundwater infiltration (OECD 2017).

164
 Urban water services

Similarly, various large-​scale developments are being built above rivers or creeks, although
this is illegal. Interviewees highlighted that power and corruption, along with the potential to
make other financial gains, encouraged the government to accept new developments in at-​
risk areas. A private sector interviewee stated: “If I talk to the government, there is always this
reasoning: Ok, what can we get from that? Which is really sad.The bigger the project, the bigger
the kickback.” At the same time, in 2013, Mayor Mike Rama of Cebu City (a central part of
Metro Cebu) was perceived to be genuinely trying to address corruption by rebuilding trust in
the government. Corruption is a serious issue in the Philippines, in general.3 A study found that
seven out of ten companies were asked for a bribe when doing business with the government
(World Bank Group 2009).
In addition, sustainable planning faces several other challenges, such as a lack of political
support, outdated legislation, and a lack of knowledge and technical expertise. While the ambi-
tious “Mega Cebu” plan for integrated development has been drawn up, a lack of enforcement
means that it has not been translated into concrete action.

The most affected: Poor communities

Poor communities are most affected by increasing floods, and suffer most from polluted and
scarce water resources. In urban areas, communities are often established on marginalized land
in the estuary or close to rivers that are exposed to floods (OECD 2017). In addition, people in
downtown Metro Cebu cannot use polluted groundwater for drinking. Instead, drinking water
is supplied by government fire trucks and must be paid for. Similarly, people living in poor urban
neighborhoods in uphill areas must buy water as they do not have safe water sources. In add-
ition, very few residents of these areas have proper toilets (see Figure 13.4). Those who do not
have their own facilities must pay to use other facilities, and often the waste goes straight into
the river. Open defecation is another issue. Furthermore, treating diseases associated with water
pollution becomes more difficult because of people’s inability to invest in their health and envir-
onment. The impact of this situation is particularly detrimental for poor urban populations who
are already in a precarious position (Ballesteros 2010).
There are many interconnected reasons underlying the precarious situation of the urban poor,
and poor urban water services are part of the problem. They are linked to a number of socio-​
cultural and other health-​related issues (e.g. trafficking, crime, shame) that are often overlooked in
resilience-​building measures, especially urban water services. Fighting poverty is an uphill struggle
in a country where structural developments such as land conversion, land reclamation, infrastructure
development, and other projects have marginalized communities (Etemadi 2000), and had direct
impacts on their access to urban water services and associated resilience. Insecure tenure is another
barrier that prevents people from investing in water and sanitation solutions (see Figure 13.5).

Responses to the water crisis in Metro Cebu

The most dominant responses to the water crisis in Metro Cebu relate to measures aimed at: (1)
strengthening waste and water governance, (2) building capacity, and (3) improving risk man-
agement. Their foci and influence on resilience building are described in the following sections.

Strengthening Governance
Some improvements can be seen in the governance of the water crisis. For example, the creation
of the Cebu Provincial Water Resources Authority in 2016 was intended to improve governance

165
Å. Johannessen, C. Wamsler, and S. Peter

Figure 13.4 A toilet in a poor neighborhood in the upland barangay of Guadeloupe. Flies can
enter this open hole in the ground and can easily transmit diseases
Photo: Åse Johannessen

of water management and sectors at the river basin level (OECD 2017; Silva 2016).With respect
to solid waste management, some recent improvements have also been made through the decen-
tralization of power to the barangay. Nevertheless, governance is still seen as weak and local
support for the most vulnerable communities is largely provided by NGOs. Interviewees noted
that the hopes of city authorities rest with private investors, who are expected to establish water
management systems and services in marginal areas.

Capacity Building
Some examples of capacity building through cross-​ sectoral learning and awareness-​ raising
between water-​ related sectors (involving task forces, key institutes, and public–​ private
partnerships) can be found. One task force, including national agencies and local government
actors, NGOs, academia, donors, and a water provider was, for instance, a central actor in urban

166
 Urban water services

Figure 13.5 The barangay of Tinago in the downtown area of Metro Cebu is an area with inse-
cure tenure. There is inadequate drainage, and jerry cans containing drinking water, which are
sold by the government, are visible in the center of the photo
Photo: Åse Johannessen

water services capacity building and helped to create the Water Research Centre (WRC), based
at the University of San Carlos in Metro Cebu. The Centre supports not only water operators
and communities, but also the civil service and government. For example, it was behind the
development of the Water Resources Management Action Plan for Central Cebu (2005–​2030)
and has been involved in research and monitoring of the water situation in the city since 1975.
The WRC has contributed to starting up and supporting various projects –​often on a voluntary
basis –​that have been running for some 30 years and have been widely replicated. This long-​
term success is based on trust and respect from communities, which the Centre often supports
long after the project has finished. Communities themselves see the health, convenience, and
livelihood benefits of the project, and this spurs them on to make further improvements.
Public–​private partnerships play an important role in some barangays in Metro Cebu, for
example by engaging in capacity building in local communities. A pilot project was launched
in several urban barangays to reinvent the purok, a traditional Filipino community organization,
more often seen in rural areas. It provided a model for micro-​organization around a few key
priorities, such as health, waste collection, agriculture, protection of the environment, disaster
risk reduction, and infrastructure. It also provided incentives for community participation. For
example, the private sector partner GENVI Development Corporation provided seeds for cin-
namon trees. Under Philippine law, companies such as GENVI must spend money on social
projects. Experience has shown that when small steps result in concrete achievements, the
capacity of the community increases over time. However, significant efforts must be made to
motivate the community and get their attention. Most members of purok organizations are

167
Å. Johannessen, C. Wamsler, and S. Peter

women (about 80 per cent), which is seen as one of the reasons for their success. The health
and sanitation training provided by various initiatives is thought to have improved the situation
of the urban poor by reducing epidemics due to water-​borne diseases such as cholera and
diarrhoea. However, the benefits are not clear-​cut as other studies illustrate that water supply
improvements have had negative effects on sanitation and hygiene behaviors in Metro Cebu
(Bennett 2007).

Risk Management
Metro Cebu has implemented both local disaster management plans and related initiatives.
However, they pay very little attention to preventive actions such as drainage and urban planning
(OECD 2017), and may even increase risk for the urban poor. For instance, the Tinago Riverside
Promenade Project to clear flood-​prone zones (Reduce Danger Zone; ReDZ) in the lower
parts of the river system, is officially part of an effort to restore the area to its former glory.
This occurred when trade with China peaked in the sixteenth century –​at this time the zone
contributed to the economy of old Cebu and was noted for its beauty. The project, and the
ensuing eviction of marginalized, urban poor communities, has been framed as for the residents’
own good and is mandated by law (Republic Act 386). However, the Philippines Urban Poor
Association, which provides help to people who are being forcibly evicted, tells another story.
Resettlements sites are often just as (or more) risky as former areas and deprive citizens of their
livelihoods. Consequently, many people abandon the new site and return to the city, where their
jobs, friends, and families are (Yarina 2018). Interviewees also described the political motives
behind the ReDZ project, intended to clean up the area near the “SM” mall.The SM mall is par-
ticularly influential in the political arena. As one of the interviewees noted, “This is a common
practice by politicians. If you have good friends in the business community during elections, you
get support. The issue is not about floods.”

Discussion and conclusions

Although Mega Cebu’s urban water services appear to be slowly becoming more resilient
through, for example improvements in governance and capacity building, they are challenged by
several factors. First, whilst this case study illustrates how water crisis issues are interlinked with
other factors (cf. Figure 13.2), their management is siloed. As long as governance structures and
approaches remain fragmented, stakeholders will continue to act in their own best interest and
contribute to decreased resilience. Second, the emergence of the water crisis is deeply rooted in
political and power issues that preserve and enhance differential vulnerabilities and inequities.
Authorities, politicians, and private developers profit from weak governance mechanisms and
structures to steer development in ways that benefit them. These positive feedback loops are
what Donella Meadows coins the “success for the successful” trap (Meadows 2008). The water
crisis and associated inequity issues are thus related to system failures, which means that they
cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others.
These failures require a systemic understanding of urban water services solutions. So long as
the problem is seen and addressed as a one-​off crisis, responses do not address root causes, for
example in urban planning practice. Thus, reactive risk-​and resilience-​related responses need to
be replaced with more long-​term approaches that also address underlying root factors, such as
people’s values, assumptions and beliefs that are important leverage points for resilience building
(Meadows 2008; Wamsler 2018).

168
 Urban water services

The Metro Cebu study is not an isolated case; worldwide, a more comprehensive approach
to the water crisis is lacking (Johannessen et al. 2014). For example, international bodies such
as the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction have identified that water
and sanitation are two of the biggest urban challenges (UNISDR 2012), whilst a comprehen-
sive analysis of water-​related risks is seldom included in associated risk assessments. References
to drainage are increasing, but more insidious issues related to the water crisis or impacts on
poor communities are often omitted (Nuzir et al. 2014). Efforts that have been made so far are
siloed and contribute to the erosion of resilience and sustainability. There is therefore an urgent
need to reframe water crisis issues in order to increase the resilience of the neediest and address
equity issues. To do this, greater emphasis needs to be put on preventive measures (as opposed to
responsive and technical fixes) that address underlying risks and transparency. Our study indicates
that capacity building and transparency measures in governance and public institutions are key
in this context.

Notes
1 The barangay is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for
a village, district, or ward.
2 Sub-​section titles correspond to the boxes in Figure 13.2.
3 Philippines ranks 111 out of a total of 180 countries, with a score of 34 out of 100 (0 is highly
corrupt, 100 is not at all corrupt) on the Corruption Perception Index 2017 prepared by Transparency
International.

References
Adger, W.N., Hughes, T.P. Folke, C., Carpenter, S.R., and Rockström, J. (2005). Social–​ecological resilience
to coastal disasters. Science. 309 (5737): 1036–​1039.
Ballesteros, M.M. (2010). Linking poverty and the environment: Evidence from Slums in Philippine Cities.
Discussion Paper series no. 2010–​33. Makati City, Philippines: Philippine Institute for Development
Studies.
Bennett, D. (2012). Clean water makes you dirty: Water supply and sanitation behavior in the Philippines.
Journal of Human Resources. 47(1): 146–​173.
Etemadi, F.U. (2000). Civil society participation in city governance in Cebu City Environment &
Urbanization. 12 (1) April.
Garcia-​Yap, A. (2013). Real estate sector fastest growing industry in Cebu. Cebu Daily News. https://​
newsinfo.inquirer.net/​334233/​real-​estate-​sector-​fastest-​growing-​industry-​in-​cebu#ixzz5cIeJYGOe.
Harris, L.M., Chu, E.K., and Ziervogel, G. (2017). Negotiated resilience. Resilience. 1(19). http://​doi.org/​
cmrr.
Holland, J.H. (1995). Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity. Reading, MA: Addison
Wesley.
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, IGES (2017). Planning and implementation of integrated
solid waste management strategies at local level: The case of Cebu City. http://​ccet.jp/​sites/​default/​
files/​2017-​10/​CCET%20Cebu%20Case%20Study_​PrintingVer0718.pdf.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC (2012). Glossary of terms. In: C.B. Field, V. Barros,
T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-​K. Plattner, S.K. Allen,
M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.), Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance
Climate change Adaptation.A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) (pp. 555–​564). Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA and Metro Cebu Development and Coordination Board,
MCDCB (2015).The roadmap for sustainable urban development in Metro Cebu, Cebu,The Philippines.
http://​open_​jicareport.jica.go.jp/​pdf/​12235529.pdf.

169
Å. Johannessen, C. Wamsler, and S. Peter

Johannessen, Å., Rosemarin, A., Gerger Swartling, Å., Han, G., Stenström, T-​A., and Vulturius, G. (2014).
Strategies for building resilience to hazards in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems: The
role of public private partnerships. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 10: 102–​115.
doi: 10.1016/​j.ijdrr.2014.07.002.
Koop, S.H.A., Koetsier, L., Doornhof, A., Reinstra, O.,Van Leeuwen, C.J., Brouwer, S., Dieperink, C., and
Driessen, P.P.J. (2017). Assessing the governance capacity of cities to address challenges of water, waste,
and climate change. Water Resource Management. 31(11): 3427–​3443.
Levin, S., Xepapadeas,T., Crépin, A-​S., Norberg J., de Zeeuw, A., Folke, C., Hughes,T., Arrow, K., Barrett, S.,
Daily, G., Ehrlich, P., Kautsky, N., Mäler, K-​G., Polasky, S.,Troell, M.,Vincent, J.R., and Walker, B.. (2013).
Social-​ecological systems as complex adaptive systems: modeling and policy implications. Environment
and Development Economics. 18(2): 111–​132. doi:10.1017/​S1355770X12000460.
Meadows, D.H. (2008). Thinking in Systems –​A Primer. London: Earthscan.
Morrow, B.H. (2008). Community resilience: A social justice perspective. Community & Regional
Resilience Initiative (CARRI), CARRI Research Report 4. doi: 10.13140/​RG.2.1.1278.9604.
Nuzir, F.N., Jagath Premakumara, D.G., and Dewancker, B.J. (2014). Planning resilient city in Cebu: Lessons
learned and practical application. Asian Institute of Low Carbon Design. Conference Paper: Proceedings
of International Workshop and Conference on Re-​shaping Urban Coastal Landscapes, 207–​212.
Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development, OECD (2017). Green growth in Cebu,
Philippines. Green Growth Studies. Paris: OECD Publishing. doi: http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1787/​
9789264277991-​en.
Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development, OECD (2015). Water and Cities. Ensuring
Sustainable Futures. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Republic Act 386. Civil Code of the Philippines (Republic Act No. 386). www.wipo.int/​wipolex/​en/​text.
jsp?file_​id=225740.
Republic Act 9275. Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004. Section 27 (a). www.lawphil.net/​statutes/​repacts/​
ra2004/​ra_​9275_​2004.html.
Reyes, C.M., Mina, C.D., and Asis, R.D. (2017). Inequality of opportunities among ethnic groups in the
Philippines. Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Discussion Paper Series 2017(42). https://​
pidswebs.pids.gov.ph/​CDN/​PUBLICATIONS/​pidsdps1742.pdf.
Silva, V.A.V. (2016). Finding answers to Cebu’s water woes. Cebu Daily News. http://​cebudailynews.
inquirer.net/​95108/​finding-​answers-​to-​cebus-​water-​woes#ixzz5D7sE8mv7.
Smith, H.M., Ugarelli, R., van der Zouwen, M., Allen, R., Gormley, A.M., and Segrave, A. (2013). Risk,
Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptive Management in the Water Sector. Report Task 21.1, TRUST.
Sovacool, B.K., Linnér, B-​O., and Goodsite, M.E. (2015). The political economy of climate adaptation.
Nature Climate Change 5, July: 617–​618.
Tholons (2016). Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations: Rankings and Executive Summary. www.tholons.
com/​Tholonstop100/​Tholons_​Top_​100_​2016_​Executive_​Summary_​and_​Rankings.pdf.
Transparency International (2017). Corruption Perception Index: Philippines. www.transparency.org/​
country/​PHL.
Undurraga, E.A., Edillo, F.E., Erasmo, J.N.V., Alera, M.T.P.,Yoon, I.K., Largo, F.M., and Shepard, D.S. (2017).
Disease burden of dengue in the Philippines: Adjusting for underreporting by comparing active and
passive dengue surveillance in Punta Princesa, Cebu City. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine
and Hygiene. 96(4): 887–​898. doi:10.4269/​ajtmh.16–​0488.
UN Habitat (2010). Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities, London: United Nations Human
Settlements Programme. https://​unhabitat.org/​books/​solid-​waste-​management-​in-​theworlds-​cities-​
water-​and-​sanitation-​in-​the-​worlds-​cities-​2010–​2/​.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, UNISDR. (2015). Global Assessment
Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Making Development Sustainable: The Future of Disaster Risk
Management. www.preventionweb.net/​english/​hyogo/​gar/​2015/​en/​gar-​pdf/​GAR2015_​EN.pdf.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, UNISDR (2012). How To Make Cities
More Resilient –​A Handbook For Local Government Leaders. Geneva, Switzerland.
Villar, M.A. (2018). Build Build Build –​DPWH Strategic Infrastructure Programs and Policies. Presentation
by Director Constante A. Llanes, JR., CESO III, Planning Service. www.iro.ph/​article_​doc/​4e2841b3_​
6%20DPWH%20Presentation%20FINAL.pdf.
Voskamp, I.M. and Van de Ven, F.H.M. 2015. Planning support system for climate adaptation: Composing
effective sets of blue-​green measures to reduce urban vulnerability to extreme weather events. Building
and Environment. 83: 159–​167.

170
 Urban water services

Wamsler, C. 2018. Mind the gap: The role of mindfulness in adapting to increasing risk and climate change.
Sustain Sci. 13: 1121. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11625-​017-​0524-​3.
World Economic Forum, WEF (2017). Global Risks 2017, 12th edn. www.weforum.org/​r isks.
World Bank Group. 2009. Deterring corruption and improving governance in road construction and main-
tenance. Transport Sector Board, Transport Papers, TP-​September 27, 2009. Washington DC.
Yarina, L. (2018).Your sea wall won’t save you. Places Journal. https://​doi.org/​10.22269/​180327.
Yin, R.K. (2009). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ziervogel, G., Pelling, M., Cartwright, A., Chu, E., Deshpande, T., Harris, L., Hyams, K. Kaunda, J. Klaus,
B. Michael, K. Pasquini, L. Pharoah, R. Rodina, L. Scott, D., and Zweig, P. (2017). Inserting rights and
justice into urban resilience: a focus on everyday risk. Environment & Urbanization. 29 (1): 123–​138.
doi: 10.1177/​0956247816686905.

171
 14
Resilient shrinking cities
Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

Introduction
Urban population loss has long been associated with failure. Within the context of the modern,
globalized political economy, growth is equated with success and anything less is stigmatized
(Beauregard 2009).Where growth is often synonymous with prosperous urban living, shrinking
is perceived “as a symptom of crisis, an undesirable side effect of failed economic and political
policy” (Rieniets 2006, p. 5). The social consequences of spatial stigma can be extremely per-
sistent; progress can be undermined and negative events propagated (Audirac, 2017). A growing
number of academics and practitioners have argued that a shift in perception is needed –​
shrinking cities need to be seen for their opportunity, not for their challenges (Hartt 2016,
2019; Hollander et al. 2009). By adopting a more positive lens and discounting the long shadow
of spatial stigma, some shrinking cities may very well be more resilient than their reputation
suggests. Whether as a testing ground for urban innovations, such as vertical urban farming
(Hollander et al. 2018), or as pioneers in a shift away from consumption-​centered cities (De
Flander 2013), shrinking cities offer unique opportunities to catalyze wider change. Qualities
linked directly to population loss, such as the availability of space, cheap rent, and the dis-
tance of neighbors, can in fact attract newcomers and spur innovation (Markusen 2013). Even
Detroit, the poster child of urban decline, has been hyped as a new urban bohemia. According
to Ager (2015, p. 57), “tough, cheap, and real, Detroit is cool again. With the nation’s biggest
urban bankruptcy in the rearview mirror, the Motor city is attracting investors, innovators and
young adventurers.” This begs the question of whether resilient shrinking cities have emerged
as a widespread phenomenon. Have any shrinking cities comeback? If so, what has propelled
their transformation? Is it due to the so-​called back-​to-​the-​city movement (Florida 2017), or as
Ehrenhalt (2013) calls it, the great inversion? Could resilient shrinking cities be drawing from
and even outpacing their suburbs?
In this chapter, we empirically examine the economic resilience of US shrinking cities, their
relationship with their surrounding suburbs, and explore the role of innovation and anchor
institutions. We first examine demographic trends in US Rust Belt cities to identify resilient
shrinking cities. Second, recognizing the strong link between innovation, prosperity and growth
(Glaeser and Saiz 2004), we explore the role of innovation in stabilizing population loss. Finally,

172
 Resilient shrinking cities

we explore the role of anchor institutions in helping shrinking cities bounce forward instead of
being caught in the hysteresis of decline.

Shrinking US cities
Cities have been growing and shrinking since their inception. However, the global restructuring
of production, distribution and consumption in recent decades has led to the emergence of
sustained urban shrinkage (Castells 2004; Martinez-​Fernandez et al. 2012). Researchers have
concluded that this emergent phenomenon is a lasting symptom of globalization, not simply a
step in an evolutionary cycle (Großmann et al. 2013; Hartt 2018b; Pallagst 2010). In addition to
globalization, shrinkage has been attributed to a wide range of causes from natural disasters to sub-
urbanization to political transformations (Oswalt and Rieniets 2006). The complex, diverse and
multidimensional nature of shrinking cities (Hartt 2018a) is reflected in the debate surrounding
its definition (Ganning and Tighe 2018). Of the multitude of defining characteristics that have
been advanced, an absolute population decline over time and symptoms of economic change are
consistently at the forefront. In the United States, shrinking cities are generally associated with
post-​industrial transformations and are largely concentrated around the Great Lakes in what is
often dubbed the “Rust Belt” (Weaver et al. 2017).
When a city shrinks in population, its physical form is typically slower to adapt. This mis-
match can lead to a high number of vacancies (Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012), underused
infrastructure (Audirac et al. 2012), increased socio-​economic inequality (Moraes 2009) and
the abandonment of residential areas (Hollander 2011). Furthermore, as the population shrinks
so too does the tax base, making it increasingly difficult to maintain municipal fiscal health,
let alone attract new residents. In response some scholars have called for shrinking cities to adjust
their municipal footprint by “rightsizing” (Ryan 2012), or more simply “plan for less –​fewer
people, fewer buildings, fewer land uses” (Popper and Popper 2002, p. 23). Others have argued
that some of the outcomes of shrinkage, such as increased available space and low prices, may in
fact attract newcomers (Markusen 2013).

Urban resilience
The term resilience has come to mean many things, including environmental sustainability,
risk management, natural disaster recovery, among others. Yet what remains is an underlying
theme, where through strong social networks and government (re)investment, cities and
neighborhoods thrive after facing adversity whether it arrives in the form of immediate shocks
or prolonged stressors. Even within the single strain of economic resilience, there are several
definitions that subdivide the concept further. Martin and Sunley (2015, p. 4) divide economic
resilience into categories: bounce back, ability to absorb, and positive adaptability, with the
latter defined as the “capacity of a system to maintain core performances despite shocks by
adapting its structure, functions and organization… [the] idea of bouncing forward.” Hallegate
(2014) defines macroeconomic resilience as having two components: instantaneous resilience,
which is the ability to limit the magnitude of immediate production losses for a given amount
of asset losses, and dynamic resilience, which is the ability to reconstruct and recover. Similarly,
Rose and Krausmann (2013) subdivide economic resilience into static, the productive capacity
to continue operations during a shock, and dynamic, the ability to marshal resources to hasten
recovery after the shock. Even governments attempt to make similar distinctions, such as the
US Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Comprehensive Economic Development
Strategy (CEDS) Content Guidelines that subdivide resilience into categories of (1) the ability

173
Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

to recover quickly from a shock, (2) the ability to withstand a shock, and (3) the ability to avoid
the shock altogether.
As cities of the American Rust Belt were unable to withstand the stressors of deindustrializa-
tion, and considering that re-​industrialization is not a realistic option, our research understands
resilience in terms of economic recovery through transformation akin to the concepts of dynamic
and adaptive resilience, with the latter being our preferred term. The question becomes: What
factors allow cities to become adaptatively resilient? As we will discuss, the process of acquiring
the necessary attributes are not a quick process, as disaster relief might be, but nor is it a foregone
conclusion that such a recovery will occur at all.

Resilient shrinking cities

We believe that suburban–​urban dynamics are key to understanding adaptive resilience in
shrinking cities. Metropolitan regions are generally considered an apt geographical representa-
tion of local economic regions and can be formed around one single city or several with inter-
dependent economies. In order to concentrate on the relationship between core cities and their
surrounding metropolitan regions, we limit our sample to metropolitan regions with only one
single principal city.1
In order to identify shrinking cities, we call upon several conceptual and operational
definitions from the urban shrinkage literature. However, population change alone is an insuf-
ficient measure to capture the complexity of urban shrinkage (Beauregard 1993, 2009; Hartt
and Hackworth 2018). To identify our sample of shrinking cities, we consider city size, tem-
poral period of change, municipal boundaries, regional structure, and the severity of popula-
tion loss. Population estimates were retrieved from the US Census (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000,
and 2010) and the American Community Survey (2010). Cities are defined by census place
boundaries, and metropolitan regions are defined by the Office of Management and Budget
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) boundaries.
Following Ganning and Tighe (2018), our study examines cities with a minimum population
of 50,000 residents over the course of 40 years from 1970 to 2010. The start date of the analysis
is partially due to data availability, but also reflects the turning point for industrial change in the
United States (Farley et al. 2000). Although Ganning and Tighe (2018) convincingly identify 80
US shrinking cities in their benchmark study, changing municipal boundaries hinders further
empirical analysis. Therefore, we rely upon a more stable subset of shrinking cities as identified
by Hackworth (2016). He identifies 49 core cities in the Rust Belt region with similar eco-
logical, economic, and historical characteristics that distinguish them from the older tight-​knit
cities of the Eastern Seaboard, and the newer, sprawling cities of the Sunbelt. Of the 49 shrinking
cities identified by Hackworth (2016), 24 are the sole principal city of their metropolitan region.
Lastly, we incorporate the severity of population loss into our operational definition of a
shrinking city. The threshold method for identifying shrinking cities uses a predetermined crit-
ical value of population loss to characterize shrinkage. Cities that experience population loss
greater than or equal to the threshold value over a given time period are considered to be
shrinking. This approach allows for the differentiation of long-​term and short-​term shrinkage.
Following Schilling and Logan (2008) (as well as Weaver et al. (2017) and many others), we only
include cities that have lost 25 per cent or more of their population over a 40-​year time period
(1970–​2010). The resulting ten shrinking cities are listed in Table 14.1.
As a first measure of resilience, we examine the stepwise population change of the ten
shrinking cities listed in Table 14.1 in order to determine which cities have slowed, stymied, or
reversed their population loss. Table 14.2 depicts population change by decade for each of the

174
 Resilient shrinking cities

Table 14.1 US shrinking cities with stable boundaries in single principal city metropolitan regions that
have lost 25 per cent or more of their population between 1970 and 2010

City 1970 Pop 2010 Pop Pop Change

St Louis, MO 622,236 319,294 -​49%

Flint, MI 193,317 102,434 -​47%
Saginaw, MI 91,849 51,508 -​44%
Pittsburgh, PA 520,117 305,704 -​41%
Dayton, OH 243,601 141,527 -​42%
Cincinnati, OH 452,525 296,945 -​34%
Rochester, NY 296,233 210,565 -​29%
Altoona, PA 63,115 46,320 -​27%
Syracuse, NY 197,208 145,170 -​26%
Binghamton, NY 64,123 47,376 -​26%

Source: US Census (1970, 2010)

Table 14.2 Decadal population change of US shrinking cities 1970 to 2010

Population Change

City 1980 1990 2000 2010

St Louis, MO -​37% -​14% -​14% -​9%

Flint, MI -​21% -​13% -​13% -​22%
Saginaw, MI -​19% -​12% -​12% -​20%
Pittsburgh, PA -​23% -​15% -​11% -​9%
Dayton, OH -​26% -​6% -​10% -​17%
Cincinnati, OH -​17% -​6% -​10% -​12%
Rochester, NY -​23% -​4% -​5% -​4%
Altoona, PA -​11% -​10% -​5% -​7%
Syracuse, NY -​16% -​4% -​12% -​1%
Binghamton, NY -​15% -​5% -​12% 0%

Source: US Census (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010)

cities. Although St Louis, MO lost almost half of its population between 1970 and 2010, its popu-
lation change has stabilized considerably over time. Between 1970 and 1980, St Louis, MO lost
37 per cent of its population. However, between 2000 and 2010, it only lost 9 per cent. Similarly,
Pittsburgh, PA and Rochester, NY have also significantly minimized their population losses over
time. And although they each had a brief lapse between 1990 and 2000, both Syracuse, NY and
Binghamton, NY have generally slowed their population losses. Figure 14.1 demonstrates the
resilient population changes of St Louis, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Syracuse, and Binghamton. At
the other end of the spectrum, the cities in Michigan (Flint and Saginaw) and Ohio (Dayton and
Cincinnati) have struggled to control population loss. In fact, population losses between 2000
and 2010 in both Flint and Saginaw were more severe than between 1970 and 1980.These cities
are clearly still continuing to battle with severe out migration and population loss. Because our
interest lies in those cities that have shown resilience, we exclude those still undergoing severe
decline from our study cases. This constrains our sample to five remaining cities.
Although local population change is an important indicator of urban shrinkage and urban
resilience, it is also important to consider wider spatial context. Shrinking cities within a shrinking

175
 Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

1980 1990 2000 2010

20%

10%

0%
Local Population Change

-10%

-20%

-30%

-40%
St Louis, MO Pittsburgh, PA Rochester, NY Syracuse, NY Binghamton, NY

Figure 14.1 Decadal local population change of St Louis, MO, Pittsburgh, PA, Rochester, NY,
Syracuse, NY, and Binghamton, NY from 1970 to 2010
Source: US Census (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010)

region face different obstacles and may have different opportunities than shrinking cities within a
growing region. Figure 14.2 shows the suburban population change between 1970 and 2010 for
the five shrinking cities identified. Suburban population was calculated by subtracting the city
population from the metropolitan statistical area population. Importantly, none of the suburbs
exhibit the same drastic population losses of their core cities. Of the five suburban areas, only
the suburbs of Pittsburgh have consistently lost population. The suburbs of Binghamton have
fluctuated between slow growth and shrinkage, while the suburbs of Syracuse have experienced
sustained but diminishing growth. Lastly, the suburbs of St Louis and Rochester have consistently
grown by more than 5 per cent each decade.
Comparing Figures 14.1 and 14.2 reveals several interesting differences between shrinking
cities and their regions. –​most notably, the general divergence between urban and suburban
population trends. Population change may be negative in all five cities, but it is moving in an
upwards trajectory. In contrast, suburban population change is diminishing. Although regional
population dynamics and migration are multifaceted, complex phenomenon, this trend could
point to the resilience, and potentially the “comeback” of these shrinking cities by a “return to the
city” (McCarthy and Moody 2016) of its suburban population. With this in mind, we examine
the potential role of innovation, talent, and anchor institutions in shrinking city resilience.

Universities are key to adaptive resilience

It is widely claimed that anchor institutions, and in particular universities, have considerable
potential to be major players in their local and regional economies, and hence in the resili-
ence of these economies. Yet such claims are often based on a small number of exceptional
successes, bolstered by a literature comprised of a surfeit of foundation-​sponsored reports and
working papers and a dearth of critical, quality peer-​reviewed academic articles that take a
broader multicity/​institution view rather than focusing on individual case studies.2 This is a

176
 Resilient shrinking cities

1980 1990 2000 2010

20%

10%
Suburban Population Change

0%

-10%

-20%

-30%

-40%
St Louis Suburbs Pittsburgh Suburbs Rochester Suburbs
Syracuse Suburbs Binghamton Suburbs

Figure 14.2 Decadal suburban population change of St. Louis, MO, Pittsburgh, PA, Rochester,
NY, Syracuse, NY, and Binghamton, NY from 1970 to 2010
Source: US Census (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010)

critical lacunae given that “anchor institutions have emerged as a critical component of inner-​
city revitalization strategies” (Silverman et al. 2014, p. 162) in shrinking cities.
This is not to deny the economic importance of universities, or their potential role in urban
resilience. There are links between innovation and talent, institutional strength, and economic
performance. All five resilient shrinking cities have prominent universities ranked in the top 100
for quality; of the eight institutions represented, six are also among the 100 richest by endow-
ment size (Table 14.3). Five of the eight institutions are also home to graduate medical colleges.
Carnegie Mellon, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Syracuse University do not have med-
ical colleges, however the former two have strong engineering and technology programs. And
while there is no medical program at Syracuse University, the city does have a medical college
at nearby SUNY Upstate Medical University –​which happens to be the largest employer in
Onondaga County.
Indeed, universities are often among the largest individual employers in their regions, with a
variety of high-​and lower-​skilled jobs (Birch 2014), and are major purchasers of local goods and
services, with considerable direct and indirect impacts on their wider local economy through
multiplier effects (Siegfried et al. 2007). Through their teaching, research, and –​increasingly –​
community outreach roles, universities can produce favorable outputs for economic develop-
ment: knowledge creation; human capital creation; transfer of existing knowledge; technological
innovation; capital investment; provision of regional leadership; production of knowledge infra-
structure; and production of a favorable regional milieu (Goldstein and Renault 2004). While
private sector companies may fulfill some of these functions as well, universities are unlikely to
relocate to other cities for competitive tax rates or generous municipal subsidies (Adams 2003).
Some evidence suggests that universities in smaller cities can even substitute for the agglomer-
ation effects offered by larger cities, effectively allowing them to punch above their economic
weight (Drucker 2016; Goldstein and Drucker 2006; Goldstein and Renault 2004).

177
Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

Table 14.3 Shrinking city universities in the Top 100 Richest Universities list by endowment size (2018)

University City Endowment Endowment University Students

(in billions) Ranking Ranking

Washington University St. Louis St. Louis, MO $7.860 15 18 15,155

University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA $3.945 27 68 28,664
Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA $2.154 44 25 13,503
University of Rochester Rochester, NY $2.120 45 34 11,126
Syracuse University Syracuse, NY $1.258 81 61 22,484
Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO $1.146 92 94 13,287
Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY $0.847 –​ 97 18,963
SUNY Binghamton Vestal, NY $0.116 –​ 87 16,896

Source: National Association of College and University Business Officers US News and World Report National University
2018 Rankings.

However, there is evidence that these benefits are often modest and broadly diffused across
regions (Drucker 2016; Goldstein and Drucker 2006; Goldstein and Renault 2004). They may
also be uneven, with the costs of university-​led urban development borne disproportionately by
marginalized residents, for example through segregation, displacement, or increased policing in
university-​adjacent districts (Bose 2015; Ehlenz 2017; Lafer 2003; Moos et al., 2018; Silverman
et al., 2014). Moreover, the presence of a strong university alone is not enough to spur effective
economic development: supports to commercialize innovations, access to capital, talent reten-
tion, and cooperation between universities, municipalities, and the private sector are also essen-
tial (Dragicevic 2015; Kleiman 2015; Power and Malmberg 2008; Rodin 2007; Taylor and Luter
2013). Finally, depending on the university sector for economic resilience means relying on
state or federal funding models for teaching and research, which are subject to change (Adams
2003), and introduces a new facet of interurban competition in which international experience
suggests the cities that are already the best-​positioned, largest, and wealthiest are most likely to
succeed (Goddard,et al. 2014; Rosen and Razin 2007). These elements must all be considered
in light of local circumstances by planners and policymakers hoping to leverage universities to
promote economic resilience.

Universities, talent and the role of innovation

Local networks of people, firms, and institutions develop into innovation ecosystems through a
combination of market exchanges, user-​producer relations, and everyday interactions (Lundvall
1988). As such, many scholars (Florida 2002; Glaeser 1998; Glaeser and Resseger 2009; Glaeser
and Saiz 2004) have shown the influence of the agglomeration of innovation, economic pros-
perity, and highly educated people are the keys to contemporary economic growth as products
can be manufactured anywhere, but the knowledge networks needed to design products cannot
be exported (Zwick et al. 2018). By attracting world-​class talent, securing external funding, and
transferring knowledge to the private sector, research universities often become the nuclei of
innovation in local communities (Boucher, Conway, and Van Der Meer 2003; Cohen, Nelson,
and Walsh 2002; O’Mara 2012).
To investigate the link between innovation and resilience in shrinking cities, we first examine
the highest educational attainment for the population aged 25 years or above in each of the
five cities. Figure 14.3 clearly shows that the proportion of residents with some college or
more has grown dramatically in all five cities. The proportion of highly educated residents grew

178
 Resilient shrinking cities

Residents 25+ with some college or more 70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

St Louis, MO Pittsburgh, PA Rochester, NY Syracuse, NY Binghamton, NY

Figure 14.3 Proportion of residents 25 years or above with at least some college education in
five US shrinking cities, 1970 to 2010
Source: US Census (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000) and American Community Survey (2010)

substantially in all five cities, with each over 50 per cent by 2010. Pittsburgh has seen the largest
change, growing from 15 per cent in 1970 to 57 per cent in 2010.
The unmistakable trend in Figure 14.3 gives credence to the hypothesis that the relative
resilience in these five shrinking cities may be related to the increasing density of talent. But
does talent coincide with innovation in these cities? And how has innovation changed in the
city relative to the surrounding suburbs? Are these cities experiencing a “great inversion” or
simply becoming more educated and innovative across the entire metro region? In order to
ascertain the change and movement of innovation, we examine patent data from the US Patent
and Trademark Office between 1980 and 2010. Patent data is considered an apt proxy for innov-
ation and therefore a rich source of information to investigate the knowledge production and
the economic geography of innovation (Jaffe and Trajtenberg 2002; Kogler 2015; Lamoreaux and
Sokoloff 1996). We included all patents from the time period across six categorizations: chem-
ical, computers and communications, drugs and medical, electrical and electronic, mechanical,
and other (Hall et al. 2001). However, for the purposes of this chapter, patent types will not be
differentiated.
Cross-​sectional aggregate patent counts for the five cities and their surrounding suburban
areas were collected for the years 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Table 14.4 presents the patent
counts as suburban-​to-​urban ratios. For every region in every year of the sample, the number
of patents in the suburbs exceeds the number in the cities. However, St Louis, Pittsburgh, and
Syracuse all show a shift towards more urban innovation over time. Rochester and especially
Binghamton show the opposite trend. In 1970 there were roughly twice as many suburban than
urban patents in Binghamton, but by 2010 there were almost eight times more suburban patents.
The trajectory of patent ratios in Table 14.4 moderately supports the shrinking city resili-
ence narrative, but as demonstrated in Figures 14.1 and 14.2, city and suburban populations vary
both in size and trajectory. Therefore, a relative measure is needed to fully capture the changes
in innovation between cities and their suburbs. Table 14.5 presents the ratio of suburban patents

179
Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

Table 14.4 Ratio of the number of suburban patents relative to the number of urban patents in five
shrinking US cities

Suburban to urban patent ratio

1980 1990 2000 2010

St Louis, MO 5.40 2.83 1.75 2.75

Pittsburgh, PA 2.73 2.58 1.74 1.46
Rochester, NY 1.23 1.19 1.53 2.15
Syracuse, NY 5.05 4.10 4.76 3.91
Binghamton, NY 1.96 5.95 7.23 7.90

Source: US Patent and Trademark Office

Table 14.5 Ratio of the number of suburban patents per capita relative to the number of urban patents
per capita in five shrinking US cities

Suburban to urban patent per capita ratio

1980 1990 2000 2010

St Louis, MO 1.77 0.61 0.30 0.39

Pittsburgh, PA 0.64 0.52 0.31 0.24
Rochester, NY 0.50 0.37 0.43 0.54
Syracuse, NY 0.42 0.34 0.33 0.28
Binghamton, NY 0.31 0.26 0.26 0.23

Source: US Patent and Trademark Office

per capita to urban patents per capita. The per capita ratio results demonstrate a clear, and much
stronger, story of resilience. First, in every city at every time period, save St Louis in 1980, there
were more urban patents per capita than suburban. Secondly, in four of the five shrinking cities,
innovation in the cities outpaced their surrounding suburbs. Only in Rochester, the most sub-
urban city of the five, did suburban innovation grow more than urban. This may be due to the
factors that both of its major universities are located on the urban fringe rather than near the
downtown core, making talented workers indifferent between living in the city proper or
the nearby suburbs.
As population of these five cities are now stabilizing, but the percentage of educated workers
is increasing while the suburban to urban patent ratio is decreasing, we conclude that there is
a “return to the city” of educated workers leading to these cities becoming resilient. However,
our research stops short of finding causality. Only a handful of Rust Belt cities have begun to
reverse the decades long trend of decline that has defined the region. The commonality among
these cities are that they have large research universities that act as anchor institutions, attracting
reinvestment into their urban cores, drawing in talented college graduates, and becoming more
innovative in the process.While our research indicates that anchor institutions are key to adaptive
resilience, clearly not all shrinking cities can rely upon such a strategy. Universities are not a silver
bullet resilience strategy that should, or can, be pursued by all shrinking cities. More research is
needed to uncover what, if any, elements of anchor institutions can be most widely applied to
aid the resilience of a wider set of cities.

180
 Resilient shrinking cities

Notes
1 The US Office of Management and Budget Standards defines a principal city as the largest incorporated
place in a core-​based statistical area (Office of Management and Budget 2010).
2 This is to say nothing of the narrow definitions of success typically employed in these reports.

References
Adams, C. (2003).The meds and eds in urban economic development. Journal of Urban Affairs. 25(5): 571–​
588. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1467-​9906.2003.00003.x.
Ager, S. (2015). Taking back Detroit. National Geographic, May, 57–​83.
Audirac, I. (2017). Shrinking cities: An unfit term for American urban policy? Cities. https://​doi.org/​
10.1016/​j.cities.2017.05.001.
Audirac, I., Cunningham-​Sabot, E., Fol, S., and Moraes, S.T. (2012). Declining suburbs in Europe and Latin
America. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 36(2): 226–​244.
Beauregard, R.A. (1993). Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of US Cities. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell
Publishers.
Beauregard, R.A. (2009). Urban population loss in historical perspective: United States, 1820–​ 2000.
Environment and Planning A. 41: 514–​529. https://​doi.org/​10.1068/​a40139a.
Birch, E.L. (2014). Anchor institutions in the northeast Megaregion: An important but not fully realized
resource. In: S.M. Wachter and K.A. Zeuli (eds.): Revitalization American Cities. Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 207–​223.
Bose, S. (2015). Universities and the redevelopment politics of the neoliberal city. Urban Studies.
52(14): 2616–​2632. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0042098014550950.
Boucher, G., Conway, C., and Van Der Meer, E. (2003).Tiers of engagement by universities in their region’s
development. Regional Studies. 37(9): 887–​897. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​0034340032000143896.
Castells, M. (2004). The Network Society. Cheltenham: Edward Edgar Pubishing Ltd.
Cohen, W.M., Nelson, R.R., and Walsh, J.P. (2002). Links and impacts: The influence of public research
on industrial R&D. Management Science. 48(1): 1–​23. https://​doi.org/​10.1287/​mnsc.48.1.1.14273.
De Flander, K. (2013). Resource-​centered cities and the opportunity of shrinkage. In: A. Khare and
T. Beckman (eds.): Mitigating Climate Change: The Emerging Face of Modern Cities. Berlin,
Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 45–​57.
Dragicevic, N. (2015). Anchor Institutions. Toronto: Mowat Centre and Atkinson Foundation.
Drucker, J. (2016). Reconsidering the regional economic development impacts of higher education
institutions in the United States. Regional Studies. 50(7): 1185–​ 1202. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​
00343404.2014.986083.
Ehlenz, M.M. (2017). Gown, town, and neighborhood change: An examination of urban neighborhoods
with university revitalization efforts. Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://​doi.org/​
10.1177/​0739456X17739111.
Ehrenhalt, A. (2013). The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City. New York: Vintage
Books.
Farley, R., Danziger, S., and Holzer, J. (2000). Detroit Divided. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Florida (2017). The New Urban Crisis. New York: Basic Books.
Florida, R. (2002). The economic geography of talent. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
92(4): 743–​755. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​1467–​8306.00314.
Ganning, J.P. and Tighe, J.R. (2018). Moving toward a shared understanding of the U.S . shrinking city.
Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0739456X18772074.
Glaeser, E.L. (1998). Are cities dying? Journal of Economic Perspectives. 12(2), 139–​160.
Glaeser, E.L., and Resseger, M.G. (2009).The Complementarity between Cities and Skills (NBER Working
Paper Series No. 15103). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Glaeser, E.L. and Saiz, A. (2004). The rise of the skilled city. Brookings-​Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs,
2004(1), 47–​105.
Goddard, J., Coombes, M., Kempton, L., and Vallance, P. (2014). Universities as anchor institutions in cities in
a turbulent funding environment: Vulnerable institutions and vulnerable places in England. Cambridge
Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. 7(2), 307–​325. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​cjres/​rsu004.

181
Maxwell Hartt, Austin Zwick, and Nick Revington

Goldstein, H.A. and Drucker, J. (2006). The economic development impacts of universities on regions: Do
size and distance matter? Economic Development Quarterly. 20(1): 22–​43. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​
0891242405283387.
Goldstein, H.A. and Renault, C.S. (2004). Contributions of universities to regional economic develop-
ment: A quasi-​experimental approach. Regional Studies. 38(7): 733–​746. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​
0034340042000265232.
Großmann, K., Bontje, M., Haase, A., and Mykhnenko, V. (2013). Shrinking cities: Notes for the further
research agenda. Cities. 35: 221–​225.
Hackworth, J. (2016). Demolition as urban policy in the American Rust Belt. Environment and Planning
A. 48(11): 2201–​2222. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0308518X16654914.
Hall, B.H., Jaffe, A.B., and Trajtenberg, M. (2001). The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights
and Methodological Tools (NBER Working Paper Series No. 8498). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau
of Economic Research.
Hallegatte, S. (2014). Economic Resilience: Definition and Measurement (Policy Research Working Paper
Series No. 6852). Washington, DC. https://​doi.org/​10.1596/​1813-​9450-​6852.
Hartt, M. (2016). Act Small and Think Big: Exploring the Plurality and Complexity of Shrinking Cities.
Waterloo, ON: University of Waterloo.
Hartt, M. (2018a). How cities shrink: Complex pathways to population decline. Cities. 75(2018): 38–​49.
https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.cities.2016.12.005.
Hartt, M. (2018b). The diversity of North American shrinking cities. Urban Studies. 55(13): 2946–​2959.
https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0042098017730013.
Hartt, M. and Hackworth, J. (2018). Shrinking cities, shrinking households, or both? International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research. 1–​13. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​1468–​2427.12713.
Hollander, J.B. (2011). Sunburnt Cities. New York: Routledge.
Hollander, J.B., Hartt, M., Wiley, A., and Vavra, S. (2018). Vacancy in shrinking downtowns: a comparative
study of Québec, Ontario, and New England. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. https://​
doi.org/​10.1007/​s10901-​017-​9587-​9.
Hollander, J.B., Pallagst, K., Schwarz,T., and Popper, F. (2009). Planning shrinking cities. Progress in Planning.
72 4 (special issue: Emerging Research Areas): 223–​232.
Jaffe, A.B. and Trajtenberg, M. (eds.). (2002). Patents, Citations, and Innovations: A Window on the
Knowledge Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kleiman, N. (2015). Striking a (Local) Grand Bargain: How Cities and Anchor Institutions Can Work
Together to Drive Growth and Prosperity. New York: NYU Wagner and the Urban Institute.
Kogler, D.F. (2015). Intellectural property and patents: Knowledge creation and diffusion. In: J.R. Bryson,
J. Clark, and V. Vanchan (eds.): The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy.
Cheltenham: Edward Edgar Pubishing Ltd, 163–​190.
Lafer, G. (2003). Land and labor in the post-​industrial university town: Remaking social geography. Political
Geography. 22(1): 89–​117. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​S0962-​6298(02)00065-​3.
Lamoreaux, N.R. and Sokoloff, K.L. (1996). Long-​term change in the organization of inventive activity.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 93: 12686–​12692.
https://​doi.org/​10.1073/​pnas.93.23.12686.
Lundvall, B. (1988). Innovation as an interactive process: From user producer interaction to the national
system of innovation. In: C. Dosi, C. Freeman, R. Nelson, G. Silverberg, and L. Soete (eds.): Technical
Change and Economic Theory. London: Frances Pinter, 349–​369.
Markusen, A. (2013). Artists work everywhere. Work and Occupations. 40(4): 481–​495. https://​doi.org/​
10.1177/​0730888413504418.
Martin, R. and Sunley, P. (2015). On the notion of regional economic resilience: Conceptualization and
explanation. Journal of Economic Geography. 15(1): 1–​42. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​jeg/​lbu015.
Martinez-​Fernandez, C., Audirac, I., Fol, S., and Cunningham-​Sabot, E. (2012). Shrinking cities: Urban
challenges of globalization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 36(2): 213–​225.
McCarthy, G. and Moody, S. (2016). Introduction. In: G. McMarthy, G. Ingram, and S. Moody (eds.): Land
and the City. Washington, DC: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Moos, M., Revington, N., Wilkin, T., and Andrey, J. (2018). The knowledge economy city: Gentrification,
studentification and youthification, and their connections to universities. Urban Studies. https://​doi.
org/​10.1177/​0042098017745235.
Moraes, S. (2009). Inequality and urban shrinkage –​A close relationship in Latin America. In: K. Pallagst
(ed.): The Future of Shrinking Cities: Problems, Patterns and Strategies of Urban Transformation in

182
 Resilient shrinking cities

a Global Context. Berkeley, CA: University of California: Center for Global Metropolitan Studies,
Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and the Shrinking Cities International Research
Network (pp. 49–​60).
Office of Management and Budget (2010). Standards for Delineating Metrpolitan and Micropolitan
Statistical Areas. Washington, DC: Office of Management and Budget.
O’Mara, M.P. (2012). Beyond town and gown: University economic engagement and the legacy
of the urban crisis. Journal of Technology Transfer. 37(2): 234–​ 250. https://​
doi.org/​10.1007/​
s10961-​010-​9185-​4.
Oswalt, P. and Rieniets, T. (eds.). (2006). Atlas of Shrinking Cities. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.
Pallagst, K. (2010). Viewpoint: The planning research agenda: Shrinking cities –​a challenge for planning
cultures. Town Planning Review. 81(5): i–​vi.
Popper, D.E. and Popper, F.J. (2002). Small can be beautiful: coming to terms with decline. Planning.
68(7): 20–​23.
Power, D. and Malmberg, A. (2008). The contribution of universities to innovation and economic devel-
opment: In what sense a regional problem. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society.
1(2): 233–​245. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​cjres/​rsn006.
Rieniets, T. (2006). Shrinking cities –​Growing domain for urban planning? Cahiers Thématiques. 6 (Space
on a Large Scale): 40–​49.
Rodin, J. (2007). The University and Urban Revival. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Rose, A. and Krausmann, E. (2013). An economic framework for the development of a resilience index for
business recovery. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 5: 73–​83. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.ijdrr.2013.08.003.
Rosen, G. and Razin, E. (2007). The college chase: Higher education and urban entrepreneuralism in
Israel. Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie. 98(1): 86–​101. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​
j.1467-​9663.2007.00378.x.
Ryan, B.D. (2012). Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities. Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Schilling, J. and Logan, J. (2008). Greening the Rust Belt: A green infrastructure model for right sizing
America’s shrinking cities. Journal of the American Planning Association. 74(4): 451–​466. https://​doi.
org/​10.1080/​01944360802354956.
Siegfried, J.J., Sanderson, A.R., and McHenry, P. (2007). The economic impact of colleges and universities.
Economics of Education Review. 26(5): 546–​558. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.econedurev.2006.07.010.
Silverman, R.M., Lewis, J., and Patterson, K.L. (2014). William Worthy’s concept of “‘institutional rape’”
revisited: Anchor institutions and residential displacement in Buffalo, NY. Humanity & Society.
38(2): 158–​181. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0160597614529114.
Taylor, H.L.J. and Luter, G. (2013).Anchor Institutions: An Interpretive Review Essay. New York: Marga Inc.
Weaver, R., Bagchi-​Sen, S., Knight, J., and Frazier, A.E. (2017). Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban
Decline in the United States. New York: Routledge.
Wiechmann, T. and Pallagst, K. (2012). Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A comparison of
transformation patterns and local strategies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
36(2): 261–​280.
Zwick, A., Revington, N., and Hartt, M. (2018). Anchors and diversity: Understanding decline and resili-
ence in Canadian mid-​sized cities. Evregreen Mid-​Sized Cities Research Series: 117–​132.

183
 15
Land bank formation
Reorganizing civic capacity for resilience
John West

Introduction
Resilience is an awkward, but useful, concept when applied to institutional responses to
shrinking cities and property abandonment. Resilience is a term taken from ecology describing
how natural systems recover from disruption and the conditions under which they return to
a state of equilibrium. By contrast, cities that shrink often do so for long periods of time and
endure fundamental, permanent change, rather than returning to a state of equilibrium. Cities
that have recently prospered after decades of post-​Second World War shrinkage, including
New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Boston, are radically different in terms of their demo-
graphics, politics and economic base (Mallach 2018). Therefore, when planning for cities that
continue to shrink, like Flint (Michigan),Youngstown (Ohio), and Muncie (Indiana) resilience
cannot refer to a natural process that will result in returning to a previous state of balance. For
shrinking cities, resilience refers to reorganizing the civic capacity of a city or town and using
surplus or additional material resources to maintain living and infrastructural standards in the
context of radical change.
Resilience can be a misleading metaphor because, as the case of land bank formation below
demonstrates, responses to urban decline are historically and politically contingent upon
planning, rather than part of natural or biological cycles. This examination of land bank forma-
tion in Muncie, Indiana demonstrates that coping with change requires the strategic reorgan-
ization of the capacities of shrinking cities. In addition to this reorganization, for the land bank
to flourish, it needs new material resources, especially operating capital. It also requires legal and
legislative support that streamlines the process of clearing encumbered deeds, so people can reuse
properties. This case demonstrates that, for shrinking cities, resilience is a planned, rather than a
natural, phenomenon.
How does the materiality of abandoned property and knowledge about land bank forma-
tion shape strategy for reorganizing civic capacity to make a more resilient city? What are the
possibilities and limits of reorganizing existent material resources, in the face of a shrinking tax
base? Resilience is the final product of a concerted public effort, rather than the result of nat-
uralistic and biological thinking about cities. Because resilience is a social, rather than a natural

184
 Land bank formation

phenomenon, the outcomes and efforts are uncertain and contingent.The case below reflects the
materiality of building civic capacity for resilience.

Theory and literature

Resilience is a term taken from biology that describes how an ecosystem responds to trauma,
degradation or shock (Pendall et al 2015, p. 383). In the face of disruption resilient systems are
capable of either returning to an optimal state, or adapting and transforming to accommodate
a new normal (Pelling and Manel-​Narrrete 2015, p. 284). From its inception, urban theory has
used biological metaphors to grasp at law-​like regularities in patterns of human settlements and
their change, from the “ecological approach”, proposed by R.D. McKenzie in 1924, to “social
organization and disorganization as a process of metabolism” proposed by Ernest Burgess in
1925. The problem with these metaphors, including when applied to resilience, is that they
assume that human settlements tend towards some natural biological equilibrium.
The history of growth and shrinkage in cities shows a process defined by linear history, rather
than cyclical biological change. The history of urban population change reveals that human
settlements have been permanently disrupted by entirely novel technological changes –​like
highways and automobiles –​and radically new political arrangements –​like the massive inter-
vention of the federal government in cities in the United States through, for example, the Federal
Highways Act of 1956. Before 1929, few cities shrank (Beauregard 2009). After the Second
World War almost all major industrial cities in the midwest and northeast experienced periods
of population loss. Again, starting in the 1980s a subset of shrinking cities reversed course and
stabilized economically, politically and socially (Beauregard 2009, Mallach 2018).
If resilience is to be a useful concept for thinking about shrinking cities, it must be deracinated
from biology and replanted in the field of contemporary social theory. To understand how cities
can best respond to trauma, degradation, and shock, we should not look towards the law-​like
regularities of the natural sciences. Instead, we should focus our attention on the haphazard and
idiographic networks of association that create stasis and change in social relationships (Latour
1993, 2005). Resilience is a process of construction and reconstruction, achieved through the self-​
conscious and directed efforts of actors to forge new relationships and to create new institutions.
The term “civic capacity” was coined by the political scientist and urban scholar Clarence
N. Stone, which encapsulates a deep tradition of democratic theory elaborated by de Toqueville
(1835), running through John Dewey (1927) and inspiring the work of planning theorists
like John Friedmann (1989) and Xavier de Souza Briggs (2008). These theorists elaborate
the idea that democratic practice expands beyond formal voting and the state. Civil society
organizations –​churches, non-​profits, community-​based organizations, and government –​can
and must deliberate together to accomplish the goals of governance. Stone described it as the
ways in which “various sectors of a community come together to solve a particular problem”
(Stone et al. 2001). Civic capacity is strategically aligning a network of actors to address a public
problem. It is a process of creating new capability for action by building new networks of associ-
ation between existent entities, which in turn enhance the ability of those actors to draw in new
resources. Building civic capacity is the work of threading together these networks of association
strategically. New institutional relationships and new organizational forms must be constructed
to engage in effective planning.
Stone and his co-​authors give an example most of us would be familiar with to explain
civic capacity, that of the growth machine. They write, “when city hall, business elites, and
labor unions combine efforts to redevelop downtown or build a new convention center, a
community’s civic capacity has been activated” (2001, 4). In this case, institutional actors share

185
John West

resources and combine efforts in order to achieve a goal. The chamber of commerce may
be sharing with the city a public endorsement of the mayor’s agenda and a marketing cam-
paign on behalf of the city, while the mayor may promise to pursue economic development
activities preferred by the chamber. The labor union being guaranteed a certain number of
jobs by the city may offer support of specific city council members in the next election. As
part of the negotiation between the chamber, the city, and the labor union, each institution
agrees to contribute resources to the downtown redevelopment. This schematic example of
a typical urban growth machine shows how civic actors might activate latent capacity by
creating new networks of association, with the goal of achieving a specific objective (Logan
and Molotch 1987).
Bringing the concept into abandoned property, Margaret Dewar (2013) found the lack of
“capacity” for collective action among city actors and institutions as the primary factor impeding
Detroit’s ability to manage abandoned property, in comparison with Cleveland, which had an
effective system. And there is a burgeoning literature suggesting that collective civic action is an
important factor in determining the efficacy of legacy cities in addressing decline, as exempli-
fied in the recent work of Sean Safford (2009), in Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown
and Dieterich-​Ward in Beyond Rust (2016). Stone, Dewar and Safford’s analysis is thorough and
convincing. At the same time, it provides little in the way of suggesting how new capacity may
be built.
Actor-​network theory is a useful body of literature for considering how civic capacity may
be constructed. This body of literature argues that social relationships are not predetermined,
fixed or defined by unknowable or “fundamental” forces. From this perspective “the social [is]
not a special domain, a specific realm, or a particular sort of thing, but only a very particular
movement of reassociation and reassembling” (Latour 2005, 7). Such insight suggests that
theory and theorizing might productively examine the assembly of social relations and how
they may be constructed otherwise. Crucially actor-​network theory argues that relationships
among people and the ideas that they share arise because of their relationship with non-​
human things. Texts, laws, and the physical deterioration of abandoned buildings are cru-
cial matter that cement the connections between planners, policymakers and residents in
distressed neighborhoods.
From a Latourian perspective, human relationships are bound together and made durable
because of their relationship with material things.To take a simple example, people come to work
because there is a physical structure, with technologies that (sometimes) make accomplishing
tasks easier; and also because of financial compensation. James DeFilippis (2001) argues convin-
cingly that concepts like civic capacity are used to excuse the absence of the material resources
that would be required to address expensive public problems.
Literature and theory on resilience and civic capacity therefore leads to other important
questions: To what extent can planners expect to rely on existent or latent capacity to build
resilient systems? To what extent are surplus or new material resources needed to build resilient
networks? What are the consequences of attempting to build civic capacity for resilience in the
context of minimal financial and institutional resources?

Methodology
This chapter is the result of “action research”, which is to say a reflective process in which
the author has acted as part of a network of city officials, students, and research organizations
to address the issue of abandonment. Of action research Andrew Sayer writes (1992, 13),
“Knowledge is primarily gained through activity both in attempting to change our environment

186
 Land bank formation

(through labor or work) and through interaction with other people, using shared resources, in
particular a common language.” What follows is an account of knowledge gathered through an
18-​month effort to create a land bank, change conditions in Muncie, Indiana and build a more
resilient system for addressing property abandonment.
The opportunity to conduct this action research arose when the author was contacted by
officials in the City of Muncie to help start a land bank using new enabling legislation passed by
the State of Indiana in the summer of 2016. As faculty at a local university, Ball State, the author
worked with students and staff to understand the local dynamics of property abandonment and
to gather materials on land banking practice.The author also spent considerable time interacting
with community members. First, he interviewed, met with, and strategized with local officials,
including the mayor, the city council, the county commissioners, the leadership of neighbor-
hood association presidents, the chamber of commerce, and residents in neighborhoods particu-
larly affected by property abandonment. Forty-​five such meetings took place at the outset of the
project, resulting in the formation of a board for the land bank. Second, the author served as the
founding president of the board of the Muncie Land Bank, which began regular board meetings
in November of 2017 and, to date, has met on a biweekly basis for 11 months. The information
contained in the case that follows results from the process the author has undertaken and reflects
the strategic imperatives of organizational formation.

Land bank formation and the materiality of abandoned property

The potential for creating the new land bank arises out of material and discursive conditions.
In Muncie, abandoned property is a matter of concern for a wide variety of actors. Muncie has
shrunk in population by approximately 8 per cent since 1980 (US Census Bureau). This per-
centage undercounts actual population decline in the last 30 years because the city has annexed
surrounding areas (see Table 15.1).
Meanwhile in 2008, the State of Indiana passed a property tax cap that significantly limits the
ability of local units of government in raising funds for municipal services (see Table 15.2). In the
five-​year period to 2013, the cap deprived local governments of $704 billion in revenue, with a
disproportionate impact on “economically distressed areas” like Muncie (Ross and Cheek 2014).
Demographic, economic, and policy contexts have resulted in a massive abandonment
problem in Muncie, with nearly 14 per cent of local properties either vacant lots, abandoned
structures, or blighted structures. Table 15.3, which illustrates the extent of property abandon-
ment in Muncie, is derived from Scout Muncie, a local housing survey first completed in 2016
and updated annually. Out of nearly 30,000 parcels, 4,235 are either vacant lots, lots containing
structures that have been abandoned, or lots containing structures that are in serious physical
decline. These abandoned properties are widely dispersed, such that over two-​thirds of Muncie

Table 15.1 Muncie: Population change

Date Population Percent change

1980 76,460 –​
1990 71,035 -​7.1
2000 67,430 -​5.1
2010 70,085 390
Total Change -​8.34
Author’s Calculations, Based on Census 2010

187
John West

Table 15.2 Indiana state property tax cap

Property tax capped at:

-​1% for residential
-​2% for farmstead
-​3% for commercial and industrial
Indiana Business Journal, November 2010

Table 15.3 Vacant, abandoned and blighted calculations

Number % of total

Total properties 29,918 n.a.

Vacant lots 2,237 7.39%
Abandoned structures 1,282 4.23%
Vacant lots, abandoned structures, and blighted structures 4,235 13.98%
Source: Scout Muncie: https://​scoutmuncie.wordpress.com/​inventory-​map/​, author’s calculations

residents live within 150 feet of an abandoned property (City of Muncie Historic Preservation
and Rehabilitation Commission 2017).
A broad array of Muncie residents are concerned about the conditions of vacant, abandoned,
and blighted structures. Civic leaders, including the county commissioners, the head of the
chamber of commerce, and local philanthropic organizations tended to discuss the effects of
property abandonment on tax revenues and adjacent property revenue. For this reason, the first
report issued by the author and co-​researchers focused on estimating the aggregate costs of prop-
erty abandonment for the city.
Residents of neighborhoods affected by blight and property abandonment focused on
how abandoned structures attract mosquitos, collapsing foundations imperil adjacent property
owners’ homes, and vacant lots attract dumping, resulting in mounds of trash. In Muncie, visibly
dilapidated properties are in plain view in the majority of neighborhoods. Moreover, abandoned
property is discursively situated within and linked to issues that generate significant press, espe-
cially crime and the prevalence of meth houses.
To highlight these conditions, a group of researchers including the author collected stories
of residents’ problems with abandoned property. With the goal of collecting 100 stories, the
initiators of the push for a new land bank gathered some stories of nostalgic longing for places
that have since deteriorated, stories of fear that describe a loss of sense of security, and stories of
incredible frustration, including the following.

Anna Marie is a Muncie resident and homeless advocate who lives next to an abandoned
house. The house on the other side of the fence from hers is physically deteriorated. The
north wall of its basement has caved in. “The house is basically sitting above a cavern,
which fills with water, sewage, and mosquitos,” Sara says. “It gets more dangerous every day.
I hate that I have to worry about whether [it will] come crashing into my yard and house.
I hate that I have to pick up pieces of the house from my yard every day. Broken glass, wild
animals, and moldy smells coming from the house are a daily burden and continue to get
worse.” She has called the police about trespassers at the house several times over the years.
Neighborhood children dare each other to enter.

188
 Land bank formation

These stories show the ways that material conditions and discursive positioning are intertwined.
For the county treasurer, abandonment appears on a spreadsheet and is related to the issue of
revenue. For the neighborhood resident living next to a collapsing building, abandonment means
concerns with mosquito bites, smells, and the peril of living next to a precarious structure. The
materiality of abandonment has the potential to bring together individuals who are differently
situated in relation to the problem.
On the other hand, the materiality of abandonment makes the problem obdurate, or difficult
to address. Buildings, structures and lots that have been abandoned are entangled with another
material reality that determines whether and how the property can be reused. When a property
owner abandons a property, a slow and lengthy process takes place. Once a property owner is
delinquent on taxes, the county treasurer’s office is responsible for issuing warning notices. If the
property remains tax delinquent for one year, the county commissioners auction an encumbered
deed of the property at a tax sale, which occurs twice yearly. If the encumbered deed is purchased,
the new purchaser must issue public notice that they have acquired the deed within nine months.
The original owner may pay back taxes and take the property back from the new purchaser
within 12 months after this notice has been filed. After this 12-​month period, the new purchaser,
often with the assistance of legal counsel, must petition the court for a clean title.The process takes
at least 20 months and requires the coordinated action of multiple parties within the city. Political
feuds and spats among the county and the city have exacerbated the tedium of this process.
The problem of abandonment is also obdurate because the monetary costs of acquiring prop-
erty are higher than the potential resale. Through interviews with local developers and analysis
of housing sales data, the proposal for the author and other members of the Muncie Land Bank
compiled the following information. The legal process of clearing a deed typically costs local
non-​profits between $2,500 and $4,000 in legal fees. If the property includes a building, the pur-
chaser can expect to spend as much as $25,000 for remediation. In the context of communities
where the median sales value of a home is less than $10,000 it is no surprise that few properties
are redeemed through the tax forfeiture process, according to data gathered from the Delaware
County Assessor’s Office from 2008 to 2016.
Abandoned property is ensconced in material and discursive networks that link people, cre-
ating the opportunity to create new relationships and, in doing so, building new capacity for
action. The county treasurer and the neighborhood resident experience property abandonment
in different ways, but for both it has become a matter of concern. At the same time abandoned
property is situated within obdurate legal, procedural, and market realities that make change dif-
ficult. Legal, market, and ideological conditions in turn constrain the availability of public money
to support efforts to build a resilient system for addressing abandoned property. Catalysts for
action occurred outside of the local context. The State of Indiana passed a new law.

Land bank formation and data gathering

The 2016 state law and examples from other cities have been the catalysts for restructuring civic
capacity to create a land bank in Muncie.The law was drafted by the state senator who represents
Muncie and much of Delaware County. A Democrat with close connections to the political
party that led city government, this legislation was strongly supported by the mayoral adminis-
tration. The City of Muncie had made several other attempts to create bureaucratic structures
to address abandonment. However, these efforts were stymied by slow processes, unclear lines
of authority and conflict with county government. Less than a month after passing the law, the
mayor and his legal counsel began to form the new Muncie Land Bank.

189
John West

The legislation gives land banks new, but limited powers. It empowers local units of govern-
ment to establish a non-​profit land bank that is tightly bound with a local unit of government –​
either a city or a county. The board of directors must be appointed by local officials –​the mayor
appoints three people, the city council appoints three people, the county treasurer appoints three
people, and the board has the option of appointing an additional two members, making a total
of nine. Additionally, because the land bank would be established as a non-​profit, rather than a
governmental agency, it was exempted from much of the red tape involved in acquiring and
disposing of property. Finally, the law put into place transparency requirements to assure good
governance.
If the new land banking legislation was a catalyst to begin the process of forming a land
bank, research and writing that has been compiled by the Center for Community Progress,
a think tank based in Washington DC, over the last ten years provided a base of knowledge
and information for deciding the strategic direction of the new organization. Board members,
staff, and students attended a three-​day conference on land banking in the summer of 2017.
Additionally, we created a small research collaborative with local officials, students, and board
members, reading key reports produced by the Center for Community Progress and the strategic
plans of successful land banks.
The Center for Community Progress’s process of knowledge diffusion affects the process
of building civic capacity. In setting forth best practices and providing examples of how other
communities address abandonment it becomes possible to define proximate goals and identify
strategies. For example, Frank Alexander’s 2015 Land Banks and Land Banking provides a set of
principles for effective land banking that include the following:

(1) Strategically acquire abandoned property

(2) Acquire funds for property maintenance
(3) Plan-​driven property “disposal”
(4) Transparent and publicly accountable transactions
(5) Engagement with residents and community stakeholders

We could compare these best practices with abandonment strategy in Muncie prior to the estab-
lishment of the new land bank:

(1) Slow and scattered acquisition

(2) City-​run property maintenance
(3) Strategic, process-​driven disposal
(4) Slow, but procedurally consistent transactions
(5) Marketing and compliance-​oriented public information sharing

This exercise of comparing local results with best practice is particularly useful for considering
underlying mechanisms that enable successful action.
Learning about successful practice led to a sustained inquiry into the factors that enabled
some land banks to succeed. For the most successful land banks in Ohio and Michigan, their
capacity at local level was made possible by state-​wide legislation. The most effective land banks
are clustered in states with strong enabling legislation. Strong state legislation combined two
factors: (1) A well-​organized tax lien foreclosure process that enables land banks to acquire
property quickly and at low cost, (2) A mandated funding mechanism that provides land banks
with the resources necessary to hire staff and maintain property. Many land banks operate in
places with weak enabling legislation, like Indiana, and some with a high level of success. They

190
 Land bank formation

Table 15.4 Land bank model matrix

Housing market

Strong & weak Uniformly weak

State policy Strong state funding and Catalyst Holders

context legal authority Cuyahoga County Genesee County
Weak state funding and Flippers Governance Innovators
legal authority Indianapolis TRI –​ COG
Muncie

must work through local units of government to achieve agreements as to what these state laws
mandate.
Property market conditions are second in importance to state legislative context for deriving
an effective land banking strategy. Some land banks operate in places like Genesee County
(Flint), Michigan, with uniformly weak housing markets. Others serve places like Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, that have pockets of decline and pockets of growth. Market conditions are likely
to affect both management strategy and efficiency. For example, land banks operating in uni-
formly weak markets cannot rely on reselling property to subsidize operations. The second
important contextual factor is the state and local legal framework supporting land banks. For
example, Ohio and Michigan have created strong and comprehensive reforms that mandate
funding and make it easier and less costly to acquire property. Other states, like Indiana and
Pennsylvania, do not.
Returning to our policy knowledge-​gathering process, we set out to find cases of land banks
that were able to successfully operate in similar legislative and market conditions (see Table 15.4).
Tri-​COG, a land bank in Allegheny County, just outside of the city of Pittsburgh, had derived a
strategy for operating in a context of weak state policy and weak market conditions. Tri-​COG
provided a strategic road map that came to inform the organizing strategy that would be adopted
in Muncie. Tri-​COG had successfully negotiated intergovernmental agreements with local units
of government to streamline the property acquisition process. They were also able to negotiate
a deal that would award them 5 per cent of tax receipts on all delinquent property taxes, similar
to the arrangement that had been created in Ohio.
The process of gathering knowledge on land banking practice in other places influenced the
strategy of organizers of the Muncie Land Bank. With these models in mind, the next task was
to seek to convince local units of government, non-​profits, and institutional actors to support
the new organization.

Land bank formation and restructuring local political and

organizational capacity
This knowledge-​production process gave us a model for achieving the kind of stable coalitions
between local units of government that would be necessary for building civic capacity in Muncie.
Local organizing led to insights for how to reorganize local capacity to recreate conditions
similar to the Tri-​COG example.This organizing activity focused on understanding and directing
common concern about abandonment in the face of significant distrust and political fissure.
Among institutional leaders there was significant distrust of the Muncie mayor’s admin-
istration stemming from an ongoing FBI investigation that resulted in the conviction of the
building commissioner for profiting from the demolition of abandoned structures. Moreover,

191
John West

informants explained the longer term history of machine politics in Muncie, with Democratic
and Republican parties being dominated by prominent political families, rewarding insiders with
city or county jobs.The building commissioner who was convicted was the son of the long-​time
chairperson of the local Democratic party, who had also been an elected and appointed official
in city and county government. Moreover, the parties had a deep distrust of one another as well
as “outsiders” more generally. The county was controlled by Republicans, many of whom were
swept into office in the 2016 election, while the city was controlled by the Democrats. Meetings
with local politicians often led to discussions about whether the land bank would reproduce the
ineffectiveness of existent programs. Indeed, the current effort is the third iteration of a local land
bank, with the first two hampered by a lack of cooperation between local units of government.
More fortunately, the local foundation community, community-​based organizations, residents,
and property owners have all expressed strong support for strategies to address abandonment and
blight. Civic institutions including the local chamber of commerce to Habitat for Humanity and
Urban Light, CDC (a community development corporation run out of the basement of an urban
missionary church) were enthusiastic about creating a strong and functional land bank. Finally,
the faculty and administrators at Ball State agreed to assist with start-​up activities, including
planning, market analysis, and the creation of an interactive, public-​facing website.There is much
latent civic capacity in these organizations.
The next and most significant hurdle in the creation of the land bank is to leverage the good
will and concern of residents and institutions to encourage the city and the county to enter into
an intergovernmental agreement in which each entity commits to supporting the land bank and
potentially cedes some resources and authority to each other and to the new institution. Such an
intergovernmental agreement would stabilize and regularize the relationship among the county,
the city, and the Muncie Land Bank.
Additionally, civil society players have unique kinds of latent capacity to offer the land bank.
Through a program called immersive learning, Ball State faculty organize courses that provide
clients with concrete deliverables. One faculty member organizes a course that produced a
public-​facing website for the land bank. Moreover, the newly appointed president of the uni-
versity has made community engagement a top priority, arguing that it is a “moral imperative”.
The local philanthropic community is comprised of three foundations: The Ball Foundation,
the George and Francis Ball Foundation, and the Community Foundation. Members of the Ball
Foundation have already provided strategic guidance for understanding the local political con-
text. These organizations are well endowed and positioned to support with what they refer to
as “catalytic funding” i.e. funding to help with the costs of starting the organization, including
consulting, marketing, board training, and the establishment of policies and procedures.
In order to reach an accord among these disparate political and institutional actors the land
bank has adopted a strategy with two key components. First, the land bank is forming a state-​
wide network of county and local governments with the hope of convincing the state legis-
lature to adopt comprehensive land banking legislation, which would mandate more efficient
relationships among local groups. Second, the land bank has contracted with an out-​of-​state
consultancy that will bring together municipal and county government officials, as well as pri-
vate entities with the goal of creating an enduring institution. For the land bank to be successful,
both local and state actors must act.

Reflection on resilience and land bank formation

Resilience in the context of planning work requires building strong alliances to promote
thriving cities, people, and environments. These strong alliances, known as civic capacity, are

192
 Land bank formation

dependent on context.The Muncie Land Bank has benefited from strong support from the non-​
governmental sector, including local philanthropies, housing non-​profits, and the university. The
local political climate of fracture, infighting and corruption in the building commissioner’s office
has dampened enthusiasm and trust in formal governmental action. In the case above, resilience
requires good governance and strong working relationships among local political factions.
Material conditions are important, but not sufficient for building civic capacity for resilience.
Shrinking industrial cities, comes from the material obduracy of problems. Shuttered, burnt-​
out, and collapsing houses, crabgrass covered lots with trash and the related material concern
of a shrinking tax base are fixed in the physical and fiscal landscape of the city. However, these
conditions have existed for over a decade. Catalytic efforts, through the state legislature and in
the form of support from local foundations was necessary to begin the work of reorganizing
local interests to address the problem.
Talking and listening, what planning theorists call deliberation, matters for building civic
capacity for resilience. Political relationships in Muncie are deeply fractured. However, as schol-
arship on communicative action and collaborative planning show, an overly materialistic and
deterministic view of interests, values, or value is not entirely valid (Forester 1983, Healey
1997). Connection, mutual learning, and expressions of common concern were evident in each
meeting with local policymakers and even more apparent when meeting with the leaders of
non-​governmental entities and community residents.
Finally, there are several issues that are intertwined: labor, uncertainty, and policy structure.
The case above details more than two years of labor, countless conversations, hours of adminis-
trative work, scheduling, grant writing, public events, and course preparation.This labor is neces-
sary because there is an absence of a strong policy structure for effectively addressing property
abandonment. If a similar effort was undertaken in a neighboring town in Ohio, state law would
have made much of this work unnecessary because funding for land banking is required, and
county land banks are the default recipient of tax delinquent property.The process of starting up
and managing a land bank requires less labor.
Relatedly, the weak policy structure in Muncie and Indiana creates significant uncertainty
that this effort will result in an efficient and effective institution. Though negotiations have
produced universal agreement about the need to address the problem of abandoned properties,
the land bank has yet to secure a guaranteed operational budget. Moreover, succeeding at the
fundamental goal of promoting thriving in the context of changes from deindustrialization is
a distant goal that is not immediately on the agenda of the Muncie Land Bank, as we focus on
operational stability.
Resilience, defined above as promoting human thriving in the context of disruption, is not a
natural process or a foregone conclusion. It is the result of the work of planners who labor under
conditions that they do not choose, let alone control.

References
Alexander, F. (2015). Land Banks and Land Banking. Second Edition. Flint, MI: Center for Community
Progress.
‘Anna Marie’ Interview with West, J. 2017. 100 Dreams 100 Stories.
Beauregard, R. (2009). Urban population loss in historical perspecitive: United States, 1820-​2000.
Environment and Planning. A 41: 514–​28.
City of Muncie Historic Preservation and Rehabilitation Commission, and Delaware County Historical
Society (2017). Scout Muncie: A Way Forward for Data-​Driven Neighborhood Revitalization. Muncie,
IN: Scout Muncie.

193
John West

DeFilippis, J. (2001). The myth of social capital. Housing Policy Debate. 12: 4.
Dewar: M. (2013). Chapter 8.What helps or hinders non-​profit developers in reusing vacant, abandoned, and
contaminated property. In: The City after Abandonment. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 174–​196.
Dewey, J. (1927). The Public and Its Problems. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
Dietrich-​Ward, A. (2016). Beyond Rust: Metropolitan Pittsburgh and the Fate of Industrial America.
Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Forester, J. (1982). Planning in the Face of Power. Journal of the American Planning Association 48
(1): 67–​80.
Friedmann, J. (1989). Planning in the public domain: Discourse and praxis. Journal of Planning Education
and Research. 8 (2): 128–​130.
Healey,P.(1997).Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies.First.Vancouver: UBC Press.
Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Latour, B. (2003).The promises of constructivism. In: Matrix of Materiality. Indiana Series for the Philosophy
of Science. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 27–​46.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. New York: Oxford University Press.
Logan, J. and Molotch, H. (1987). Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Mallach, A. (2018). The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America. Washington,
DC.: Island Press.
Pelling, M, and Navarrete. M. (2015). From Resilience to Transformation. In City Resilience, III:284–​99.
New York: Routledge.
Pendall, R. Forester, K., and Cowell, M. (2015). Resilience and Regions. In City Resilience, I:283–​401.
New York: Routledge..
Ross, J, and Cheek, C. (2014). Indiana’s Property Tax Caps: Effects on equity, service delivery and tax com-
petitiveness. Fiscal Benchmarking for Indiana’s Local Governments. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Public
Policy Institute.
Safford, S. (2009). Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown: The Transformation of the Rust Belt.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sayer, A. (1992). Problems of explanation and the aims of social science. In Method in Social Science.
London: Routledge.
Souza Briggs, X. de (2008). Democracy as Problem Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities across the
Globe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Stone, C.N., Henig, J., Jones, B., and Pierannunzi, C. (2001). Building Civic Capacity: The Politics of Urban
School Reform. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.
United States Census Bureau/​American FactFinder (2010). Population.2010 Census.US Census Bureau,
2010.Web. January 2018. http://​factfinder2.census.gov.

194
 Part III
Dimensions of resilience
 16
Assessing socio-​ecological
resilience in cities
Marta Suárez, Erik Gómez-​Baggethun, and Miren Onaindia

Introduction
Resilience is gaining growing leverage in urban planning and its importance in the context of
climate and global change is increasingly recognized in international agreements, such as the
United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda-​Habitat
III. But how do we foster urban resilience in practice? How do we know if a city is resilient or
not? These questions have captured the attention of academics across diverse research fields, such
as ecology, social sciences, disasters and risk management, climate change adaptation, engineering
or urban planning. However, these fields conceptualize resilience in so different ways and for so
diverse purposes (Meerow et al. 2016), to such an extent that authors are divided between those
who wonder if the word has become meaningless and those who believe that resilience can be
a powerful bridging concept among disciplines (Davoudi 2012). This makes it difficult to move
from theory to practice (Meerow et al. 2016) and leads to different interpretations of how to
operationalize and measure urban resilience. In this research we side with those who claim that it
can be a “boundary object” allowing useful cross-​fertilization across multiple knowledge (Brand
and Jax 2007), but we also claim that more efforts are needed for developing frameworks and
tools to assess and promote urban resilience at the operational level.
Cities are socio-​ecological systems (Berkes and Folke 1998) “in which people live at high
densities, and where built structures and infrastructure cover much of the land surface” (Pickett
et al. 2011; 333). Disturbances and stresses, such as environmental extremes –​e.g. hurricanes
or heat waves –​, technological failures, water shortages or the depletion of fisheries, forests, oil,
or other essential resources for the supply of cities (Goldstein 2009), may affect their normal
functioning and, therefore, human wellbeing. Policies and strategies to build socio-​ecological
resilience in cities are needed, but the way that we implement them is subject to spatial and tem-
poral trade-​offs and can have implications for equity. For example, resilience to short-​term specific
disturbances may be achieved at the expenses of general resilience to long-​term crisis and slow
urban dynamics for the most vulnerable, perpetuating social inequalities (Chelleri, et al. 2015).
The aim of this chapter is to synthesize state-​of-​the-​art knowledge for assessing socio-​
ecological resilience in cities. Following this introduction, we review the tensions and trade-​offs
in urban resilience implementation. We then conduct a systematic review and a content analysis

197
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

Table 16.1 The five Ws of urban resilience

Questions to consider

Why? TRADE-​OFFS What is the goal of building urban resilience?

What are the underlying motivations for building resilience?
Is the focus on process or outcome?
Who? Who determines what is desirable for an urban system?
Whose resilience is prioritized?
Who is included (and excluded) from the urban system?
What? What perturbations should the urban system be resilient to?
What networks and sectors are included in the urban system?
Is the focus on generic or specific resilience?
When? Is the focus on rapid-​onset disturbances or slow-​onset changes?
Is the focus on short-​term resilience or long-​term resilience?
Is the focus on the resilience of present or future generations?
Where? Where are the spatial boundaries of the urban system?
Is the resilience of some areas prioritized over others?
Does building resilience of some areas affect resilience elsewhere?

Source: Meerow and Newell (2016)

of the literature addressing methodologies to assess urban resilience. Next, we build on the results
of our review to develop a conceptual and a methodological framework to measure socio-​
ecological resilience in cities. Finally, we summarize our conclusions and provide suggestions to
advance future research in this field.

Why urban resilience, of what, to what, for whom, when, and where?
Although operationalizing and measuring urban resilience is a challenging task (Vale 2014), it is
perceived to be increasingly necessary if cities are to cope with accelerating climate and global
change. But the way that we apply resilience measures in cities is subject to spatial and tem-
poral trade-​offs and can have implications for equity. Taking into account trade-​offs is critically
important because enhancing resilience at one specific spatial or temporal scale can diminish
resilience at another spatial or temporal scale (Chelleri et al. 2015). Equity implications are
also important as vulnerability to shocks and change can vary strongly across social groups and
because these groups can benefit very differently from given resilience strategies depending on
their purpose and design (Chelleri et al. 2015; Romero-​Lankao et al. 2016).
As a first step to design and implement resilience-​building policies and strategies, Meerow
and Newell (2016) propose answering the following set of questions: why resilience, for whom,
of what, to what, when, and where (Table 16.1). “These ‘five W’s’ bring the politics of resili-
ence to the forefront by encouraging the explicit recognition of politicized decisions, scalar
dimensions, and trade-​offs inherent to applying resilience empirically” (Meerow and Newell
2016; 8). In this section we follow this approach to address trade-​offs that are important to
account for assessing urban resilience.

Why resilience?
Resilience policies and measures are applied by those who have the power to do so (Meerow
and Newell 2016; Romero-​Lankao et al. 2016), taking decisions on behalf of the rest of the

198
 Assessing resilience in cities

population, and often based on their own perspectives, priorities and interests (Meerow and
Newell 2016;Vale 2014). Some authors suggest that decision-​makers are mainly concerned with
maintaining their status quo (Romero-​Lankao et al. 2016; Vale 2014), and this usually leads to
short-​term resilience measures that compromise the long-​term resilience for the most vulner-
able and perpetuate social inequalities. So it is crucial to ask why resilience measures and policies
are being introduced and which is the ultimate goal of these interventions (Meerow and Newell
2016). This is directly related with the definition of urban resilience.
Although multiple resilience definitions can be found (Meerow et al. 2016; Schiappacasse
and Müller 2018), three main interpretations dominate the literature: engineering, ecological
and socio-​ecological (Davoudi 2012; Folke 2006). Engineering resilience refers to the capacity
of a system to return to equilibrium after disturbance (Pimm 1991), and it can be measured
as the recovery time. Ecological resilience is the capacity to absorb disturbance and maintain
main functions and structures while undergoing change (Folke 2006), and can be quantified
as the probability of whether a system will remain in a pre-​existing state or shift to a different
one (Perz et al. 2013). Socio-​ecological resilience –​also known as evolutionary (Davoudi 2012;
Davoudi et al. 2013; Kim and Lim 2016; Mehmood 2016) –​is the ability of complex socio-​
ecological systems to change, adapt, and, crucially, transform in response to stresses and strains
(Folke et al. 2010). Measuring socio-​ecological resilience is a challenging task because it is neces-
sary to take into account numerous socio-​ecological variables.
Engineering and ecological resilience build up on the conception that any system can reach a
stable equilibrium.The difference between both definitions is that engineering resilience focuses
on “bouncing back”, whereas ecological resilience recognizes that there are multiple equilibrium
states and the system can flip into a new one after the disturbance occurs (Gunderson 2000).
Socio-​ecological resilience stresses that complex systems are in constant change and there is no
equilibrium state that systems can return or move forward following disturbance. In this sense,
it focuses on the capacity of learning, being innovative, and being flexible, and it assumes that
human beings can make conscious interventions into the process, diminishing, sustaining, or
enhancing resilience (Davoudi et al. 2013). Table 16.2 shows the characteristics and differences
of the three resilience concepts. Resilience definitions do not usually completely fit one of these
three major concepts, but they normally include characteristics from one, two, or the three of
them (Meerow et al. 2016). Ecological and socio-​ecological perspectives are the most accepted
among academics (Schiappacasse and Müller 2018), but the engineering and ecological concepts
are the most widely applied in urban planning and risk management (Davoudi et al. 2013; Folke
et al. 2010;Vale 2014).
Because decision-​makers are often expected to demonstrate that they were doing well before
the disturbance happened, an engineering vision of resilience is the one that tends to dominate
in policy (Vale 2014). Efforts are made to return as fast as possible to a previous state after disturb-
ance (Kim and Lim 2016), assuming that it was a desirable state and often ignoring the existence
of social injustice and environmental problems that will persist in the baseline state (Vale 2014).
From this perspective, decision-​makers tend to rely on the presumption that the future socio-​
ecological state after a disturbance will be worse than the previous one (Novak et al. 2017) or
they presume that there is always an equilibrium state where “bouncing back” or “bouncing for-
ward”, under the promise of “building back better” (Vale 2014). So they often focus on recovery
and absorption capacities, but not in adaptation and transformability.
We focus on socio-​ecological resilience and its non-​equilibrium vision, but we integrate
elements of the three resilience perspectives. For example, we assume that a degree of recovery
and buffer capacity is required after absorbing disturbances. Not in order to “bounce back” or
“bounce forward” to an equilibrium state, but to recover and maintain critical functions for the

199
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

Table 16.2 The three major resilience concepts

Resilience concept Characteristics Focus on Context

Engineering Return time, efficiency Recovery, constancy Vicinity of a stable

equilibrium
Ecological Buffer capacity, withstand Persistence, robustness Multiple equilibria,
shock, maintain function stability landscapes
Socio-​ecological Interplay disturbance and Adaptive capacity, Integrated system
reorganization, sustaining transformability, learning, feedback, cross-​scale
and developing innovation dynamic interactions

Source: Folke (2006)

system’s adaptive capacity. Specifically, we adopt the definition proposed by Meerow et al. (2016;
45): “the ability of an urban system and all its constituent socio-​ecological and socio-​technical
networks across temporal and spatial scales to maintain or rapidly return to desired functions in
the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to quickly transform systems that limit current
or future adaptive capacity”. This definition also takes into account all the urban dimensions,
temporal and spatial scales that affect urban resilience and it acknowledges short-​and long-​term
resilience to all kind of disturbances and stresses. This approach enables dialogue and collabor-
ation among disciplines and leaves behind yet another theoretical discussion about the meaning
of urban resilience, and focuses on how to foster, assess and measure it.

Resilience for whom?

Whose resilience is prioritized and who is excluded from the urban system? On the one hand,
when applying resilience-​building strategies policymakers take decisions about who is going to
benefit (Meerow et al. 2016; Vale 2014) and enhancing resilience for a specific community can
diminish resilience for another one (Chelleri et al. 2015). On the other hand, when assessing and
measuring urban resilience some social groups can be also excluded from the assessments. We
can analyse individual or community resilience, we can focus on the most vulnerable, or we can
assess resilience for the whole population. Moreover, it is necessary to keep in mind that different
social groups, or the same social group in different neighborhoods, can have different levels of
resilience (Chelleri et al. 2015).

Resilience of what, to what?

Which parts of the city are going to be made more resilient? Are we addressing resilience of the
whole urban system or a single infrastructure or function? What kind of disturbances is the city
resilient to? Resilience of what, to what is another question that should be answered when oper-
ationalizing resilience (Carpenter et al. 2001). In this sub-​section, first we review the different
dimensions that compound the urban socio-​ecological system and, second, we address the diffe-
rence between specified and general resilience.
In resilience assessments the whole urban system (e.g. Bănică and Muntele, 2017; Schlör et al.
2018; Suárez et al. 2016), or part of it, such as a community (e.g. Qin et al. 2017) or an urban
network (e.g. Ganin et al. 2017; Lhomme et al. 2013; Pregnolato et al. 2016), can be analyzed.To
determine which part of the system we will address, it is necessary to define what urban means

200
 Assessing resilience in cities

and what components compose the urban socio-​ecological system (Meerow and Newell 2016;
Romero-​Lankao et al. 2016).
Depending on the chosen scale of analysis, an urban socio-​ecological system can be an
entire city, a town, a neighborhood, a jurisdiction encompassing some distinct municipal unit
of governance or larger polycentric city-​regions (Vale 2014). There is not a consensus on
what should be the critical elements of analysis in urban systems, but the literature identifies
certain patterns and similarities about the characteristics of the urban sub-​systems (Meerow
et al. 2016), components (Meerow and Newell 2016), dimensions (Gharai et al. 2018; Sharifi
and Yamagata 2016; Suárez et al. 2016) or domains (Romero-​Lankao et al. 2016) that affect
urban resilience. Suárez et al. (2016) and Gharai et al. (2018) found that most urban resili-
ence indicators are composed of social, economic, institutional, and environmental/​physical
dimensions. Romero-​Lankao et al. (2016) define cities as socio-​ecological systems with five
domains: socio-​demographics, economy, technology, environment, and governance. Similarly,
Meerow et al. (2016), based on Dicken (2011), propose a conceptual model with four sub-​
systems: governance networks, networked material and energy flows, urban infrastructure
and form, and socio-​economic dynamics.
Once we have answered the question resilience “of what” we need to ask ourselves resili-
ence “to what” (Carpenter et al. 2001). Resilience can be enhanced for specific and known
disturbances –​specified or tailored resilience –​or for a broader and expected and/​or unexpected
range of uncertainties –​general or universal resilience (Carpenter et al. 2012; Schiappacasse and
Müller 2018; Walker and Salt 2006). Urban resilience definitions usually “stress generic adapt-
ability, flexibility or adaptive capacity” (Meerow et al. 2016; 44), which fits with the concept
of general resilience. In practice, however, most of the literature on resilience (Schiappacasse
and Müller 2018) and urban resilience assessments (Suárez et al. 2016) only address specific
disturbances related to catastrophes and natural hazards, such as earthquakes or extreme weather
events as a consequence of climate change (Novak et al. 2017; Suárez et al. 2016).

Resilience when?
Resilience to short-​term specific disturbances may be achieved at the expense of general resili-
ence to long-​term crisis and slow urban dynamics (Novak et al. 2017) and vice versa (Walker and
Salt 2006). Given that, there is a constant tension between resilience to short-​term disruptions
and long-​term stress (Chelleri et al., 2015; Meerow and Newell 2016; Novak et al. 2017; Walker
and Salt 2006), so trade-​offs within temporal and spatial scales are a key feature for assessing and
applying resilience (Chelleri et al. 2015). When the focus is on the short term, the objective is
system persistence and recovery, whereas resilience for the long term focuses on transition and
transformation (Chelleri and Olazabal 2012; Chelleri et al. 2015). Trade-​offs between temporal
scales need to be managed in order to guarantee that short-​term resilience do not compromise
resilience in the long term, and that long-​term resilience also address rapid-​onset disturbances.

Resilience where?
As Gunderson and Holling (2002) pointed out in their panarchy model, resilience has to acknow-
ledge the cross-​scalar dynamics of socio-​ecological systems. Local resilience may be affected by
global-​scale processes, whereas local-​scale transformations can influence broader-​scale resilience
(Meerow and Newell 2016). Moreover, adaptive capacity is often unevenly distributed across

201
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

a city, so different areas or population groups may have different levels of resilience (Chelleri
et al. 2015).
Resilience measurements and assessments should therefore be spatially explicit (Meerow
and Newell 2016). In practice, the boundaries of the socio-​ecosystem will be defined by the
objective of the assessment and the available data, and data sets are usually available for terri-
tories within administrative boundaries (e.g. Suárez et al. 2016). In spite of these constraints,
assessments should recognize cross-​scalar interactions and how building resilience in the assessed
spatial scale may affect other scales (Chelleri et al. 2015; Meerow and Newell 2016).

Measuring urban resilience: A systematic review

To analyze how resilience is being measured and assessed we conducted a systematic review of
relevant literature. The review has been guided by the “five Ws” presented. First, we explain our
methodology to select the studies and to collect and analyze the data. Second, we present the
results of the review.

Selection of studies, data collection and analysis

We conducted a literature search in English and Spanish (Amano et al. 2016) of methodologies to
assess urban resilience in Web of Science and Scopus databases using the following combination of
key words: (assess* OR measur* OR evaluat* OR indicator* OR index) AND (“urban resili-
ence” OR “cit* resilience”) in title, abstract and key words on February 7, 2018.We are aware that
not all resilience assessments are included in this search –​for example, vulnerability assessments
that include resilience indicators –​but the objective was to find the studies explicitly identified
as resilience assessments. The literature search resulted in a sample of 266 papers after removing
duplicates.We read the title and abstract to select only those papers that propose or apply a meth-
odology, theoretically or empirically, to assess resilience in cities. Where there were doubts about
whether it fits the inclusion criteria, we scanned the body of the paper. We did not include lit-
erature reviews and papers of case studies that analyze resilience in a descriptive way without
presenting any methodological framework. In this step, we also removed conference papers that
were published later in a scientific journal with a similar title and by the same authors. In total
we obtained 55 papers, including scientific articles, book chapters, and conference papers. Seven
studies were not included in the review because we could not get access to the full text.
In order to analyze trends and how urban resilience assessments address the “five Ws” we
designed a review template to collect, organize, classify, and analyze the information contained
in the papers along nine different criteria: (1) publication characteristics (publication year, type
of publication and research field); (2) number of case studies and geographic area covered in the
study; (3) methodology used to assess resilience; (4) why resilience?, (5) resilience for whom?;
(6) resilience of what?; (7) resilience to what?; (8) resilience when?; and (9) resilience where?
Table 16.3 summarizes the assessed variables and how we categorized them for our analysis. We
analysed the data using frequency distributions and simple descriptive statistics.

Trends in resilience assessments

Trends found in our sample show that resilience assessment is a recent and expanding research
field (Figure 16.1). The two first studies were published in 2010 (Leu et al. 2010; Lhomme et al.
2010), followed by one study in 2011 (Beraud et al. 2011).We did not find any study in 2012. Most
publications (65.5 per cent) were published since 2016, peaking in 2017. Since we conducted the

202
 Assessing resilience in cities

Table 16.3 Analysed variables and categorization

Variables Categories

Year of publication Year

Type of publication
Research field
Number of case studies
Geographic area
Methodology
For whom? How dimensions of
equity and justice are included?
Of what? What urban dimensions
are included?
To what?
For when? Temporal comparisons
are included?
For when? Is it focused on rapid-​
or slow-​onset disturbances?
For when? Is it focus on short-​or
long-​term resilience?
For where? Which spatial scales
are analyzed?
Why? What kind of resilience is
analyzed?
scientific article /​conference paper /​book chapter /​others
architecture /​area studies /​business & economics /​computer
science /​construction & building technology /​energy & fuels
/​engineering /​environmental sciences & ecology /​geography
/​geology /​materials science /​mathematics /​meteorology &
atmospheric sciences /​oceanography /​operations research
& management science /​physical geography /​public
administration /​science & technology /​transportation /​urban
studies /​water resourcesa,b
Number
Name of the city, country and continent
qualitative /​quantitative /​both + GIS-​based scenario model /​
GIS-​based scenario model and index /​GIS-​based set of
indicators /​index /​model /​scenario model /​set of indicators
equity indicators /​spatial analysis /​distinction between social
groups /​not includedb
social /​economic /​environmental /​physical /​governanceb
any disturbance or stress /​not specified natural disasters /​air
pollution /​earthquakes /​extreme rainfall /​extreme weather /​
flooding /​heat waves /​hurricanes /​sea level rise /​tsunamis
yes /​no
rapid /​slow /​both
short /​long /​both
small urban unit /​neighborhood /​city /​peri-​urban area /​
metropolitan area /​region /​continent /​countryb
engineering /​ecological /​socio-​ecologicalb

a Web of Science’s categories for research fields.

b The variable may belong to more than one category.

literature search at the beginning of 2018 there are only four studies published that year but,
the projection suggests that the increasing trend will continue. Thirty-​seven studies are papers
published in scientific journals, 14 are conference papers, three are book chapters and one is a
paper published in arXiv repository.The research field with more studies is engineering, followed
by environmental sciences and ecology, urban studies, and computer science (Figure 16.2).
Most papers (61.8 per cent) assess urban resilience for a single case study, 23.6 per cent assess
resilience for several case studies and 14.5 per cent propose methodologies to measure or assess
urban resilience without applying it to any case study.Within the studies covering more than one
case study –​between two and seven –​, three of them a ssess resilience for cities in one single
country (Khorasani et al. 2015; Min-​SeokI et al. 2017; Tumini et al. 2017), one for three cities
in two European countries (Kuznecova et al. 2014) and one for four cities in four countries in
North America, Oceania and Asia (Collier et al. 2013). Only eight studies assess urban resilience

203
Figure 16.1 Number of studies published per year
Source: Author’s own elaboration

Figure 16.2 Number of studies by research field

Source: Author’s own elaboration
 Assessing resilience in cities

for a higher number of case studies in a single country (Abdrabo and Hassaan 2015; Cutter et al.
2016; Ganin et al. 2017; Qin et al. 2017; Suárez et al. 2016), in Eastern European Union cities
(Bănică and Muntele 2017) or for cities in all continents (Abbar et al. 2016; Schlör et al. 2018). It
is remarkable the assessment of urban–​rural differences of disaster resilience based on more than
3,000 case studies in the United States (Cutter et al. 2016). The papers mainly use case studies
located in Europe (19 papers), North America (14) and Asia (12). South America, Oceania, and
Africa are under-​represented with only six, five and three publications respectively. All the coun-
tries with case studies in the reviewed papers appear fewer than four times, except the United
STates, with 11 papers that include cities from this country.

Methodology to assess urban resilience

Quantitative methods are the most widely used (76.4 per cent), whereas qualitative or a com-
bination of both are only used in 16.4 per cent and 7.3 per cent of the studies respectively
(Figure 16.3). Scenario modelling is the most used methodology (45.5 per cent) and quantita-
tive GIS-​based models are often used to simulate the behavior of the urban system or some of
its components or functions after a specific (34.5 per cent) or any kind of disturbance (5.5 per
cent). Three of these studies complement the model with an index (Abdrabo and Hassaan 2015;
Koren et al 2017; Miguez and Verol 2017). Two publications apply a qualitative GIS-​based scen-
ario model to assess urban networks resilience through topological (Ottenburger and Münzberg
2017) and functional (Lhomme et al. 2010) analysis. Other studies use quantitative (Field et al
2017) or qualitative (Freeman et al 2017) scenario models to assess how different resilience
measures can affect urban condition (Field et al. 2017; Freeman et al. 2017) or use a similar
quantitative approach than the GIS-​based models to assess urban performance after specific
disturbances (Schwind et al. 2016). All and 59 per cent of the studies that belong to computer
science and engineering research fields respectively use scenario models.
Indicators (27.3 per cent) and indexes (23.6 per cent) are the second and third most popular
methods to assess urban resilience. In opposition to the scenario models there is not an observable

Figure 16.3 Methodologies to assess urban resilience.

Source: Author’s own elaboration

205
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

trend for this methodology, and they are applied for specific and general resilience and in different
research fields, such as environmental sciences and ecology, engineering, geology, meteorology,
atmospheric sciences, or water resources. Only two papers propose a qualitative model as a tool
to identify urban characteristics that may diminish or enhance urban resilience (Collier et al.
2013; Serre et al. 2018).

Why resilience?
To answer this question we analyzed the definitions of resilience used in the reviewed studies
and the characteristics of the three major resilience concepts (Table 16.2) that were mentioned.
Most publications mention characteristics of two (40 per cent) or three (29.1 per cent) resili-
ence concepts, whereas characteristics of a single concept were present in only 12.7 per cent of
the studies. Some 18.2 per cent of the papers provide one or more definitions of resilience but
do not choose a particular one. Ecological resilience is the most widely used (70.9 per cent),
followed by engineering (58.2 per cent) and socio-​ecological (50.9 per cent). When two major
resilience concepts are included in the definition, these are engineering and ecological (20 per
cent) and ecological and socio-​ecological (18.2 per cent), except in one study that includes
engineering and socio-​ecological resilience but not ecological (Bastaminia et al. 2016). Socio-​
ecological resilience only appears alone in one paper (Da Silva and Morer, 2014).
All the studies whose definitions include characteristics of engineering or engineering and
ecological concepts (25.5 per cent) assess specified resilience to rapid-​onset disturbances, whereas
all the publications that measure general resilience (32.7 per cent) include the ecological and
socio-​ecological concepts in their resilience definitions, except two papers that only define eco-
logical resilience (Brudermann, et al. 2016; Freeman et al. 2017) and one study that only includes
socio-​ecological resilience (Da Silva and Morera 2014).

Resilience for whom?

To answer the question resilience for whom, we analyzed if the methodologies to assess resilience
include dimensions of equity and justice in three different ways: (1) including equity indicators
in the assessment; (2) analyzing spatial patterns within the study area; and (3) analyzing resilience
for different social groups. Most studies (70.9 per cent) include one or two of these methods.
About 38.2 per cent of publications analyze resilience spatial patterns using GIS-​based scenario
models that identify which areas and population are more vulnerable or by measuring resilience
indicators for different neighborhoods or urban areas within the study area. Equity indicators are
present in 27.3 per cent of the reviewed papers; although some of them do not include them in
the assessment for equity and social justice motivations, but because they assume that some social
inequalities can diminish or enhance resilience to specific disturbances (e.g. Abdrabo and Hassaan
2015; Carreño et al. 2017; Kontokosta and Malik 2018; Villagra et al 2016). Two studies carry
out this spatial analysis and assess resilience for specific social groups according to their income
(Grinberger and Felsenstein 2016) and age (Zhao et al. 2013). Only one paper exclusively assesses
resilience for the elderly, noting that they are a special vulnerable group to heat waves (Zaidi and
Pelling 2015).

Resilience of what?
Almost half of the reviewed publications offer a holistic view of the urban socio-​ecosystem,
including four (25.5 per cent) or the five (21.8 per cent) urban dimensions –​social, economic,

206
 Assessing resilience in cities

environmental, physical, and governance; whereas 21.8 per cent, 16.4 per cent and 12.7 per
cent only include one, two or three dimensions respectively. Only one paper does not specify
which part of the urban system is included in the assessment (Schwind et al. 2016). Physical
infrastructure is addressed in 89.1 per cent of the studies, the social dimension in 69.1 per cent,
the environmental dimension in 54.5 per cent, economics in 49.1 per cent, and governance in
41.8 per cent .
Studies that assess resilience of only one dimension usually apply scenario modelling to
measure the performance of physical infrastructure to deliver different services, such as energy
(Brudermann et al. 2016; Ottenburger and Münzberg 2017), and transport (Abbar et al. 2016;
Lhomme et al. 2013; Pregnolato et al. 2016) networks, or the urban configuration (Esposito
and Di Pinto 2015) after a disturbance. Some authors try to simulate population behavior after
a disturbance introducing hypothesis in the model, but without including any social indicator
(Esposito and Di Pinto 2014).Three papers apply indicators to measure the resilience of buildings
and urban networks (Balsells et al. 2013), the transportation system (Donovan and Work 2017),
or how urban design can increase resilience to traffic-​related air pollution (Cariolet et al. 2017).
One paper assesses how urban and peri-​urban green infrastructure and the ecosystem services
that it provides may increase urban resilience (Calderón-​Contreras and Quiroz-​Rosas 2017) and
another one only focuses on governance, proposing a qualitative index to assess adaptive capacity
through risk management policies at the city level (Zaidi and Pelling 2015).
Most studies that assess resilience of two dimensions add social indicators, such as population
density (Ganin et al. 2017; Khorasani et al. 2015; Miguez and Verol 2017; Tumini et al. 2017) and
size (Leu et al. 2010), to evaluate how physical infrastructure performance affect urban popula-
tion after disturbance. Owrangi et al. (2015) follow a completely different approach and measure
population vulnerability to flooding through a human health impact index that combines social
data with topography. Three papers assess how green and physical infrastructure may increase
urban resilience to flooding (Serre et al. 2018) and heat waves (Carvalho et al. 2017; Rafael
et al. 2016).
Five of the papers that include three dimensions use indicators related to social, environ-
mental, and physical dimensions (Koren et al. 2017; Lakshani and Welikanna 2016;Villagra et al.
2016) or to the social, economic, and physical (Carreño et al. 2017; Su 2017). Bozza et al. (2017)
and Franchin and Cavalieri (2013) include in their scenario models, not only population data to
measure displaced and relocated citizens after disturbance, but also how different reconstruction
measures may affect urban resilience.

Resilience to what?
Most papers assess resilience for specific disturbances (67.3 per cent) in opposition to general
resilience to any kind of disturbance or stress. Almost all the addressed disturbances are natural
disasters or extreme weather events related to climate change, with a predominance of flooding
(18.2 per cent) and earthquakes (9.1 per cent). Only one study assesses resilience to long-​term
stresses such as air pollution (Cariolet et al. 2017). Some publications (18.2 per cent) propose
methodologies to measure resilience for specific disturbances but do not apply them to any in
particular.

Resilience when?
To answer the question “resilience when?”, we analyzed whether (1) the reviewed papers
carry out temporal analysis, (2) address rapid-​or slow-​onset disturbances, and (3) are focused

207
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

in short-​or long-​term resilience. Only 38.2 per cent of the reviewed papers analyse resili-
ence at different times, for example to compare resilience levels before and after a disturbance
(e.g. Balsells et al. 2013; Beraud et al. 2011; Cavallaro et al. 2014) or during a year-​period (e.g.
Lakshani and Welikanna 2016; Qin et al. 2017). Most studies (69.1 per cent) address rapid-​onset
disturbances only, whereas 29.1 per cent propose a methodology to assess resilience for both,
and only one study for slow ones (Cariolet et al. 2017). However, although most papers assess
resilience for rapid-​onset disturbances, some of them recognize that planning for the long term
is necessary (e.g. Bastaminia et al. 2016; Collier et al. 2013; Fonseca et al. 2017; Pregnolato
et al., 2016).

Resilience where?
Almost half of the reviewed studies assess resilience at one spatial scale only, mainly at city level
(e.g. Abbar et al. 2016; Fonseca et al. 2017; Ganin et al. 2017; Leu et al. 2010) and 33 per cent of
the papers address two spatial scales, such as neighborhoods within the city and the city itself (e.g.
Kontokosta and Malik 2018; Ottenburger and Münzberg 2017; Tumini et al. 2017) or a smaller
urban unit –​grid-​cells (Khorasani et al. 2015; Nugent et al. 2017; Rafael et al. 2016), or buildings
(Khorasani et al. 2015) –​and the city. Only three papers assess resilience for three spatial scales.
These include small urban unit, neighborhood, and city (Zhao et al. 2013); city, metropolitan
area, and country (Bănică and Muntele 2017); and city, continent, and world (Schlör et al. 2018).

A conceptual and methodological framework to assess socio-​ecological

resilience in cities
From the results of the systematic review, we conclude that more research is needed to develop a
methodology to assess urban resilience from a coupled socio-​ecological perspective (i.e. as fitting
the definition of Meerow et al. 2016). To encourage further research in this subject, we build on
Suárez et al. (2016) to propose a conceptual framework to measure socio-​ecological urban resili-
ence (Figure 16.4). This framework is based on the assumption that socio-​ecological resilience
may not be directly created but can be fostered through factors that have been proven to increase
resilience, including: diversity, modularity, feedbacks length, social cohesion, and learning and
innovation (for an explanation of their meaning and how they affect urban resilience see Suárez
et al. 2016). The main novelties of this new framework are that: (1) it relates engineering, eco-
logical, and socio-​ecological resilience; (2) it includes five differentiated urban dimensions; (3) it
includes the concept of ecosystem services as catalysers of urban resilience (McPhearson et al.
2015); and (4) the linear model is converted into a closed one, to reflect that enhancing socio-​
ecological resilience is a continuous process.
The five urban dimensions included in this conceptual framework are: social, economic,
ecological infrastructure, grey infrastructure, and governance. We do not include material and
energy flows and urban functions because they directly depend on the physical infrastructure, the
governance system, and the socio-​economic characteristics, and because flows can be managed
by transforming one or several dimensions. Although some authors consider socio-​economic
variables altogether (Abdrabo and Hassaan 2015; Bănică and Muntele 2017; Da Silva and Morera
2014; Kuznecova et al. 2014), we consider them separately to emphasize, on the one hand,
the social characteristics that affect social cohesion and, therefore, community resilience (Adger
2003; Carpenter et al. 2012; Walker and Salt 2006) and, on the other hand, how the economic
dimension should work to be resilient (Cato 2013; Hopkins 2008). Other authors merge eco-
logical and grey infrastructure in the physical sub-​system (e.g. Bănică and Muntele 2017; Qin

208
 Posive effect
Negave effect Demand of
ecosystem
Components that may be transformed
services
to increase reslience

Diversity of
Self-sufficiency FEEDBACKS LENGTH
ecosystems

ENGINEERING RESILIENCE
Diversity of Capacity to provide
MODULARITY Recover capacity
species ecosystem services
(Recovering desired funcons)

Diversity of
Reorganizaon
land uses

Diversity of
DIVERSITY
people

Diversity of
economic
acvies

ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE
Diversity of
Decentralizaon SOCIAL COHESION Buffer capacity
instuons
(Maintaining desired funcons)

Diversity of
organized
cizen
groups
Cizen
parcipaon
spaces

SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE
LEARNING AND
Adapve capacity and
INNOVATION
transformability

Figure 16.4 Conceptual framework to assess socio-​ecological general resilience in cities1

Source: Author’s own elaboration
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

et al. 2017) or open space sub-​system (Koren et al. 2017), but we consider them separately
because they are responsible for different functions and services. For example, the ecological
infrastructure, namely, “green and blue spaces” such as parks, urban allotments, urban forests,
single trees, green roofs, or rivers and lakes (European Environmental Agency 2011), provide
critically important ecosystem services for human wellbeing (Gómez-​Baggethun et al. 2013),
whereas grey infrastructure, mainly buildings, roads, and technological networks, facilitates the
delivery of some of these ecosystem services and provides other kind of services such as trans-
port, education, or health facilities. Finally, governance is constituted by all the institutions, their
interrelations, and the rules that govern the urban system.
Although the conceptual framework already identifies some of the indicators that can be
used –​diversity, capacity to provide and demand of ecosystem services and citizens participa-
tion spaces –​we also propose a methodological framework, in the form of a matrix that crosses
the five key resilience factors with the five urban sub-​systems, to guide the process of finding
indicators to assess urban resilience (Table 16.4).We added an extra row to the matrix to include
equity indicators. We also give some examples of indicators from the review literature; some
cells are empty because we did not find any indicator matching that resilience factor and the
respective urban sub-​system. Using this matrix we identify which parts of the urban socio-​
ecosystems and which resilience factors we are measuring and detect the methodological gaps
in our assessments.
We offer this conceptual and methodological framework as a dynamic tool to guide the
development of methodologies to assess socio-​ecological resilience to any kind of disturbances
and stresses. It can be modified if new resilience factors, indicators, and interrelations between
factors and sub-​systems are found. We suggest carrying out a literature review of methodologies
to assess resilience, as the one we did for this chapter, to identify which factors or indicators are
used to improve this conceptual and methodological framework.

Conclusions
In this chapter, we carried out a literature review to discuss how temporal and spatial trade-​offs
and social inequalities are being addressed by academics who propose methodological frameworks
and tools to assess urban resilience. To do so, we categorized and analyzed the reviewed studies
answering the questions why resilience, for whom, of what, to what, when, and where, proposed
by Meerow and Newell (2016). Our results show that none of the reviewed methodologies fit
with the resilience definition adopted in this chapter, that is a methodological framework that
takes into account social equity and justice, includes the five sub-​systems –​social, economic,
governance, and ecological and grey infrastructure –​, assess resilience to any kind of disturbance,
for short-​and long-​term and in different spatial scales, and link engineering, ecological, and
socio-​ecological resilience.
Future research on urban resilience assessment should take into account the following
considerations:

• Most studies have been carried out in Europe, North America, and Asia. Resilience assessments
in other continents would incorporate new insights from different geographic areas and cul-
tural backgrounds.
• Indicators and indexes seem to be the most accepted methodologies across research fields and
they may be applied for specified and general resilience, whereas scenario models seem to be
only useful to assess resilience to specific rapid-​onset disturbances.

210
Table 16.4 Matrix to guide the process of finding urban resilience indicators with examples from literature. The positive or negative effect on resilience is indicated with
(+) and (-​) respectively

Key resilience factors Urban sub-​systems

Social Economic Ecological infrastructure Grey infrastructure Governance

Diversity –​ Business diversity (+)a Land use diversity (+)a Diversity of energy –​
Lack of Economic Food diversity (+)a sources (+)d
Diversity (-​)b Diversity of green Diversity of mobility modes
­infrastructure (+)c (+)e
Modularity Social capital –​number of civic Business diversity (+)a Land use diversity (+)a Share of use of centralized Jurisdictional
organizations (+)f Number of local food Food diversity (+)a energy system (-​)d coordination (+)f
suppliers (+)f Evacuation routes (+)f,h Formal and informal
Infrastructure and services institutional settings
rate of provision (+)g (+)j
Medical facilities (+)i
Feedbacks length Self-​sufficiency –​carrying capacity Number of local food Tree density (+)b Building density (-​)b Jurisdictional
excess (-​)a suppliers (+)f Diversity, quantity and Capacity to decrease traffic coordination (+)f
d
Dependence on fuel import (-​) quality of green related emissions (+)l Formal and informal
Energy consumption (-​)d,k infrastructure (+)c institutional settings
GHG emissions (-​)d,e,k Accessibility to green (+)g
Water consumption (-​)k urban spaces (+)k
Local production of food
(+)k
Social cohesion Place attachment (+)f –​ –​ Percent of Vacant Housing Spaces for citizen
Social capital –​number of civic Units (-​)b participation (+)a
organizations (+)f Proximity index (+)h Participation (+)m
Sense of belonging (+)m
Learning and Participation (+)m –​ –​ –​ Spaces for citizen
innovation participation (+)a
Participation (+)m
Equity indicators Environmental equity related to residential locationn /​Educational attainment equalityf /​Race/​ethnicity income equalityf /​Gender income equalityf
/​Education equityi /​Gini indexb,o

References: a Suárez et al. 2016; b Kontokosta and Malik 2018; c Calderón-​Contreras and Quiroz-​Rosas 2017; d Kuznecova et al. 2014; e Fonseca et al. 2017; f Cutter et al. 2016; g Abdrabo and
Hassan 2015; h Tumini et al. 2017; i Qin et al. 2017; j Abdrabo and Hassan 2015; k Delgado-​Ramos and Guibrunet 2017; l Cariolet et al. 2018; m Tabibian and Rezapour 2016; n Zhao et al. 2013;
o
Schlör et al. 2018.
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

• Although a large amount of studies analyze spatial resilience patterns, equity indicators and
analysis for different social groups are not widely applied, but introducing them in the resili-
ence assessments should be done to include dimensions of equity and justice.
• More efforts to include the ecological infrastructure and the social and economic dimensions
to develop methodologies to assess resilience for the whole urban socio-​ecological systems
would be desirable.
• Methods to assess resilience to any kind of slow-​onset disturbances and stresses and which
consider recovery, buffer and adaptive capacity need to be prioritized due to their scarcity in
the literature.
• There is a lack of urban resilience assessments for different spatial and temporal scales in order
to evaluate trade-​offs.

In our attempt to encourage further research in this field we proposed a conceptual and meth-
odological framework to assess urban resilience that takes into account these conclusions and
suggestions. We offer it as a dynamic tool to guide the development of new methodologies to
measure socio-​ecological resilience in cities.

Note
1 The boxes are: dark grey the three major resilience concepts; light grey the resilience factors; and white
indicators of the social, economic, ecological infrastructure and governance sub-systems.

References
Abbar, S., Zanouda, T., and Borge-​Holthoefer, J. (2016). Robustness and resilience of cities around the
world. ArXiv. 8.
Abdrabo, M.A. and Hassaan, M.A. (2015). An integrated framework for urban resilience to climate
change –​case study: sea level rise impacts on the Nile Delta coastal urban areas. Urban Climate.
14: 554–​565.
Adger,W.N. (2003). Social capital, collective action and adaptation to climate change. Economic Geography.
79: 387–​404.
Amano, T., González-​Varo, J.P., and Sutherland, W.J. (2016). Languages are still a major barrier to global
science. PLOS Biology. 14(12): e2000933.
Balsells, M., Becue,V., Barroca, B., Diab,Y., and Serre, D. (2013). Flood resilience assessment of New Orleans
neighborhood over time. In: Resilience and Urban Risk management –​Proceedings of the Conference
‘How the Concept of Resilience Is Able to Improve Urban Risk Management? A Temporal and a
Spatial Analysis, 151–​166.
Bănică, A. and Muntele, I. (2017). Urban transitions and resilience of Eastern European Union cities. Eastern
Journal of European Studies. 8(2): 45–​69.
Bastaminia, A., Rezaie, M.R., Tazesh, Y., and Dastoorpoor, M. (2016). Evaluation of urban resilience
to earthquake a case study: Dehdasht City. International Journal of Ecology & Development.
31(4): 46–​56.
Beraud, H., Barroca, B., Serre, D., and Hubert, G. (2011). Making urban territories more resilient to
flooding by improving the resilience of their waste management network. A methodology for analysing
dysfunctions in waste management networks during and after flooding. In: Vulnerability, Uncertainty,
and Risk: Analysis, Modeling, and Management –​Proceedings of the ICVRAM 2011 and ISUMA
2011 Conferences, 425–​432.
Berkes, F. and Folke, C. (eds.) (1998). Linking Social and Ecological Systems. Management Practices and
Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Bozza, A., Asprone, D., Parisi, F., and Manfredi, G. (2017). Alternative resilience indices for city
ecosystems subjected to natural hazards. Computer-​Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.
32(7): 527–​545.

212
 Assessing resilience in cities

Brand, F. and Jax, K. (2007). Focusing the meaning(s) of resilience: resilience as a descriptive concept and a
boundary object. Ecology and Society. 12(1).
Brudermann, T., Hofer, C., and Yamagata, Y. (2016). Agent-​based modeling a tool for urban resilience
research? In: Y.Yamagata and H. Maruyama (eds.): Urban Resilience: A Transformative Approach, 135–​
151. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Calderón-​Contreras, R. and Quiroz-​Rosas, L.E. (2017). Analysing scale, quality and diversity of green infra-
structure and the provision of urban ecosystem services: A case from Mexico City. Ecosystem Services.
23: 127–​137.
Cariolet, J.-​M., Colombert, M., Vuillet, M., and Diab, Y. (2017). Assessing the resilience of urban areas
to traffic-​related air pollution: Application in Greater Paris. The Science of the Total Environment.
615: 588–​596.
Carpenter, S., Arrow, K., Barrett, S., Biggs, R., Brock, W., Crépin, A.-​S., … Zeeuw, A. (2012). General resili-
ence to cope with extreme events. Sustainability. 4(12): 3248–​3259.
Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, J.M., and Abel, N. (2001). From metaphor to measurement: Resilience
of what to what? Ecosystems. 4(8): 765–​781.
Carreño, M.L., Cardona, O.-​D., Barbat, A.H., Suárez, D.C., Pérez, M. del P., and Narváez, L. (2017). Holistic
disaster risk evaluation for the urban risk management plan of Manizales, Colombia. International
Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 8(3): 258–​269.
Carvalho, D., Martins, H., Marta-​Almeida, M., Rocha, A., and Borrego, C. (2017). Urban resilience to future
urban heatwaves under a climate change scenario: A case study for Porto urban area (Portugal). Urban
Climate. 19: 1–​27.
Cato, M.S. (2013). The BIoregional Economy: Land, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Cavallaro, M., Asprone, D., Latora, V., Manfredi, G., and Nicosia, V. (2014). Assessment of urban ecosystem
resilience through hybrid social-​physical complex networks. Computer-​Aided Civil and Infrastructure
Engineering. 29(8): 608–​625.
Chelleri, L. and Olazabal, M. (2012). Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Resilience. Bilbao: Basque
Centre for Climate Change.
Chelleri, L., Waters, J.J., Olazabal, M., and Minucci, G. (2015). Resilience trade-​offs: addressing multiple
scales and temporal aspects of urban resilience. Environment and Urbanization. 27(1): 181–​198.
Collier, F., Hambling, J., Kernaghan, S., Kovacevic, B., Miller, R., Pérez, A.P., … Macmillan, S. (2013).
Tomorrow’s cities: A framework to assess urban resilience. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil
Engineers: Urban Design and Planning. 167(2): 79–​91.
Cutter, S.L., Ash, K.D., and Emrich, C.T. (2016). Urban-​rural differences in disaster resilience. Annals of the
American Association of Geographers. 106(6): 1236–​1252.
Da Silva, J. and Morera, B.E. (2014). City resilience framework: A holistic evidence-​based framework for
understanding city resilience. In: M. Stal, D. Sigrist, and W. Ammann (eds.): Proceedings of the 5th
International Disaster and Risk Conference: Integrative Risk Management –​The Role of Science,
Technology and Practice, IDRC Davos 2014. Global Risk Forum (GRF), 188–​191.
Davoudi, S. (2012). Resilience: A bridging concept or a dead end? Planning Theory & Practice.
13(2): 299–​307.
Davoudi, S., Brooks, E., and Mehmood, A. (2013). Evolutionary resilience and strategies for climate adapta-
tion. Planning Practice and Research. 28(3): 307–​322.
Carlo Delgado-​Ramos, G., and Guibrunet, L. (2017). Assessing the ecological dimension of urban resilience
and sustainability. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. 9(2): 151–​169.
Dicken, P. (2011). Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy.
New York: Guilford Press.
Donovan, B. and Work, D.B. (2017). Empirically quantifying city-​scale transportation system resilience to
extreme events. Transportation Research Part C-​Emerging Technologies. 79: 333–​346.
Esposito, A. and Di Pinto, V. (2014). Urban Resilience and Risk Assessment: How Urban Layout Affects
Flood Risk in the City. 14th International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications,
Guimaraes: 204–​207 .
Esposito,A. and Di Pinto,V. (2015). Calm after the storm: The configurational approach to manage flood risk
in river-​cities. In: K. Karimi, G. Palaiologou, L.Vaughan, T. Bolton, and K. Sailer (eds.): SSS 2015 –​10th
International Space Syntax Symposium. Space Syntax Laboratory, The Bartlett School of Architecture,
University College London.

213
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

European Environmental Agency. (2011). Green Infrastructure and Territorial Cohesion. The Concept of
Green Infrastructure and its Integration into Policies Using Monitoring Systems. Luxembourg: European
Environmental Agency.
Field, C., Look, R., and Lindsay, T. (2017). A comprehensive approach to city and building resilience. Aei
2017: Resilience of the Integrated Building: 745–​757.
Folke, C. (2006). Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–​ecological systems analyses. Global
Environmental Change. 16(3): 253–​267.
Folke, C., Carpenter, S.R., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T., and Rockstrom, J. (2010). Resilience
thinking: integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecology and Society. 15(4): 20.
Fonseca, J.A., Estevez-​Mauriz, L., Forgaci, C., and Bjorling, N. (2017). Spatial heterogeneity for envir-
onmental performance and resilient behavior in energy and transportation systems. Computers
Environment and Urban Systems. 62: 136–​145.
Franchin, P. and Cavalieri, F. (2013).A framework for physical simulation of critical infrastructures, accounting
for interdependencies and uncertainty. In: Safety, Reliability, Risk and Life-​Cycle Performance of
Structures and Infrastructures –​Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Structural Safety
and Reliability, ICOSSAR 2013, 749–​756.
Freeman, R., McMahon, C., and Godfrey, P. (2017). An exploration of the potential for re-​distributed manu-
facturing to contribute to a sustainable, resilient city. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering.
10(4–​5): 260–​271.
Ganin, A.A., Kitsak, M., Marchese, D., Keisler, J.M., Seager, T., and Linkov, I. (2017). Resilience and effi-
ciency in transportation networks. Science Advances. 3(12): e1701079–​e1701079.
Gharai, F., Masnavi, M.R., and Hajibandeh, M. (2018). Urban local spatial resilience: Developing the key
indicators and measures, a brief review of literature. BAGH-​E NAZAR. 14(57): 19–​32.
Goldstein, B. (2009). Resilience to surprises through communicative planning. Ecology and Society. 14(2).
Gómez-​Baggethun, E., Gren, Å., Barton, D.N., Langemeyer, J., McPhearson, T., O’Farrell, P., … Kremer, P.
(2013). Urban ecosystem services. In: T. Elmqvist, M. Fragkias, J. Goodness, B. Güneralp, P.J. Marcotullio,
R.I. McDonald, … C. Wilkinson (eds.): Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges
and Opportunities. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 175–​251.
Grinberger, A.Y. and Felsenstein, D. (2016). Dynamic agent based simulation of welfare effects of urban
disasters. Computers Environment and Urban Systems. 59: 129–​141.
Gunderson, L.H. (2000). Ecological resilience –​In theory and application. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 31(1): 425–​439.
Gunderson, L.H. and Holling, C.S. (eds.) (2002). Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and
Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Hopkins, R. (2008). The Transition Handbook. From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, 1st edn.
Totnes: Green Books.
Khorasani, N.E., Gernay,T., and Garlock, M. (2015).Tools for measuring a city’s resilience in a fire following
earthquake scenario. In: IABSE Conference, Geneva 2015: Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions
to Global Challenges –​Report. International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering
(IABSE), 886–​889.
Kim, D. and Lim, U. (2016). Urban Resilience in Climate Change Adaptation: A Conceptual Framework.
Sustainability. 8(5): 405.
Kontokosta, C.E. and Malik, A. (2018).The resilience to emergencies and disasters index: Applying big data
to benchmark and validate neighborhood resilience capacity. Sustainable Cities and Society. 36: 272–​285.
Koren, D., Kilar,V., and Rus, K. (2017). Proposal for holistic assessment of urban system resilience to natural
disasters. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 245: 062011.
Kuznecova, T., Romagnoli, F., and Rochas, C. (2014). Energy metabolism for resilient urban environ-
ment: a methodological approach. In: D. Amaratunga and R. Haigh (eds.): 4th International Conference
on Building Resilience, Incorporating the 3rd Annual Conference of the Android Disaster Resilience
Network,Vol. 18, 780–​788.
Lakshani, P.A.K.R. and Welikanna, D.R. (2016). A time series spatial analysis on urban resilience. In: 37th
Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, ACRS 2016,Vol. 1, 1–​9. Asian Association on Remote Sensing.
Leu, G., Abbass, H., and Curtis, N. (2010). Resilience of ground transportation networks: A case study on
Melbourne. In: ATRF 2010: 33rd Australasian Transport Research Forum.
Lhomme, S., Serre, D., Diab,Y., and Laganier, R. (2010). GIS development for urban flood resilience. WIT
Transactions on Ecology and the Environment. 129: 661–​671.

214
 Assessing resilience in cities

Lhomme, S., Serre, D., Diab, Y., and Laganier, R. (2013). Analyzing resilience of urban networks: A
preliminary step towards more flood resilient cities. Natural Hazards and Earth System Science. 13(2):
221–​230.
McPhearson, T., Andersson, E., Elmqvist, T., and Frantzeskaki, N. (2015). Resilience of and through urban
ecosystem services. Ecosystem Services. 12: 152–​156.
Meerow, S. and Newell, J.P. (2016). Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why? Urban
Geography: 1–​21.
Meerow, S., Newell, J.P. and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 147: 38–​49.
Mehmood, A. (2016). Of resilient places: planning for urban resilience. European Planning Studies.
24(2): 407–​419.
Miguez, M.G. and Verol, A.P. (2017). A catchment scale integrated flood resilience index to support decision
making in urban flood control design. Environment and Planning B-​Urban Analytics and City Science.
44(5): 925–​946.
Min-​Seok, K., Jeon,Y.-​M., and Lee, J.-​S. (2017). A comparative analysis of the level of urban resilience in the
city comprehensive plan. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment. 223: 517–​526.
Novak,V.M., Fernandez-​Anez, N., and Shiraishi, K. (2017). Rethinking resilience planning: from problems
to potential. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. 8(4): 412–​424.
Nugent, P.J., Omitaomu, O.A., Parish, E.S., Mei, R., Ernst, K.M., Absar, M., and Sylvester, L. (2017). A web-​
based geographic information platform to support urban adaptation to climate change. In: D.A. Griffith,
Y. Chun, and D.J. Dean (eds.): Advances in Geographic Information Science. Heidelberg: Springer,
371–​381.
Ottenburger, S. and Münzberg, T. (2017). An approach for analyzing the impacts of smart grid topologies
on critical infrastructure resilience. In: F. Benaben, M. Lauras, T. Comes, A. Montarnal, and C. Hanachi
(eds.): Proceedings of the International ISCRAM Conference,Vol. 2017 (May), 400–​411. Information
Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Owrangi, A.M., Lannigan, R., and Simonovic, S.P. (2015). Mapping climate change-​caused health risk for
integrated city resilience modeling. Natural Hazards. 77(1): 67–​88.
Perz, S.G., Muñoz-​Carpena, R., Kiker, G., and Holt, R.D. (2013). Evaluating ecological resilience with
global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. Ecological Modelling. 263: 174–​186.
Pickett, S.T.A., Cadenasso, M.L., Grove, J.M., Boone, C.G., Groffman, P.M., Irwin, E., … Warren, P. (2011).
Urban ecological systems: Scientific foundations and a decade of progress. Journal of Environmental
Management. 92(3): 331–​362.
Pimm, S.L. (1991).The Balance of nature? Ecological Issues in the Conservation of Species and Communities.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Pregnolato, M., Ford, A., Robson, C., Glenis,V., Barr, S., and Dawson, R. (2016). Assessing urban strategies
for reducing the impacts of extreme weather on infrastructure networks. Royal Society Open Science.
3(5): 160023.
Qin, W., Lin, A., Fang, J., Wang, L., and Li, M. (2017). Spatial and temporal evolution of community resili-
ence to natural hazards in the coastal areas of China. Natural Hazards. 89(1): 331–​349.
Rafael, S., Martins, H., Sa, E., Carvalho, D., Borrego, C., and Lopes, M. (2016). Influence of urban resilience
measures in the magnitude and behaviour of energy fluxes in the city of Porto (Portugal) under a cli-
mate change scenario. Science of the Total Environment. 566: 1500–​1510.
Romero-​Lankao, P., Gnatz, D., Wilhelmi, O., and Hayden, M. (2016). Urban sustainability and resili-
ence: From theory to Practice. Sustainability. 8(12): 1224.
Schiappacasse, P. and Müller, B. (2018). One fits all?: Resilience as a multipurpose concept in regional and
environmental development. Raumforschung Und Raumordnung –​Spatial Research and Planning.
76(1): 51–​64.
Schlör, H., Venghaus, S., and Hake, J.-​F. (2018). The FEW-​Nexus city index –​Measuring urban resilience.
Applied Energy. 210: 382–​392.
Schwind, N., Minami, K., Maruyama, H., Ilmola, L., and Inoue, K. (2016). Computational framework of
resilience. In: Y. Yamagata and H. Maruyama (eds.): Urban Resilience: A Transformative Approach,
239–​257. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Serre, D., Barroca, B., Balsells, M., and Becue, V. (2018). Contributing to urban resilience to floods with
neighbourhood design: the case of Am Sandtorkai/​Dalmannkai in Hamburg. Journal of Flood Risk
Management. 11: S69–​S83.

215
M. Suárez, E. Gómez- Baggethun, and M. Onaindia

Sharifi, A. and Yamagata,Y. (2016). Urban resilience assessment: Multiple dimensions, criteria, and Indicators.
In: Y. Yamagata and H. Maruyama (eds.): Urban Resilience: A Transformative Approach , 259–​276.
Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Su, Y.-​S. (2017). Rebuild, retreat or resilience: urban flood vulnerability analysis and simulation in Taipei.
International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. 8(2): 110–​122.
Suárez, M., Gómez-​Baggethun, E., Benayas, J., and Tilbury, D. (2016).Towards an Urban Resilience Index: A
case study in 50 Spanish cities. Sustainability. 8(8): 774.
Tabibian, M., and Rezapour, M. (2016). Assessment of urban resilience; a case study of Region 8 of Tehran
city, Iran. Scientia Iranica. 23(4): 1699–​1707.
Tumini, I.,Villagra-​Islas, P., and Herrmann-​Lunecke, G. (2017). Evaluating reconstruction effects on urban
resilience: a comparison between two Chilean tsunami-​prone cities. Natural Hazards. 85(3): 1363–​1392.
Vale, L.J. (2014). The politics of resilient cities: Whose resilience and whose city? Building Research &
Information. 42(2): 191–​201.
Villagra, P., Herrmann, G., Quintana, C., and Sepulveda, R.D. (2016). Resilience thinking and urban
planning in a coastal environment at risks of tsunamis: the case study of Mehuin, Chile. Revista De
Geografia Norte Grande. 64: 63–​82.
Walker, B. and Salt, D. (2006). Resilience Thinking. Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World,
1st edn. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Zaidi, R.Z. and Pelling, M. (2015). Institutionally configured risk: Assessing urban resilience and disaster
risk reduction to heat wave risk in London. Urban Studies. 52(7): 1218–​1233.
Zhao, P., Chapman, R., Randal, E., and Howden-​Chapman, P. (2013). Understanding resilient urban
futures: A systemic modelling approach. Sustainability. 5(7): 3202–​3223.

216
 17
Disaster volunteerism as a
contributor to resilience
Samantha Montano

Introduction
Emergency management has become increasingly formalized over the past few decades with an
increase in plans, procedures (Rubin 2012), and an emerging profession (Cwiak 2009) and dis-
cipline (Jensen 2011). In addition to those working within the formal emergency management
system, people with all manner of job titles, in all professions, and in all parts of life contribute to
emergency management in various ways throughout the disaster life cycle (i.e. response, recovery,
mitigation, preparedness) (Canton 2007; McEntire 2006). Many of the people who do the work
of emergency management are in fact volunteers.
Disaster volunteerism can be understood to be the act of “‘engaging in helping behavior’
related to preparing for, responding to, recovering from, or mitigating a disaster, ‘in which time
is given freely to benefit another person, group’, or overall effort (Vigo 1996; Wilson 2000,
p. 215 cited in Richardson et al. 2008; Michel 2007)” (Montano 2017, p. 20). Some volunteers
operate within the formal emergency management system and are highly skilled like volunteer
firefighters (Perkins 1989) and medical professionals (Arbon et al. 2006; Rudden 2011) and
trained volunteers that work with non-​governmental disaster organizations such as the Red
Cross (Neal 1991; Steerman and Cole 2009). Other volunteers work within the informal system
with non-​disaster organizations or operate outside the confines of a formal organization (Barsky
et al. 2007; Fernandez et al. 2006; Kendra and Wachtendorf 2001).
The emergency management, and disaster literature more broadly, is filled with examples
of volunteerism before, during, and after disasters (Helsloot and Reuitenberg 2004; McLennan
et al. 2016; Quarantelli and Dynes 1980). Volunteers engage in a wide range of activities from
implementing disaster preparedness programs, lobbying government for mitigation funds,
assisting with search and rescue, rebuilding homes post-​disaster, and more. In fact, there seem to
be few, if any, tasks that occur throughout the disaster life cycle that do not include the work of
volunteers in some way.
Considering the ubiquitous nature of a disaster volunteerism it is useful for those that study
disasters, emergency management practitioners, and anyone else involved in the management
of disasters to understand this phenomenon. This chapter will review the findings of the litera-
ture related to volunteer engagement during two of the four phases –​response and recovery.

217
Samantha Montano

Specifically, it will consider who volunteers, when they volunteer, how they volunteer, and what
they do while they volunteer. Secondarily, it will consider how understanding volunteer engage-
ment relates to community resilience during disaster.

Landscape of the disaster volunteerism literature

Within the broader body of disaster research, volunteerism research has been understudied and
scholars have long called for more work to be done in this important area (Wolensky 1979).
The work done in this area has been conducted by researchers from around the world and from
many disciplines (e.g.,volunteerism scholars, sociologists, psychologists, historians, emergency
management scholars). The dispersed nature of these efforts has resulted in a body of work with
a number of defining characteristics that should be clarified.
Scholars in this area have rarely built off the existing work or integrated their findings into
the broader body of work, likely because the research is scattered throughout the journals of
multiple disciplines. Researchers have mostly conducted one-​off case studies that consider the
volunteerism that occurred during a single disaster, rather than considering disaster volun-
teerism across events (Montano 2017). The primary objective of most of these studies has been
to describe one type or category of volunteer that participated during the response to a given
disaster. As a result there is not a clear line of work that has built on previous findings.
Accounts of disaster volunteerism have generally centered on the actions of affiliated
volunteers (i.e. those that work with organizations like the Red Cross) (e.g. Nelan and Grineski
2013; Steerman and Cole 2009) and spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers who emerge absent
an organization during response (e.g. Fernandez et al. 2006; Lowe and Fothergill 2003). Both
within and absent of these two broad categories, researchers have used a variety of other terms to
describe disaster volunteers including deployed, trained, untrained, disaster-​specific volunteers,
aid workers, crisis volunteers, ad hoc volunteers, relief volunteers, online volunteers, citizen
response, civic engagement, local, non-​local, organization specific (i.e. Red Cross volunteers
and Salvation Army volunteers), among others. Researchers have not always provided clear
parameters for who exactly is included in each of these groups or provided a theoretical jus-
tification for categorizing volunteers in these ways. As a result, there is confusion about where
overlap among groups exists and which findings apply to which volunteers.
A final precaution that must be taken with this body of literature is related to the cultural rela-
tivity of the work (Helsloot and Ruitenberg 2004). The majority of disaster volunteerism litera-
ture has studied Western societies and/​or used a Western perspective (Helsloot and Ruitenberg
2004;Twigg and Mosel 2017). Nuances related to variations of volunteer culture within different
countries complicates the extent to which findings from one culture are applicable globally.
Therefore, it is necessary to be conservative in the extent to which findings are generalized to
other countries, and even within the countries of origin.
These limitations have resulted in few generalizable findings related to disaster volunteers.
The specificity of these studies and the failure to integrate findings across disciplines has resulted
in a fragmented, non-​generalizable body of work with volunteers siloed off from one another
into different categories. Despite these issues, there are useful findings to be gleaned from this
body of literature related to how volunteers engage during response and recovery and what
communities can expect from volunteers during these time periods.
Despite the dividing of disaster volunteers into these different categories we know that on
the whole they are important contributors to both formal and informal emergency management
systems. Through synthesizing the findings related to disaster volunteerism during the phases of
response and recovery we can gain insights related to who volunteers, when they volunteer, how

218
 Disaster volunteerism

they volunteer, and what they do when they volunteer; information that can be a value for those
in emergency management.

Volunteer engagement in response

Much of the disaster volunteerism literature has focused on volunteerism during response.
Generally, emergency management researchers and practitioners consider response to be “the
period when a hazard event is imminent, occurring, as well as afterward when immediate actions
are taken to save lives, property, and the environment” (Montano 2017, p. 2). Considering this
definition, disaster volunteerism encompasses anyone who voluntarily engages in tasks related to
saving lives, property, or the environment during this time period.
Officials tend to victimize disaster survivors, viewing them as helpless and unable to actively
assist during the phase of response (Helsloot and Reuitenberg 2004;Twigg and Mosel 2017).Yet,
researchers have found there is actually a robust citizen response in the form of survivors helping
themselves and others around them, and additional help arriving from outside the impacted
community (Aguirre et al. 1995; Scanlon et al. 2014). It has long been noted within the disaster
literature that people exhibit pro-​social behavior during disaster (Dynes and Quarantelli 1980)
which manifests into what Fritz and Mathewson (1958) called the “therapeutic community”.
This helping behavior emerges from within (Green and Ireland 1982; Scanlon 1999;Taylor et al.
1970) and converges from outside (Dynes and Quarantelli 1980; Haas and Drabek 1970) the
affected community as people and organizations work towards meeting the needs of survivors.
In large part, this convergence and emergence include people who seek to freely give their time
to help others (Wenger and James 1994), falling within the definition of disaster volunteerism.
Researchers have been unable to quantify the exact number of volunteers who respond to
disasters (Twigg and Mosel 2017). There are a number of challenges in recording the number of
volunteers, including the fact that many people volunteer absent any kind of formal organization
or system and come and go freely. However, researchers have attempted to estimate total volun-
teer numbers following some major disasters. For example, 10 per cent of Americans reported
engaging in volunteer efforts related to the 9/​11 terrorist attacks (Beyerlein and Sikkink 2008)
including 40,000 self-​deployed volunteers at ground zero in New York City (Illinois Terrorism
Task Force n.d.). The American Red Cross alone used 220,000 volunteers during Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita in 2005 (Hodge et al. 2007). Two million people, accounting for 10 per cent
of Mexico City residents, volunteered during the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake (Dynes et al.
1988). The 1995 Kobe Earthquake in Japan led to an estimated 630,000–​1.4 million people
volunteering (Twigg and Mosel 2017). At times researchers have attempted to quantify the
number of volunteer hours for certain events (e.g. Coryell et al. 2016). Yet, there are similar
methodological challenges as these totals do not capture individuals working absent a formal
organization. This is a well-​recorded challenge for those who study non-​profits and volun-
teerism more broadly (Hall 2006).
Despite challenges in quantifying total volunteer numbers the literature does agree that in
general there are many volunteers to help the community during response.Volunteerism occurs
throughout the entire phase of response but the duration of involvement of individual disaster
volunteers varies. Some individuals volunteer for the full length of the response and may in fact
even stay to participate in the recovery, other volunteers will only help for a portion of that time
(Dynes et al. 1988; Montano 2017).
Volunteers may not address every need immediately but research suggests volunteers work to
fill the void of assistance during disasters. Contrary to popular disaster myths, not all survivors
of disasters are shell shocked or panicked, but rather many actively work to help one another. To

219
Samantha Montano

the extent they are overwhelmed, others from outside the community come to help (Quarantelli
and Dynes 1977).
Response volunteers engage in all manner of tasks that arise during response related to saving
lives, property, and/​or the environment. Volunteers are involved in sharing warnings (Helsloot
and Ruitenberg 2004), sheltering (Helsloot and Ruitenberg 2004; Michel 2007), evacuations
(Helsloot and Ruitenberg, 2004), search and rescue (Barsky et al. 2007; Dynes et al. 1988), emer-
gency debris removal (Dynes et al. 1988), distributing emergency supplies (Dynes et al. 1988;
Vigo 1996), and providing emergency health care (Hodge et al. 2007; Sloand et al. 2012) among
other response tasks.
Survivors of the disaster are often the first to help and are, in fact, often the only assistance
available until outside help arrives (Helsloot and Ruitenber 2004; Scanlon et al. 2014). Not only
are volunteers helpful but they may be the only ones at the site depending on the length of
the response and the logistics of the situation. A frequently cited example of this are search and
rescue efforts. Aguirre et al. 1995 found that victims of the Guadalajara Gas Explosion were more
likely to be rescued by a family member or neighbor than trained first responders and, in fact,
most people were rescued within the first two hours. While it may be ideal for highly trained
first responders to conduct search and rescue, often the logistics of the disaster do not allow for
their prompt arrival.
During response, some volunteers integrate into the formal response teams. Some of these
volunteers may have training, experience, understand response procedures and even, in some
cases, are expected to be a central contributor to the response (Phillips 2015). Other volunteers
that arrive to help are unable or unwilling to integrate into the formal response organizations
(Lowe and Fothergill 2003). Researchers have found that individuals volunteering on their own,
or absent an organization, tend to create their own method of coordinating themselves. An
organizing structure emerges and volunteers form their own procedures that allow them to par-
ticipate in the response (Montano 2017; Strandh and Eklund 2017).These emergent groups may
work in tandem with the formal response or they may not (Dynes et al. 1988).
Volunteers vary in terms of training, their experience, timing, partnerships, and coordinating
mechanism. Regardless of these differences, they are a prominent feature of communities in
duress.Volunteer efforts continue into the recovery.

Volunteerism in recovery
As the response moves into the recovery phase, the focus shifts from addressing life-​saving needs
to tasks related to restoring, rebuilding, and reshaping the community. Recovery is “the differ-
ential process of restoring, rebuilding, and reshaping the social, physical, economic, and natural
environments through pre-​and post-​event action” (Smith and Wenger 2006, p. 237). Anyone
who voluntarily contributes to tasks related to restoring, rebuilding, and reshaping an affected
community can be considered a recovery volunteer. Although relatively little research has been
done on recovery volunteers, researchers have acknowledged their importance (e.g. Helsloot
and Ruitenberg 2004) and have gone so far as to call them the “backbone of disaster recovery”
(Phillips 2015, p. 445).
As is the case during response, the number of recovery volunteers varies widely across
disasters. Given the fluctuating length of recovery and the dispersed nature of where they work,
it is difficult to quantify the number of people involved in recovery. There are few records that
encapsulate a full accounting of the number of recovery volunteers. Researchers have attempted
to produce estimates. In 2006, a year after Hurricane Katrina and the levee failure, the city
of New Orleans averaged 10,000 non-​local recovery volunteers a week (Pezzullo 2009). In

220
 Disaster volunteerism

Australia 22,000 volunteers were registered in 2009 following severe bushfires (Twigg and Mosel
2017).While there generally seems to be a high number of response volunteers, there is evidence
to suggest that volunteer numbers begin to drop off as the urgency of the immediate crisis ends
and the recovery progresses (Argothy 2003; Dynes and Quarantelli 1977; Taylor et al. 1970).
However, because recovery can last weeks, months, or years (which is generally much longer
than the phase of response (Auf der Heide 1989)) it may be the case that in total there are actu-
ally more recovery volunteers than response volunteers while simultaneously not being enough
volunteers to address the recovery needs of the affected community (Montano 2017).
Ultimately, as is the case in response, the length of time individuals volunteer during recovery
varies. Some volunteers are involved over the entirety of the recovery while other volunteers
come and go at various points throughout the recovery. Some volunteers help for a few hours
at a time throughout the course of the recovery while others help for days, weeks, months, or
longer (Gardner 2008; Montano 2017).
As is the case in response, recovery volunteers engage in a number of different tasks and
activities related to restoring, rebuilding, and reshaping what was destroyed. This includes tasks
related to providing long-​term mental health care (Gelkopf at al. 2008; Kono and Shinew 2015;
Vijayakumar and Kumar 2008), debris removal (Nelan and Grineski 2013; Phillips 1986; 2015),
rebuilding (Kono and Shinew 2015; Nelan and Grineski 2013), conducting damage assessments
(Phillips 1986; 2015) and distribution of donations and supplies (Rigg et al. 2005) among
other tasks.
Research suggests many recovery volunteers are untrained (Lowe and Fothergill 2003) and
yet many recovery tasks require some level of training, experience, or education. Some have a
certain skillset that they find useful during their time volunteering. For example, previous con-
struction experience may be useful for rebuilding a home. Though there is minimal research,
some affiliated volunteers receive specialized training to conduct specific tasks but it seems more
often the case that volunteers learn from other volunteers and/​or the organization they are
working with (Montano 2017).
Volunteers during recovery tend to work through established organizations, unlike during
response when many, if not the majority, of volunteers are unaffiliated. Volunteers work with a
variety of organizations, some of which have disaster-​specific missions (Gardner 2008). Research
suggests that during recovery volunteers are managed by volunteer coordinators or some other
people in a position of authority and are integrated into the coordinating structure of existing
organizations (Montano 2017).
While some who volunteer during recovery are local, volunteers may come from outside
the affected community. Volunteers may arrive to help with their church group (Gardner
2008), school group (Plummer et al. 2008), corporate group (Aitken et al. 2012; Sloand et al.
2012), or other social group (Nelan and Grineski 2013; Simons et al., 2005). National and
international disaster recovery organizations, both for-​profit and non-​profit, may organize
volunteer trips for groups from outside the community. Some individuals travel to the com-
munity with the primary purpose of volunteering while others go for the dual purpose of
helping and tourism (Wearing 2001). Research on the occurrence of “voluntourism” related
to disaster is in its early stages (e.g. Smithson 2014) but the general phenomenon is a growing
occurrence around the world (Corti, Marola, Castro 2010) and should be of interest to those
involved in disaster recovery.
Understanding how volunteers engage during response and recovery is a first step in
understanding how they can be a resource for the affected community. A broad understanding
of disaster volunteerism during these time periods can be beneficial to emergency manage-
ment practitioners, volunteer managers, and others who are involved in managing response and

221
Samantha Montano

recovery. This is particularly true in the context of considering the increased role of volunteers
in creating resilient communities (McLennan et al. 2016).

Implications for practice and future research

Understanding how volunteers engage in response and recovery provides insight as to how
they may contribute to a community’s resilience. The term “resilience” has been the subject of
significant conceptual debate across and within many disciplines (Klein et al. 2003). Klein et al.
describe resilience as a “complex multiinterpretable concept with contested definitions and rele-
vance” (2003, p. 40). This debate has also been a focus for those studying emergency manage-
ment. A common definition of the term remains elusive, although it enjoys widespread use in
both emergency management research and practice (McLennan et al. 2016).
Despite the lack of agreement, many definitions have been suggested. Timmerman (1981)
defines resilience as “a system’s capacity to absorb and recover from the occurrence of a haz-
ardous event” (cited in Klein et al. 2004, p. 39). Etkin and Stefanovic (2005) describe resilience
as “creating the capacity to ‘bounce back’ more quickly and easily after a damaging event occurs”
(p. 138). In the United States the Federal Emergency Management Agency (2016) defines com-
munity resilience as “the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand
and recover rapidly from disruptions” (p. 8).These are just a few of the many proposed definitions
and, although they vary in their precise wording, they share similar conceptualizations.
In emergency management, the term “resilience” is most often used to describe the sentiment
that a community should be able to absorb and rebound from shocks. In an emergency manage-
ment framework, efforts to help a community absorb shocks is done through effective response
while rebounding from shocks is done through effective recovery.
If resilience is in fact achieved, or worked towards, through actions taken related to effective
response and recovery, it would seem that disaster volunteerism contributes significantly. While
much effort has been dedicated to determining what makes a community more resilient in the
face of disaster, volunteerism has largely remained absent from these discussions (McLennan
et al. 2016).
It is in the best interest of practitioners and officials to consider what traits and resources may
be leveraged to contribute to their community’s resilience. It is useful to anticipate volunteerism
as a response to disasters and influence a community’s ability to absorb and rebound from shocks.
Particularly in communities with limited emergency management funding, volunteers can be
used as a resource to bolster activities in response and recovery.
In fact, work could be done pre-​disaster in anticipation of volunteer engagement. A broad
understanding of disaster volunteerism during these time periods can be beneficial to emer-
gency management practitioners, volunteer managers, and others who are involved in addressing
needs during this time period. Understanding how volunteers engage –​who they are, what
they do, and who they work with –​in relationship to the disaster life cycle is the foundation for
understanding this important cohort and can be built into pre-​event planning and preparedness
efforts. This understanding can lead practitioners and volunteer managers to promote and facili-
tate volunteerism during and after disaster.
Although there are differences in how volunteers engage during response and recovery,
the research suggests volunteers consistently and significantly contribute to both response and
recovery. Volunteers arrive and conduct all manner of tasks to meet the needs of the affected
community throughout the length of response and recovery. They either fit into existing
organizations or create their own when needed. Yet, disaster volunteerism has not occurred
without criticism.

222
 Disaster volunteerism

Volunteerism may not be beneficial to everyone, in every community, during every disaster.
The literature speculates a few possible issues related to volunteer involvement. Volunteers may
cause logistical challenges at the scene of the disaster (e.g. Dynes 1994; Kendra and Watchtendorf
2001; Neal 1994). Spontaneous volunteers in particular lack training and are likely unfamiliar
with emergency procedures which may hinder first responders and emergency personnel (e.g.,
Auf der Heide 1989; Drabek 1985; Fernandez et al. 2006). At times there is a sentiment among
some in practice that volunteers are a burden (Argothy 2003; Fernandez et al. 2006).
Twigg and Mosel (2017) reviewed the challenges related to disaster volunteerism in more
depth and concluded that many of the issues were related to tensions between the highly trained
formal emergency management system and the often untrained, more spontaneous informal
emergency management system. Specifically, “spontaneous volunteering can present significant
coordination, integration, communication, logistical, and health and safety challenges to emer-
gency managers” (Twigg and Mosel 2017 p. 9).There have certainly been examples from around
the world of instances of volunteers complicating the response (e.g. Helsloot and Ruitenber
2004; Barsky et al. 2007) but there has not been an attempt to systematically study the prevalence
of these issues. Ultimately, there are fewer examples of volunteers hindering response efforts
compared to the mounting evidence of their positive contributions (Gonzalez 2005; Irvine 2006;
Strandh and Eklund 2017).
In fact, tension between these two systems –​one of which uses more of a hierarchical
approach compared to a horizontal organizing structure –​is to be expected (Helsloot and
Ruitenberg 2004). It would also seem though that at least some of this tension arises from a
misunderstanding among the practitioner community, in particular, about volunteers and their
engagement. Developing an understanding of volunteer engagement should be a priority among
practitioners and others involved in emergency management to help ease these tensions. Rather
than volunteers being a hindrance to the response and recovery, they can be a valuable resource
that contributes over the length of the response and recovery. As others have noted, the failure
to recognize their value have made volunteers a wasted resource (Lowe and Fothergill 2003;
Scanlon et al. 2014; Souza 2009).
This suggests the observations from the literature presented here about how disaster volunteers
engage can be beneficial to those who work with disaster volunteers and in emergency man-
agement by providing a framework within which to consider disaster volunteerism. Although
understanding how volunteers engage, as outlined in this chapter, is an important first step, there
remain many questions about their involvement particularly related to what factors drive their
engagement.
The next frontier of disaster volunteerism research is determining the factors that influ-
ence volunteer engagement. What accounts for who volunteers, what they do, who they work
with, and how they volunteer? Efforts to determine explanatory variables have mostly centered
on demographic variables (e.g. sex/​gender, race, education, age, income) as predictors of who
volunteers during disasters (e.g. Aitken et al. 2012; Arbon et al. 2006; Nelan and Grineski 2013;
Ocak et al. 2013; Plummer et al. 2008; Rotolo and Berg 2011; Sargisson et al., 2012).The findings
from these efforts have been relatively inconclusive. While certain disasters seem to attract more
people of one demographic than another and certain tasks seem more associated with one demo-
graphic than another, there are no generalizations that can be made across disasters from this body
of work except that people of all demographics volunteer during disasters (Montano 2017).
An initial attempt to look for factors outside demographics that influence each compo-
nent of volunteer engagement was made by Montano (2017) during response and recovery to
the 2016 Tax Day Flood in Houston, Texas. The study found a number of factors at individual,
organizational, and community levels that influenced engagement during and after the disaster.

223
Samantha Montano

Individuals who volunteered were influenced by their pre-​disaster skillset, latent knowledge of
the community, their integration into the community, logistical factors like being able to phys-
ically get to a volunteer site, their availability, awareness of the disaster and needs, and more
(Montano 2017).
Additional support for these factors can be found dispersed throughout the disaster vol-
unteerism literature. Some factors that find support in the literature include: having previous
volunteer experience (Brand et al. 2008; Fothergill et al. 2005; Gardner 2008), being motivated
to help (Carlile et al. 2014; Fothergill et al. 2005; Irvine 2006; Lowe and Fothergill 2003), media
coverage (Phillips 1986), the scale of the event (Dynes et al. 1988; Gardner 2008; Lowe and
Fothergill 2003), a perceived lack of a formal response (Brzozowski 2013), among others. While
there is a growing list of factors, more research like the Houston study is urgently required to
compile a generalizable list of factors that influence volunteer engagement during these time
periods.
Understanding these factors can help practitioners, volunteer managers, and others to pro-
mote and facilitate volunteerism during and after disaster. When researchers isolate the factors
that lead to each component of volunteer engagement, practitioners may find that at least some of
those factors may be manipulated. If various aspects of how volunteers engage can be influenced
not only could the issues practitioners have identified be addressed but volunteer efforts could
become even more effective and efficient than they would be otherwise. Knowing these factors
could determine what can be done in advance to prepare for the response and recovery efforts of
volunteers. Offering this information to practitioners and volunteer managers would be valuable
and act as a roadmap for how to influence volunteer engagement during response and recovery
to more effectively, efficiently, and justly benefit those who have been impacted by disaster. This
in turn, has the potential to increase community resilience.
While there is still much more to study related to disaster volunteerism, the existing literature
offers a number of implications for practice. It is important that those involved in response and
recovery, and also those preparing for response and recovery, have a clear understanding of how
volunteers engage in each phase. Practitioners should be aware of volunteer efforts and how
they vary between response and recovery. It is useful for practitioners to understand who will be
volunteering in their communities, when they can be expected to arrive, how long they will stay,
what they will do, and how they will organize themselves. In general, having an understanding
of how volunteers engage can help practitioners expect and plan for volunteer efforts that are
likely to occur in their communities. It also affords practitioners an opportunity to influence this
volunteer engagement by providing support for volunteers to encourage their involvement or
redirecting their efforts when their assistance is not needed.

Conclusion
As we continue down the path of changing risk, from development decisions and climate change,
it would be useful to utilize the labor of volunteers effectively and efficiently during response and
recovery and increase community resilience.This chapter has considered what the existing litera-
ture on disaster volunteerism during response and recovery reveals about volunteer engagement
specifically who volunteers, what they do, when they volunteer, and how they volunteer. While
this chapter has focused on volunteerism during response and recovery it is equally the case that
volunteerism that occurs during the phases of mitigation and preparedness may contribute to a
community’s resilience. It has also situated the findings of the disaster volunteer literature in the
context of disaster resilience arguing that volunteerism works in service to the resiliency of a
community before, during, and after disaster. Emergency management practitioners and others

224
 Disaster volunteerism

involved in disaster response and recovery should be aware of volunteer engagement during
these different periods. In the future they may be in a position to make informed decisions to
influence that engagement. Further research in this area is needed to yield strategies for effect-
ively and efficiently utilizing volunteer labor and talents to promote community resilience.

References
Aguirre, B.E., Wenger, D.E., Glass, T.A., Diaz-​Murillo, M., and Vigo, G. (1995). The social organization of
search and rescue: Evidence from the Guadalajara gasoline explosion. International Journal of Mass
Emergencies and Disasters. 13: 67–​92.
Aitken, P., Leggat, P., Harley, H., Speare, R., and Leclercq, M. (2012). Human resources issues and Australian
Disaster Medical Assistance Teams: Results of a national survey of team members. Emerging Health
Threats. 5: 1–​7.
Arbon, P., Bobrowski, C., Zeitz, K., Hooper, C., Williams, J., and Thitchener, J. (2006). Australian nurses
volunteering for the Sumatra-​Andaman earthquake and tsunami of 2004: A review of experience and
analysis of data collected by the Tsunami Volunteer Hotline. Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal.
9(4): 171–​178.
Argothy, V. (2003). Framing Volunteerism in a Consensus Crisis: Mass Media Coverage of Volunteers in
the 9/​11 Response (Preliminary paper #335). Newark, DE: Disaster Research Center, University of
Delaware.
Auf der Heide, E. (1989). Disaster response: Principles and Preparation and Coordination. St Louis,
MO: The CV Mosby Company.
Barsky, L.E., Trainor, J.E., Torres, M.R., and Aguirre, B.E. (2007). Managing volunteers: FEMA’s Urban
Search and Rescue programme and interactions with unaffiliated responders in disaster response.
Disasters. 31(4): 495–​507.
Beyerlein, K. and Sikkink, D. (2008). Sorrow and solidarity: Why Americans volunteered for 9/​11 relief
efforts. Social Problems. 55(2): 190–​215.
Brand, M.W., Kerby, D., Elledge, B., Burton, T., Coles, D., and Dunn, A. (2008). Public health’s
response: Citizens’ thoughts on volunteering. Disaster Prevention and Management. 17(1): 54–​61.
Brzozowski, J.C. (2013). From paid work to volunteerism during one case of natural disaster: Interacting
micro and macro level transitions. Work. 44(1): 85–​88.
Canton, L.G. (2007). Emergency Management: Concepts and Strategies for Effective Programs. Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Carlile, J.A., Mauseth, K., Clark, N.E., Cruz, J.L., and Thoburn, J.W. (2014). Local volunteerism and resili-
ence following large-​scale disaster: Outcomes for health support team volunteers in Haiti. International
Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 5(3): 206–​213.
Corti, I.N., Marola, P.N., and Castro, M.B. (2010). Social inclusion and local development through European
voluntourism: A case study of the project realized in a neighborhood of morocco. American Journal of
Economics and Business Administration. 2(3): 221.
Coryell, J.E., Stewart,T.,Wubbena, Z.C.,Valverde-​Poenie,T.C., and Spencer, B.J. (2016). International service-​
learning: Study abroad and global citizenship development in a post-​disaster locale. In: Handbook of
Research on Study Abroad Programs and Outbound Mobility (pp. 420–​445). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Cwiak, C.L. (2009). Strategies for Success: The Role of Power and Dependence in the Emergency
Management Professionalization Process. Dissertation North Dakota State University.
Drabek, T.E. (1985). Managing the emergency response. Public Administration Review. 45: 85–​92.
Dynes, R.R. (1994). Situational altruism: Toward an explanation of pathologies in disaster assistance
(Preliminary paper #201). Newark, DE: Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware.
Dynes, R.R. and Quarantelli, E.L. (1980). Helping behavior in large-​scale disasters. In: D.H. Smith and J.
Macaulay (eds.): Participation in Social and Political Activities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-​Bass Publishers,
339–​354.
Dynes, R.R., Quarantelli, E.L., and Wenger, D. (1988). The Organizational and Public Response to
the September 1985 Earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico. Final Report #35. Newark, DE: Disaster
Research Center, University of Delaware.
Etkin, D. and Stefanovic, I.L. (2005). Mitigating natural disasters: The role of eco-​ethics. In: Mitigation of
Natural Hazards and Disasters: International Perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer, 135–​158.

225
Samantha Montano

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2016). National Disaster Recovery Framework. Washington,
DC: Department of Homeland Security.
Fernandez, L., Barbera, J., and van Dorp, J. (2006). Spontaneous volunteer response to disasters: The benefits
and consequences of good intentions. Journal of Emergency Management. 4(5): 57–​68.
Fothergill, A., Palumbo, M.V., Rambur, B., Reinier, K., and McIntosh, B. (2005). The volunteer potential of
inactive nurses for disaster preparedness. Public Health Nursing. 22(5): 414–​421.
Fritz, C. and Mathewson, J.H. (1957). Convergence Behavior in Disasters: A Problem in Social Control.
Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.
Gardner, R.O. (2008). The Role of Grassroots Organizations and Volunteers in Southeast Texas After
Hurricane Ike. Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Report. Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Center.
Gelkopf, M., Ryan, P., Cotton, S.J., and Berger, R. (2008). The impact of “training the trainers” course for
helping tsunami-​survivor children on Sri Lankan disaster volunteer workers. International Journal of
Stress Management. 15(2): 117.
Gonzalez, M.M. (2005). Citizen involvement in disaster management. (Master’s thesis). Monterey, CA: Naval
Postgraduate School.
Green, K.E. and Ireland, E. (1982). A case study of disaster-​related emergent citizen groups: An examination
of “vested interests” as a generating condition. (Preliminary paper #77). Newark, DE: Disaster Research
Center, University of Delaware.
Haas, J. and Drabek, T. (1970). Community disaster and system stress: A sociological perspective. In: J.
McGrath (ed.): Social and Psychological Factors in Stress. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and
Co, 264–​286.
Hall, P.D. (2006). A historical overview of philanthropy, voluntary associations, and nonprofit organizations
in the United States, 1600–​2000. The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. 2: 32–​65.
Helsloot, I. and Ruitenberg, A. (2004). Citizen response to disasters: a survey of literature and some practical
implications. Journal of contingencies and crisis management. 12(3): 98–​111.
Hodge, J.G., Pepe, R.P., and Henning, W.H. (2007). Voluntarism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: The
uniform emergency volunteer health practitioners Act. Disaster medicine and public health prepared-
ness. 1(01): 44–​50.
Illinois Terrorism Task Force. (nd). Community Guidelines for Developing a Spontaneous Volunteer Plan
(February 2005). www.illinois.gov/​security/​preparedness/​volunteer.htm.
Irvine, L. (2006). Providing for pets during disasters, part II: Animal response volunteers in Gonzales,
Louisiana. Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Report: 187.
Jensen, J. (2011). The argument for a disciplinary approach to emergency management higher education.
In: J. Hubbard (ed.): Challenges of Emergency Management in Higher Education. Fairfax, VA: Public
Entity Risk Institute, 18–​47.
Kendra, J.M. and Wachtendorf, T. (2001). Rebel food… renegade supplies: Convergence after the World
Trade Center attack. DRC Preliminary Paper No. 316. Newark, DE: Disaster Research Center,
University of Delaware.
Klein, R.J., Nicholls, R.J., and Thomalla, F. (2003). Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this con-
cept?. Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards. 5(1): 35–​45.
Kono, S., and Shinew, K.J. (2015). Roles of leisure in the post-​disaster psychological recovery after the Great
East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Leisure Sciences. 37(1): 1–​19.
Lowe, S. and Fothergill, A. (2003). A need to help: Emergent volunteer behavior after September 11. In
Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Public Entity Risk Institute, and
Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (Ed.), Beyond September 11: An account of post-​disaster
research (pp. 293–​314). Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Research and Application Information Center,
University of Colorado.
McEntire, D.A. (ed.). (2006). Disciplines, Disasters, and Emergency Management: The Convergence and
Divergence of Concepts, Issues and Trends from the Research Literature. Emmitsburg, MD: Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
McLennan, B.,Whittaker, J., and Handmer, J. (2016).The changing landscape of disaster volunteering: oppor-
tunities, responses and gaps in Australia. Natural Hazards. 84(3): 2031–​2048.
Michel, L.M. (2007). Personal responsibility and volunteering after a natural disaster: The case of Hurricane
Katrina. Sociological Spectrum. 27(6): 633–​652.
Montano, S. (2017). A Foundation for Factors that Explain Volunteer Engagement in Response and
Recovery: The Case of Flooding in East Texas 2016. Doctoral dissertation. Fargo, ND: North Dakota
State University.

226
 Disaster volunteerism

Neal, D. (1991). The local Red Cross in time of disaster: characteristics and conditions of organizational
effectiveness during the Loma Prieta earthquake and central Texas floods. The Journal of volunteer
administration. 11(2): 6–​16.
Neal, D. (1994). The consequences of excessive unrequested donations: The case of Hurricane Andrew.
Disaster Management. 6(1): 23–​28.
Nelan, M. and Grineski, S.E. (2013). Responding to Haiti’s Earthquake: International Volunteers’ health
behaviors and community relationships. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters.
31(2): 293–​314.
Ocak,T., Duran, A., Özdeş,T., Hocagil, C., and Küçükbayrak, A. (2013). Problems encountered by volunteers
assisting the relief efforts in Van, Turkey and the surrounding earthquake area. Journal of Academic
Emergency Medicine. 12(2): 66–​70.
Perkins, K.B. (1989).Volunteer firefighters in the United States: A descriptive study. Nonprofit and Voluntary
Sector Quarterly. 18(3): 269–​277.
Pezzullo, P.C. (2009). “This is the only tour that sells”: tourism, disaster, and national identity in New
Orleans. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change. 7(2): 99–​114.
Plummer, C.A., Ai, A.L., Lemieux, C.M., Richardson, R., Dey, S., Taylor, P., and Hyun-​Jun, K. (2008).
Volunteerism among social work students during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: A report from the dis-
aster area. Journal of Social Service Research. 34(3): 55–​71.
Phillips, B. (1986). The media in disaster threat situations: Some possible relationships between mass media
reporting and voluntarism. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. 4(3): 7–​26.
Phillips, B. (2015). Disaster Recovery, 2nd edn. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Quarantelli, E.L. and Dynes, R.R. (1977). Response to social crisis and disaster. Annual review of sociology.
3(1): 23–​49.
Rigg, J., Law, L.,Tan-​Mullins, M., and Grundy-​Warr, C. (2005).The Indian Ocean Tsunami: Socioeconomic
impacts in Thailand. The Geographical Journal 171(4), 374–​379.
Rotolo, T. and Berg, J.A. (2011). In times of need: An examination of emergency preparedness and disaster
relief service volunteers. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 40(4): 740–​750.
Rubin, C.B. (2012). Emergency Management: The American Experience: 1900–​ 2010. Boca Raton,
FL: CRC Press.
Rudden, P. (2011).Volunteering for service: the role of emergency nurses. Emergency Nurse. 19(4): 18–​19.
Sargisson, R.J., Hunt, S., Hanlen, P., Smith, K., and Hamerton, H. (2012). Volunteering: A community
response to the Rena oil spill in New Zealand. Journal of Contingencies & Crisis Management.
20(4): 208–​218.
Scanlon, J. (1999). Emergent groups in established frameworks: Ottawa Carleton’s response to the 1998 ice
disaster. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. 7(1): 30–​37.
Scanlon, J., Helsloot, I., and Groenendaal, J. (2014). Putting it all together: Integrating ordinary people into
emergency response. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. 32(1): 43–​63.
Simons, J., Gaher, R., Jacobs, G., Meyer, D., and Johnson-​Jimenez, E. (2005). Associations between alcohol
use and PTSD symptoms among American Red Cross disaster relief workers responding to the 9/​11/​
2001 attacks. American Journal of Drug & Alcohol Abuse. 31(2): 285–​304.
Sloand, E., Ho, G., Klimmek, R., Pho, A., and Kub, J. (2012). Nursing children after a disaster: A qualitative
study of nurse volunteers and children after the Haiti earthquake. Journal for Specialists in Pediatric
Nursing. 17(3): 242–​253.
Smith, G. and Wenger, D. (2006). Sustainable disaster recovery: Operationalizing an existing agenda. In: H.
Rodriguez, E.L. Quarantelli, and R. Dynes (eds.): Handbook of Disaster Research. New York: Springer
Verlag, 234–​257.
Smithson, M.E. (2014). Disaster, Displacement, and Voluntourism. Doctoral dissertation. Oxford,
MS: University of Mississippi.
Souza, A.A. (2009). Wasted Resources Volunteers and Disasters. Doctoral dissertation. Monterey, CA: Naval
Postgraduate School.
Steerman, C. and Cole, V. (2009). Recruitment and retention of red cross disaster volunteers. Australasian
Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies: 1.
Strandh, V. and Eklund, N. (2017). Emergent groups in disaster research: Varieties of scientific observation
over time and across studies of nine natural disasters. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
26(3): 329–​333.
Taylor, J.B., Zurcher, L.A., and Key, W.H. (1970). Tornado: A Community Responds to Disaster. Seattle,
WA: University of Washington Press.

227
Samantha Montano

Timmerman, P. (1981).Vulnerability Resilience and Collapse of Society: A Review of Models and Possible
Climatic Applications. Toronto: Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Toronto.
Twigg, J. and Mosel, I. (2017). Emergent groups and spontaneous volunteers in urban disaster response.
Environment and Urbanization. 29(2): 443–​458.
Vigo, G.N. (1996). Emergent behavior in the immediate response to two disasters: The 1985 Mexico
City Earthquake and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in Los Angeles. (Doctoral dissertation). College
Station, TX: Texas A&M University.
Vijayakumar, L. and Kumar, M.S. (2008). Trained volunteer-​delivered mental health support to those
bereaved by Asian Tsunami an evaluation. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 54(4), 293–​302.
Wearing, S. (2001).Volunteer Tourism: Experiences That Make a Difference.Wallingford: CAB International.
Wenger, D.E. and James, T.F. (1994). The convergence of volunteers in a consensus crisis: The case of
the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. In: R. Dynes Russell and K.J. Tierney (eds.): Disasters, Collective
Behavior, and Social Organization. Newark, NJ: Associated University Presses.
Wilson, J. (2000).Volunteering. Annual Review of Sociology. 26(1): 215–​240.
Wolensky, R.P. (1979). Toward a broader conceptualization of volunteerism in disaster. Journal of Voluntary
Action Research. 8(3–​4): 33–​42.

228
 18
Green infrastructure and resilience
David Rouse

Green infrastructure definitions

The term green infrastructure was first used in a 1994 report on land conservation strat-
egies by the Florida Greenways Commission. The intent was to elevate the societal value
and function of natural lands and systems to the same level of importance as built, or “gray”
infrastructure (e.g. water and sewer lines, roads). Currently there are two definitions of green
infrastructure in common usage. The first defines green infrastructure as a large-​scale network
of natural lands and resources: “A strategically planned and managed network of wilderness,
parks, greenways, conservation easements, and working lands with conservation value that
supports native species, maintains natural ecological processes, sustains air and water resources,
and contributes to the health and quality of life for America’s communities and people”
(Benedict and McMahon 2006). More recently, a second definition has evolved from the need
to address the water-​quality impacts of urban stormwater runoff in response to the Clean
Water Act and related regulatory mandates. The US Environmental Protection Agency defines
green infrastructure as:

An adaptable term used to describe an array of products, technologies, and practices that
use natural systems –​or engineered systems that mimic natural processes –​to enhance
overall environmental quality and provide utility services. As a general principle, Green
Infrastructure techniques use soils and vegetation to infiltrate, evapotranspirate, and/​
or recycle stormwater runoff. When used as components of a stormwater management
system, Green Infrastructure practices such as green roofs, porous pavement, rain gardens,
and vegetated swales can produce a variety of environmental benefits. In addition to effect-
ively retaining and infiltrating rainfall, these technologies can simultaneously help filter air
pollutants, reduce energy demands, mitigate urban heat islands, and sequester carbon while
also providing communities with aesthetic and natural resource benefits.
(US Environmental Protection Agency n.d.)

These two definitions have two key characteristics in common. The first is the notion that
green infrastructure is spatially manifested on the landscape, at scales ranging from the region

229
David Rouse

Table 18.1 Green infrastructure benefits

Green infrastructure can…

absorb stormwater, reducing runoff and associated impacts such as …to benefit the environment.
flooding and erosion
improve environmental quality by removing harmful pollutants from
the air and water
moderate the local climate and lessens the urban heat island effect,
contributing to energy conservation
preserve and restore natural ecosystems and provide habitats for
native fauna and flora
mitigate climate change by reducing fossil fuel emissions from
vehicles, lessening energy consumption by buildings, and
sequestering and storing carbon
create job and business opportunities in fields such as landscape …to benefit the economy.
management, recreation, and tourism
stimulate retail sales and other economic activity in local business
districts
increase property values
attract visitors, residents, and businesses to a community
reduce energy, health care, and gray infrastructure costs, making
more funds available for other purposes
promote healthy lifestyles by providing outdoor recreation opportunities …to benefit the community.
and enabling people to walk or bike as part of their daily routines
improve environmental conditions (e.g., air and water quality) and
their effects on public health
promote environmental justice, equity, and access for underserved
populations
provide places for people to socialize, and build community spirit
improve the aesthetic quality of urban and suburban development
provide opportunities for public art and expression of cultural values
connect people to nature. Studies have shown that better health
outcomes, improved educational performance, and reduced
violence can be among the resulting benefits
yield locally produced resources (food, fiber, and water)

Source: Rouse and Bunster-​Ossa 2013, pp. 12–​13. Published by the American Planning Association, this report cites
studies documenting benefits green infrastructure can provide.

(per Benedict and McMahon’s definition) to city, neighborhood, and site (the focus of the EPA
definition, which refers to smaller-​scale, human-​made landscape features, predominantly used
in urban areas). The second is the notion that, regardless of scale, green infrastructure provides
ecosystem services and benefits for people. The triple bottom line of sustainability –​envir-
onment, economy, and equity/​society –​can be used to organize the multiple and synergistic
benefits that green infrastructure can provide, which are often termed co-​benefits (Table 18.1).

Resilience definitions
The National Academy of Sciences, in a report of the Committee on Increasing National
Resilience to Hazards and Disasters, defined resilience as “the ability to prepare and plan for,

230
 Green infrastructure and resilience

absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events” (National Academy of
Sciences 2012). Emphasizing the role played by planning in improving community resilience, the
report states that “enhanced resilience allows better anticipation of disasters and better planning
to reduce disaster losses –​rather than waiting for an event to occur and paying for it after-
ward”. To build community resilience, the report recommends engaging the whole commu-
nity, including cooperation between the public and private sectors, in disaster policy making,
planning, and implementation of a risk management strategy.
The City Resilience Framework developed by The Rockefeller Foundation and Arup defines
city resilience as “the capacity of cities to function, so that the people living and working in
cities –​particularly the poor and vulnerable –​survive and thrive no matter what stresses or
shocks they encounter” (Rockefeller Foundation and Arup 2015). This definition goes beyond
the National Academy of Sciences’ definition to address both acute natural and human-​caused
disasters (shocks) and chronic challenges to natural and human systems (stresses). Both the City
Resilience Framework and the National Academy of Sciences report stress the importance of
addressing the special challenges and needs of poor and vulnerable populations based on factors
such as race/​ethnicity, mobility, and health status.

Green infrastructure and resilience

Green infrastructure is perhaps best known for its role in mitigating the impacts of inland and
coastal storms and flooding. At the regional scale, preservation of wetlands, forests, and other
lands that absorb rainfall can reduce stormwater runoff and flooding of development within the
watershed. In more developed areas, green infrastructure practices at the neighborhood and site
scales absorb stormwater close to where it is generated, contrasting with conventional engin-
eering solutions that contribute to downstream flooding by conveying stormwater to the nearest
waterway. So-​called “nature-​based solutions” (for example, preservation and restoration of nat-
ural systems such as sand dunes and salt marshes) can reduce damage from flooding and storm
surge during coastal storms.1
The work of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force in 2013 highlighted the role of
green infrastructure in increasing resilience to coastal storms. The Task Force report defined
green infrastructure as the integration of natural systems and processes, or engineered systems
that mimic natural systems and processes, into investments in resilient infrastructure. The report
recommends protection of ecosystems that attenuate wave action and storm surge (wetlands,
sand dunes, etc.), restoration of lost and degraded ecosystems, and nature-​based approaches such
as living shorelines and beneficial use of dredged materials to enhance the resilience of coastal
communities (Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force 2013).
Green infrastructure can play a role in other types of natural hazards, including both
shocks and stresses as defined by the City Resilience Framework. Examples of shocks include
windstorms and tornados, wildfire, seismic events (landslides and earthquakes), and heat
waves. Examples of stresses include drought, the urban heat island effect, and sea level rise. In
considering the range of hazards, green infrastructure can not only increase resilience by redu-
cing risk, but can also increase risk or, in some cases, reduce and increase risk simultaneously.
For example, increasing the amount of tree canopy cover can reduce temperatures in urban
areas, thus ameliorating the urban heat island effect and contributing to increased community
resilience during heat waves.2 Conversely, forested cover and landscaping around houses in the
wildland–​urban interface can increase risk from wildfire.3 Coastal storms with heavy rainfall
and high winds are an example of how green infrastructure can simultaneously reduce and
increase risk. Urban trees intercept rainfall, slow its movement through the tree canopy, and

231
David Rouse

promote stormwater infiltration into soils, thus reducing flooding. On the other hand, wind-​
blown trees can be significant hazards during a storm, causing property damage, utility outages,
and blocking evacuation routes.
The California wildfires of 2017 brought national attention to the risks posed by green infra-
structure at the landscape scale. According to the Washington Post, approximately 9,000 wildfires
occurred across the state, burning 1.2 million acres of land (an area the size of Delaware), destroying
more than 10,800 structures, and killing at least 46 people. Some media outlets estimated the
total cost of these disasters, from fire suppression to insurance and recovery expenditures, at $180
billion. Given development trends in the wildland–​urban interface and the effects of climate
change (see below), wildfire risk is likely to increase in the future.4
Three points deserve emphasis when considering the relationship of green infrastructure to
hazard risk and resilience. First, natural hazards have complex interrelationships; impacts from
one event can have cascading effects, increasing the likelihood and severity of other hazard
events (American Planning Association 2018). For example, drought creates dry conditions that
facilitate wildfires, which can be spread faster and farther by windstorms. Severe rainfall events
can lead to landslides, which in turn can be facilitated by the loss of vegetative cover due to
wildfire.
Second, climate change is exacerbating hazard risks. For example, changes in temperature
and moisture availability are increasing the susceptibility of urban trees to insect and disease
infestations, including accidentally introduced non-​native pests and pathogens (Tubby and
Webber 2010). Tree mortality in forests in the western United States is projected to rise as
a result of increased temperatures associated with climate change (Adams et al. 2017). This
in turn will increase the susceptibility of such forests to wildfires and landslides, another
example of cascading effects. The National Climate Assessment found that the intensity and
frequency of extreme weather events (e.g. extreme heat and heavy precipitation) has increased
in the United States and is projected to increase in the future (US Global Climate Research
Program 2017).
Third, inequality, social stratification, and poverty are key factors that increase a population’s
vulnerability to natural disasters (Rodríguez and Russell 2006). A CNN/​USA Today/​Gallup
survey conducted six weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005 found that
black victims were significantly more likely than white victims to have experienced seven of ten
hurricane-​related hardships (e.g. feared for their lives, went without food or drinking water for at
least a day, spent at least one night in an emergency shelter). Similarly, low-​income victims were
more likely to suffer hardships than high-​income victims.5
These disproportionate impacts call for policymakers to prioritize the needs of low-​income
and minority populations in building resilience not only to hurricanes and other acute nat-
ural disasters, but also to long-​term stresses such as rising temperatures and increased flooding
associated with climate change. This will require action to address the underlying conditions
(poverty, substandard housing and infrastructure, health disparities, etc.) that increase social
vulnerability. As noted, green infrastructure has an important role to play in building commu-
nity resilience through the environmental, economic, and social benefits it provides. Alexandra
Dapolita Dunn posited that green infrastructure could provide “exceptional benefits for the
urban poor which are not frequently highlighted or discussed” (Dunn 2010). These benefits
go beyond “water management and natural resource protection” to include better air and
water quality, improved public health, enhanced safety and aesthetics, green job opportunities,
and increased food security. However, the evidence shows that low-​income and minority
communities have less access to green infrastructure than their more affluent neighbors
(Rigolon 2016).

232
 Green infrastructure and resilience

Green infrastructure for community resilience: A planning framework

Given the above connections between green infrastructure and resilience, a planning framework
is proposed to guide practitioners and policymakers in using green infrastructure to mitigate the
impacts of natural hazards, minimize the potential for increased risk, and leverage broader envir-
onmental, economic, and social benefits to build community resilience. Key considerations in
using the framework include:

(1) Use the framework to address multiple types of natural hazards and the
interrelationships between them. Interrelationships between hazards include the poten-
tial cascading impacts previously noted, where one hazard event may lead to or exacerbate
other hazard events. For example, Florida is subject to both hurricanes and wildfire due to
its geography and climate. Hurricanes may benefit a natural forest by thinning weak or prob-
lematic trees, but the resulting debris can increase the risk of wildfire. Similarly, preventa-
tive measures to reduce hurricane risk may increase wildfire risk, and vice versa (American
Planning Association 2017). Thus it is important to evaluate the range and impacts of hazards
that may affect a community, in order to develop an approach that most effectively balances
potential risks.
(2) Use the framework to address multiple scales of concern, from site to neighbor-
hood, municipality, and region. For example, installation of green stormwater infrastruc-
ture and preservation of natural lands within a watershed are site/​neighborhood and regional
scale interventions, respectively, to reduce flooding. In another example, risk from earthquakes
or wildfires can be reduced by limiting development in vulnerable zones at the regional/​land-
scape scale and enacting building codes and landscape design standards at the site scale.
(3) Use the framework to address both acute natural disasters (shocks) and chronic
stresses on natural and human systems. Effectively addressing shocks requires both
hazard mitigation planning (to reduce or eliminate risk to life and property from a natural
disaster) and post-​disaster recovery planning (to enhance a community’s ability to recover
from the disaster). Addressing stresses requires a longer-​term perspective and focus on envir-
onmental, economic, and social conditions and trends that increase vulnerability to hazards
(e.g. climate change and sea level rise).

The framework is structured around five strategic points of intervention identified by the
American Planning Association (Klein 2011):

(1) Community visioning and goal setting

(2) Plan making
(3) Land use and development regulations
(4) Site design and development
(5) Public investments

These points are key planning activities through which planners work with local officials, com-
munity stakeholders, and the public to generate ideas for the future, translate ideas into intentions,
and define and carry out actions to implement intentions. Points 1 and 2 involve development
of long-​range plans (comprehensive/​community-​wide plans, functional plans, and subarea plans).
Points 3, 4, and 5 address how long-​range plans are implemented. Individually and collectively,
they provide opportunities for advancing green infrastructure as an approach to building com-
munity resilience while reducing risks from natural hazards.

233
David Rouse

Community Visioning and Goal Setting

Community visioning engages residents and stakeholders in a participatory process to identify
shared values and aspirations, articulate a desired future for the community, and establish goals to
achieve the future vision.Typically conducted for a comprehensive plan or as a separate planning
exercise, a successful visioning and goal setting process sets the foundation for the other strategic
points of intervention. Visioning can also be conducted at the regional scale by a Metropolitan
Planning Organization (MPO) or other regional planning agency, in which case it involves mul-
tiple local jurisdictions within the region.
Norfolk,VA’s Vision 2100 focuses on building long-​term resilience in a city where sea level
projections for 2100 range from an increase of 1.6 feet (corresponding to the observed increase
during the twentieth century) to as much as 7.5 feet above present-​day levels (City of Norfolk
2017). Sea level rise is increasing Norfolk’s susceptibility to shocks (hurricanes) and stresses
(tidal flooding is a routine occurrence in low-​lying areas) in a city with major investments in
the downtown, neighborhoods, and military installations (Naval Station Norfolk is the world’s
largest naval base). Vision 2100 provides broad guidance to city decision-​makers for the future
development of four “vision areas” based on hazard risk:

• Enhance economic engines by protecting key economic assets such as the downtown and
Naval Station Norfolk;
• Adapt to rising waters in existing residential areas that are experiencing more frequent
flooding;
• Establish the neighborhoods of the future in existing residential areas of less risk of
coastal flooding; and
• Design new urban centers in areas that are at low risk of coastal flooding and have potential
for higher density development.

Vision 2100 complements the more specific direction for implementation provided by the city’s
comprehensive plan. It identifies green infrastructure as a supplement to hard infrastructure (e.g.
flood walls) in protecting Norfolk’s economic engines by reducing stormwater runoff during
heavy rainfall events. Green infrastructure techniques such as living shorelines, rain gardens, and
green roofs are also proposed as a strategy to slow sea level rise and absorb water into the land-
scape in areas that are experiencing more frequent flooding (Figure 18.1).

Plan Making
Comprehensive plans, functional plans, and subarea plans translate the overall direction and goals
for the future established through a community visioning process into specific policies and
implementing actions. Public officials use these plans to inform decisions that influence physical,
social, and economic change within the community or region. Each type of plan offers oppor-
tunities to address the role green infrastructure can play in building community resilience.

Comprehensive Plans
The comprehensive plan is the leading policy document guiding the long-​range development
of municipalities and counties in the United States.6 Conventional comprehensive plans are
typically organized into elements such as land use, transportation, and natural resources, each

234
Figure 18.1 Norfolk 2010 vision map
David Rouse

with its own set of goals and policies. Contemporary comprehensive plans increasingly address
these topics not as standalone elements, but as complex systems whose interactions are key to
achieving the community vision and goals (Godschalk and Rouse 2015). The comprehensive
planning process can advance the use of green infrastructure to build community resilience by:

• Defining hazards and mapping areas and assets susceptible to hazard risks during the existing
conditions and trends analysis;
• Exploring green infrastructure as an approach to mitigating hazard risk and increasing resili-
ence during community visioning and goal-​setting;
• Accounting for hazard risks, including projections of trends such as sea level rise and increasing
temperatures, in scenarios for the future; and
• Developing actions to use green infrastructure to reduce hazard risk in the implementation
component of the plan (e.g. by designating vulnerable areas for open space or limited devel-
opment on the Future Land Use Map).

Comprehensive plans set the framework for and promote consistency among other types of plans
(i.e. functional and subarea plans) and implementation mechanisms (e.g. development regulations
and capital improvement programs). Natural hazards and green infrastructure can be addressed
as separate elements in the comprehensive plan (conventional model) or as cross-​cutting themes
throughout the plan (contemporary model).7 The former approach provides a focus on these
topics but should be linked to other plan elements such as land use and transportation to ensure
an integrated approach. The latter approach is an effective way to integrate green infrastructure
with other community systems that contribute to resilience, particularly if explicitly identified
as one of the cross-​cutting themes.

Functional Plans
While comprehensive plans cover a range of topics at the communitywide scale, functional plans
focus on one community system such as transportation or parks and open space. Examples of
functional plans that can address the connection between green infrastructure and resilience
include green infrastructure, climate action, hazard mitigation,8 and community wildfire protec-
tion plans.9 Growth management plans focus on the location, type, and timing of new develop-
ment as they relate to multiple systems (land use, infrastructure, natural resources, etc.) and thus
can be considered hybrids between functional and comprehensive plans. Growth management
plans can be used to direct development away from hazardous areas (e.g. areas with signifi-
cant wildfire risk within the wildland–​urban interface) and protect areas of environmental or
ecological value.
Climate Ready Boston is an example of a functional plan that addresses the increasing vul-
nerability of Boston, MA to four climate factors: extreme temperatures, sea level rise, extreme
precipitation, and storms. Projections indicate that Boston will experience increasing average
temperatures and increasing frequency, duration, and intensity of heat waves as a result of climate
change (City of Boston 2016). The plan proposes “expand(ing) the use of green infrastructure
and other natural systems to manage stormwater, mitigate heat, and provide additional benefits”
as a strategy to increase climate resilience.

Regional Plans
Comprehensive plans and functional plans are typically conducted by local jurisdictions. However,
regional planning can be an effective scale at which to address issues related to hazard risks, resili-
ence, and green infrastructure that transcend jurisdictional boundaries. Regional-​scale plans are

236
 Green infrastructure and resilience

typically conducted by an MPO or other regional planning agency. Since such agencies are not
authorized to enact land use regulations, capital improvement programs, and other implementing
actions that are the purview of local governments, it is important to engage local jurisdictions
in the regional planning process. In addition to engagement in regional planning processes, an
effective regional approach also requires collaboration among local jurisdictions and between
jurisdictions and the regional planning agency in local planning processes, for example to coord-
inate local and regional green infrastructure plans.
Developed by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact, the Regional Climate
Action Plan is the result of a collaborative effort by Broward, Miami-​Dade, Monroe, and Palm
Beach Counties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience in Southeast
Florida (SFRCC 2017). Focus areas include, among others: Natural Systems, Risk Reduction
and Emergency Management, Sustainable Communities and Transportation, and Water. Natural
Systems recommendations range from “promote collaborative federal, state, and local govern-
ment conservation land acquisition and easement programs” to “maintain, create, and/​or restore
urban tree canopy”.

Subarea Plans
Subarea plans (referred to as specific plans in California) address smaller geographic areas within
a single jurisdiction, such as a neighborhood, district, or corridor. They can cover a range of
topics (similar to a comprehensive plan) or focus on a single topic (similar to a functional plan).
Subarea plans provide more detailed recommendations on how comprehensive or functional
plans are to be implemented within a specific geographic area. For example, Climate Ready Boston
identifies eight focus areas for resilience initiatives within the city. Two of these focus areas are
addressed in Coastal Resilience Solutions for East Boston and Charleston (City of Boston 2017). This
plan provides a detailed analysis of coastal flooding risks in the subarea based on sea level rise
scenarios and proposes strategies to reduce the risks. The strategies integrate flood protection
systems with open space and green infrastructure, including elevated waterfront parks, plazas, and
pathways, as well as nature-​based features such as living shorelines, created marshes, and wetland
terraces.

Land Use and Development Regulations

Regulations –​zoning and subdivision controls, design and development standards, codes and
ordinances, etc. –​are the first of three strategic points of intervention that involve plan imple-
mentation. To be legally defensible, regulations should implement the goals and policies of a
comprehensive plan or similar planning study that establishes a substantive rationale based on
factual circumstances, data, and public input (Barnett and Blaesser 2017).
Zoning regulations that define the location, type, and density of new development are the
primary vehicle for implementing the Future Land Use Map contained in a comprehensive plan.
Based on analysis and mapping of environmental data during the comprehensive planning pro-
cess, zoning can limit development in high-​hazard areas (floodplains, areas with steep slopes or
unstable soils, etc.) and lands with valuable natural resources (native habitat, forested watershed,
etc.). Conversely, zoning can direct higher density development to more suitable locations.
High-​risk areas and valuable natural resource lands can also be protected through overlay
zoning districts that apply additional standards supplementing the base zoning provisions.
Required of communities participating in the National Flood Insurance Program, floodplain
management ordinances are a form of overlay zoning that establish requirements for construc-
tion within floodplain areas mapped by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

237
David Rouse

FEMA maps are based on historic data and thus do not account for the projected effects of sea
level rise, more intense storms resulting from climate change, and urbanization that increases
stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces within the watershed.
The International Wildland–​Urban Interface (WUI) Code is a model overlay district designed
to reduce risk from wildfire within a WUI zone designated by a local jurisdiction (International
Code Council 2015). It establishes requirements for ignition-​resistant construction, maintenance
of defensible space and vegetation management around buildings, and provision of emergency
vehicle access and water supply for new subdivisions. Managing development within the WUI
is a prime example of balancing the benefits and risks of green infrastructure (in this case, the
forested landscape). Ideally, a WUI code would be combined with other measures (e.g., zoning,
transfer of development rights, land acquisition, and controls on public infrastructure extensions)
to limit development in areas with the highest potential for wildfire.
Subdivision regulations control the division of a parcel of land into lots for development
of houses or other buildings. While the overall density of new development is typically set by
zoning, subdivision regulations address considerations such as street access and design, water and
sewer infrastructure, and open space. Typically enabled by a separate ordinance, cluster or con-
servation subdivisions maintain a significant portion of the property as open space by locating
the houses on smaller lots. This approach can be used to preserve high-​hazard and ecologically
valuable areas, which in turn can contribute to developing a green infrastructure network at the
communitywide or regional scale.
Transfer of development rights (TDR) is a voluntary program that allows a landowner to
sell development rights from land within a designated “sending area” for use by a developer
to increase the density of development on land within a designated “receiving area”. TDR
programs are typically used to protect open space and ecologically sensitive lands, including
landscape-​scale green infrastructure and areas of high hazard risk.
Regulatory mechanisms such as a WUI Code, conservation subdivision ordinance, or TDR
program are most suitable for use in rural and urbanizing areas to reduce hazard risk and maintain
the benefits of landscape-​scale green infrastructure.Tree conservation ordinances are a mechanism
commonly used by cities to protect and manage the urban tree canopy, which provides multiple
benefits such as improving air quality, managing stormwater, and reducing the urban heat island
effect –​all of which contribute to building community resilience. Tree conservation ordinances
can be designed to regulate various aspects of tree planting, removal, and maintenance on public
and private property, including replanting or monetary compensation for trees removed.
A zoning ordinance adopted by the City of Norfolk, VA in 2018 incorporates provisions to
enhance flood resilience and direct higher density development to higher elevations, thus helping
to implement the guidance set by Vision 2100 (City of Norfolk 2018). These provisions include
Coastal and Upland Resilience Overlay Districts and a Resilience Quotient System that awards
points to developments for measures that promote flood risk reduction, stormwater manage-
ment, and energy resilience. Examples of green infrastructure measures include preserving onsite
trees, installing green roofs, and using vegetation to shade HVAC units. The ordinance requires
additional elevation of the first floors of buildings inside and outside of FEMA-​designated flood
hazard areas to account for projections of more extreme flooding and sea level rise.

Site Design and Development

Successful plan implementation relies heavily on private investment in site-​scale development
and redevelopment projects. Such developments, either by the private sector or through public–​
private partnerships, offer the potential to use green infrastructure to reduce hazard risk and

238
 Green infrastructure and resilience

increase resilience. A strong and consistent planning framework that includes plans, regulations,
and incentives like the examples provided above is required to realize this potential. With this
framework in place, agencies can encourage the use of green infrastructure in development
projects through education (e.g. by providing information on how green infrastructure can
reduce costs and increase value for developments) and assistance during the development review
and approval process (e.g. through streamlined permitting and site plan review checklists incorp-
orating green infrastructure).
As an example of how the outcomes of such a planning framework are reflected in site-​
scale development, drought impacts result from an imbalance between water supply and water
consumption, which is the consequence of human usage and the form of urban development
(Schwab 2013). Land use and infrastructure policies and regulations can encourage compact
development, which is typically more water-​efficient than large lots with lawns that encourage
summertime irrigation. Landscaping ordinances can specify native and other plant species that
are adapted to local conditions and require less watering, particularly in arid climates. Building,
plumbing, and landscape codes can reduce potable water demand, increase groundwater recharge,
and encourage rainwater harvesting that can be used to irrigate plantings that provide benefits
such as stormwater management and reduction of the heat island effect.
A prime opportunity to reduce flooding risk and provide additional benefits that increase
community resilience is through the incorporation of green stormwater infrastructure that
retains stormwater onsite into development projects. Examples of site-​scale green infrastructure
include bioswales, rain gardens, stormwater planters, green roofs, tree plantings, and vegetated
open space. Green streets incorporating such features can be used in district-​scale development
or redevelopment projects. Green stormwater infrastructure can provide numerous benefits
beyond reduced runoff, such as improved air and water quality, groundwater recharge, lessening
of the urban heat island effect, “green” job creation, increased property values, and improved
public health (Table 18.1).10

Public Investments
Public investment in infrastructure, facilities, and purchase of land or development rights, typic-
ally through a local capital improvements program (CIP), is the fifth and final strategic point of
intervention. Similar to land use and development regulations, the comprehensive plan should
set the policy basis for the CIP. Individual projects should be evaluated and prioritized based on
their consistency with and role in implementing the comprehensive plan goals and objectives
(Godschalk and Rouse 2015).
Purchase of land or development rights is a particularly effective to way to reduce risk in
floodplains or other areas vulnerable to natural hazards. Jurisdictions such as Lancaster County,
PA and Lexington-​Fayette, KY have utilized PDR programs to protect farmland at the land-
scape scale. Conversely, extensions or capacity expansions of roads, water and sewer lines, and
other public utilities can increase risk at the landscape scale by leading to development in natural
resource areas that provide environmental services such as groundwater recharge and flood con-
trol. Capital improvement programming should be aligned with land use and growth management
policies and regulations to, for example, limit utility extensions into areas of the wildland-​urban
interface identified as having high potential for wildfire. This requires coordination with agencies
that operate independently of municipal governments, for example water and sewer authorities
and MPOs that are responsible for regional transportation improvement programming.
Capital investments in public parks, a primary component of green infrastructure networks at
the local (neighborhood), citywide, and regional scales, can reduce hazard risk while providing

239
David Rouse

multiple benefits that increase community resilience. A 2017 National Recreation and Park
Association (NRPA) survey completed by 377 park and recreation agencies found that 51 per
cent were reducing stormwater runoff and flooding through green infrastructure practices such
as rain gardens, bioswales, created wetlands, and green roofs (NRPA 2017). Preserving/​increasing
tree canopy for purposes such as air quality improvement was another commonly used practice.
A relatively low 17 per cent of survey respondents indicated they were implementing adaptation
strategies or mitigation activities for climate change, indicating the potential for an expanded
role for parks.
New York City has become a national leader in resilient planning and design since the dev-
astating impacts of Hurricane Sandy in 2013. Drawing on the lessons learned from Sandy and
Hurricane Irene in 2011, NYC Parks published Design and Planning for Flood Resiliency: Guidelines
for NYC Parks in 2017 (City of New York Parks & Recreation 2017). NYC Parks maintains
approximately 160 miles of public coastline, providing a natural line of defense against coastal
storms and the long-​term effects of sea level rise. The guidelines address the role of “parks and
open space as part of a citywide network of urban coastal protection” and recommend resilient
practices for different types of sites, facilities, materials, and other components of waterfront
parks.They exemplify how investment in public facilities and infrastructure can set a community
standard for resilient design. Rating systems such as Leadership in Environmental Energy and
Design (LEED), RELi (which focuses on project resiliency), and the Sustainable Sites Initiative
include green infrastructure practices that can be used in the design of public sites and buildings.

Conclusion
The planning profession and planning practitioners are uniquely positioned to effectuate change
at the local governmental level through their long-​range perspective and role as influencers of
policy and decision-​making. Due to the increasing number and severity of natural disasters and
long-​term projections regarding the effects of climate change, resilience has emerged as a leading
concern of planners, allied professionals, and policymakers in the twenty-​first century. Green
infrastructure –​defined both as a landscape-​scale network of natural lands and resources and a
nature-​based approach to managing stormwater runoff –​has great potential to increase resilience
to hazards (including acute shocks and chronic stresses) and provide an array of environmental,
economic, and social benefits. Planners can accelerate the deployment of green infrastructure to
increase community resilience through their involvement in five key planning activities –​com-
munity visioning and goal setting, plan making, land use and development regulations, site design
and development, and public investment –​that shape the built environment.
Planners and policymakers should prioritize the needs of low-​income and minority commu-
nities, which are particularly vulnerable to the effects of hazards and typically have less access to
green infrastructure resources than more affluent populations, in developing and implementing
strategies to increase resilience. In doing so, it is important to engage the community in identi-
fying local needs and priorities, developing solutions, and addressing concerns such as environ-
mental gentrification (Rouse 2018). Looking towards the future, adaptive planning and design
approaches (e.g. scenario planning) will be needed to address the uncertain but disruptive effects
of climate change, new technologies, and other emergent trends. Widespread deployment of
autonomous vehicles, for example, is expected to free up significant amounts of land currently
occupied by parking and rights-​of-​way for other uses (Crute et al. 2018), providing a new oppor-
tunity to integrate green infrastructure into the urban fabric.The above planning framework can
be used to help realize this opportunity in a way that builds community resilience and reduces
risks from natural hazards.

240
 Green infrastructure and resilience

Notes
1 Nature-​based solutions are defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address
societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-​being and bio-
diversity benefits.” www.iucn.org/​commissions/​commission-​ecosystem-​management/​our-​work/​
nature-​based-​solutions
2 A study of the Greater Manchester (UK) urbanized area found that increasing the amount of greenspace
in high-​density areas would reduce surface temperatures below projected levels due to climate change
if no changes are made to surface cover. For example, under the High Emissions scenario, adding 10 per
cent green cover would reduce 2080 surface temperatures in high-​density residential areas by 2.50 C. for
the ninet-​eighth percentile summer day. Adding green roofs to all buildings would have a significantly
greater impact (Gill et. al. 2007).
3 The wildland–​ urban interface is defined as the area in which human development borders or
intermingles with forests or other wildlands (e.g. grasslands).While the wildland–​urban interface can be
spatially defined in terms of the relationship of developed lands to wildlands, it can also be thought of
as a set of conditions where the relationship between development and wildlands increase the risk of or
exposure to wildfire (American Planning Association 2017).
4 A study published in 2018 found that the wildland–​urban interface in the United States grew rapidly
from 1990 to 2010 in terms of both number of new houses (from 30.8 to 43.4 million; 41% growth)
and land area (from 581,000 to 770,000 km2; 33% growth), making it the fastest-​growing land use type
in the conterminous United States. The vast majority of new wildland–​urban interface areas were the
result of new housing (97%), not related to an increase in wildland vegetation (Radeloff et al. 2018).
5 Available at https://​news.gallup.com/​poll/​19405/​katrina-​hurt-​blacks-​poor-​victims-​most.aspx.
6 The comprehensive plan is referred to as the general plan in California and some other places and as the
community master plan in New Jersey.
7 The Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places developed by the American Planning
Association provide guidance for incorporating green infrastructure and resilience into the compre-
hensive plan (Godschalk and Rouse 2015). Relevant best practices include, among others, restoring,
connecting, and protecting natural habitats and sensitive lands; planning for the provision and protec-
tion of green infrastructure; and protecting vulnerable populations from natural hazards. The standards
identify Interwoven Equity –​ensuring equity and fairness in providing for the housing, services, health,
safety and livelihood needs of all citizens and groups –​as one of six plan principles.
8 Hazard Mitigation Plans are authorized by the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA), which amended
the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988. The DMA requires state
and local governments to prepare multihazard mitigation plans a a precondition of receiving federal
hazard mitigation funding, with the goal of reducing disaster losses and increasing the effectiveness of
federal funding through planning.
9 The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 encourages communities to develop Community Wildfire
Protection Plans (CWPPs), outlines their contents, and uses them to prioritize funding for fuel-​
reduction projects on both federal and non-​federal lands. Adopting a CWPP enables a community to
define the boundaries of the wildland–​urban interface to define the boundaries of the wildland–​urban
interface within its jurisdiction.
10 The US Environmental Protection Agency has many resources available on its website on the use of
green stormwater infrastructure. These resources can be found at www.epa.gov/​green-​infrastructure/​
policy-​guides.

References
Adams, H.D., Barron-​Gafford, G.A., Minor, R.L., Gardea, A.A., Bentley, L.P., Law, D.J., Breshears, D.D.,
McDowell, N.G., and Huxman, T.E. (2017). Temperature response surfaces for mortality risk of tree
species with future drought. Environmental Research Letters. 12: 115014.
American Planning Association (2017). Regional Green Infrastructure at the Landscape Scale. www.
planning.org/​publications/​document/​9119763/​.
American Planning Association (2018). Multi-​ Hazard Planning Framework for Communities in the
Wildland-​Urban Interface. www.planning.org/​publications/​document/​9155699/​.

241
David Rouse

Barnett, J. and Blaesser, B.A. (2017). Reinventing Development Regulations. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln
Institute of Land Policy.
Benedict, M.A. and McMahon, E.T. (2006). Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities.
Washington, DC: Island Press.
City of Boston (2016). Climate Ready Boston. www.boston.gov/​ departments/​
environment/​
climate-​ready-​boston#report.
City of Boston (2017). Coastal Resilience Solutions for East Boston and Charleston: Final Report. www.
boston.gov/​sites/​default/​files/​climatereadyeastbostoncharlestown_​finalreport_​web.pdf.
City of New York Parks and Recreation (2017). Design and Planning for Flood Resiliency: Guidelines
for NYC Parks. www.nycgovparks.org/​pagefiles/​128/​NYCP-​Design-​and-​Planning-​Flood-​Zone_​_​
5b0f0f5da8144.pdf.
City of Norfolk (2017).Vision 2100. www.norfolk.gov/​DocumentCenter/​View/​27768.
City of Norfolk (2018). Zoning Ordinance. www.norfolk.gov/​index.aspx?nid=3910.
Crute, J., Riggs, W., Chapin, T., and Stevens, L. (2018). Planning for Autonomous Mobility. Planning
Advisory Service Report 592. Chicago: American Planning Association.
Dunn, A.D. (2010). Siting Green Infrastructure: Legal and Policy Solutions to Alleviate Urban Poverty
and Promote Healthy Communities. Pace University Law Faculty Publications Paper no. 559.
New York: Pace University.
Gill, S.E., Handley, J.F. Ennos, A.R., and Paulette, S. (2007). Adapting cities for climate change: The role of
green infrastructure. Built Environment. 33:1: 115–​133.
Godschalk, D.R. and Rouse, D.C. (2015). Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans. PAS
Report 578. Chicago: American Planning Association.
Hurricane Sandy Task Force (2013). Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy. www.hud.gov/​sites/​documents/​
hsrebuildingstrategy.pdf.
International Code Council (2015). International Wildland-​Urban Interface Code. https://​codes.iccsafe.
org/​public/​document/​toc/​556/​.
Klein, W. (2011). The Five Strategic Points of Intervention. PAS Quicknotes No. 31. Chicago: American
Planning Association.
National Academy of Sciences (2012). Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative. Washington, DC: The
National Academies Press.
National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA). (2017. Park and Recreation Sustainability Practices: A
Summary of Results from an NRPA Member Survey. www.nrpa.org/​contentassets/​f768428a39aa4035
ae55b2aaff372617/​sustainability-​survey-​report.pdf.
Radeloff, V.C., Helmers, D.P., Kramer, H.A., Mockrin, M.H., Alexandre, P.M., Bar-​Massada, A., Butsic,
V., Hawbaker, T.J., Martinuzzi, S., Syphard, A.D., and Stewart, S.I. (2018). Rapid growth of the US
wildland-​ urban interface raises wildfire risk. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
115(13): 3314–​3319.
Rigolon, A. (2016). A complex landscape of inequity in access to urban parks. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 153: 160–​169.
Rockefeller Foundation and Arup. (2015). City Resilience Framework. https://​assets.rockefellerfoundation.
org/​app/​uploads/​20160105134829/​100RC-​City-​Resilience-​Framework.pdf.
Rodríguez, H. and Russell, C. (2006). Understanding disasters: Vulnerability, sustainable development, and
resiliency. In: J. Blau and K. Iyall-​Smith (eds.): Public Sociologies Reader. New York: Rowman &
Littlefield, 193–​211.
Rouse, D. (2018). Social equity, parks and gentrification. Parks & Recreation Magazine. July: 38–​39.
Rouse, D.C. and Bunster-​Ossam, I.F. (2013). Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach. PAS Report 571.
Chicago, IL: American Planning Association.
Schwab, J.C. (ed.) (2013). Planning for Drought. PAS Report 574. Chicago: American Planning Association.
Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact (SFRCCP). Regional Climate Action Plan. (2017).
www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/​.
Tubby, K.V. and Webber, J.F. (2010). Pests and diseases threatening urban trees under a changing climate.
Forestry. 83 (4).
US Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d. ) Green Infrastructure Glossary. https://​ ofmpub.
epa.gov/​ s or_ ​ i nternet/ ​ registry/ ​ t ermreg/ ​ s earchandretrieve/​ g lossariesandkeywordlists/​ s earch.
do?details=&glossaryName=Green%20Infrastructure%20Glossary.
US Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP). (2017). Climate Science Special Report: Fourth
National Climate Assessment,Vol. I (D.J.Wuebbles, D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart,
and T.K. Maycock (eds.)). Washington, DC: USGCRP.

242
 19
Latino revitalization as “blight”
Generative placemaking and ethnic cultural
resiliency in Woodburn, Oregon

Gerardo Francisco Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

Introduction
Demographic changes coupled with Latino population growth have revitalized many small, eco-
nomically struggling rural towns across the United States. In fact, from 2000 to 2006, 221 non-​
metro counties would have experienced overall population decline if not for Latino population
growth (Johnson and Lichter 2008). As Latinos continue to migrate from traditional immigrant
gateways to newly emerging destinations (a trend fueled by the restructuring of the agricultural
industry, mass immigration, natural increase, and increased employment opportunities), increased
cultural conflicts will emerge as Latinos challenge the cultural homogeny of these rural towns. In
Woodburn, OR, approximately 90 per cent of the small businesses in the historic downtown are
Latino-​owned, which provide a diverse set of goods and services to the town’s majority-​Latino
population. For example, downtown Woodburn’s Latino-​owned businesses include Oaxacan
restaurants, legal services that provide information on immigration issues, a tortilla factory with
a statewide market, clothing stores, miquero1 informal businesses, small grocery markets, and
other retail services (see Table 19.1).
Latinos in Woodburn are transforming the downtown area via their generative placemaking
efforts. They have saved the historic Main Street by investing in small businesses, helping to
establish a Latino-​themed downtown public plaza, and adding a multicultural flair to the town.
The generative placemaking that has transpired in Woodburn is also currently occurring in
other Latino new growth destinations around the country (Sandoval and Maldonado 2012;
Trabalzi and Sandoval 2010). We argue that Latino business owners in downtown Woodburn
have relied on generative placemaking strategies, which strengthen cultural resiliency, to over-
come the town’s racialized climate and challenge the towns’ regulative planning institutions that
have characterized their downtown Latino business community as “blighted”.
We draw on 40 in-​depth interviews, an analysis of US Census data, and a spatial analysis of
Latino small businesses as our methods. We apply the Community Capitals Framework (CCF)
to contextualize how generative revitalization is built upon various forms of capital such as
financial, political, economic, and cultural (Flora and Flora 2013). The CCF is a model that
views community assets as key forms of capital that can help in community development efforts.
The model helps uncover the assets present in a community. We analyze: (1) how Latino small

243
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

Table 19.1 Retail and services opportunities identified in updated Woodburn Urban Renewal Plan

Business/​merchandise opportunities

Short-​term opportunity Long-​term opportunity

Currently available (X) Currently available (X)

Merchandise Florists/​gifts X Casual women’s apparel X

Children’s toys and gifts X Bookstore/​music/​CDs X
Quality consignment-​infant and X Athletic apparel/​shoes X
children’s goods
Antiques X Home accessories X
Infant and children’s apparel X
Pet supplies X
Bed/​bath linens/​accessories X
Kitchen/​home accessories X
Garden and outdoor accessories X
Window coverings
Ongoing restaurant growth X
Restaurant/​Food Brewpub X
Ice cream/​gelato/​sweets X
Specialty: Thai/​Italian X
Deli X
Pizza parlor X
Coffee/​internet café X
Entertainment Community events center Performing-​event space X
Live entertainment in existing X Dance hall
restaurants
Personal care & Health care X Photography/​one-​hour photo X
Services
Daycare/​childcare X Health club/​gym
Dental and/​or vision care Tailoring/​alterations X
Salon/​barbershop X Copy shop/​mailing center X
Computer service/​repair X

businesses are transforming downtown via their generative placemaking practices; (2) critique
the views of blight via historic preservation versus Latino placemaking; and (3) uncover how the
town’s racialized context hampers Latino small business owner’s revitalization efforts. We find
that in Woodburn there is much conflict over cultural capital, and that the lack of Latino political
representation in formal community development and governance institutions plays a significant
role in how local institutions define Latino placemaking as blight. This case illustrates, however,
that in spite of the obstructionist efforts of Woodburn’s formal community planning institutions,
Latino small business owners have transformed a downtown area that was once lined with
vacant storefronts into a successful Latino business community. Their ethnic resilience has been
key in this effort. Hence, ethnic resiliency can play an important role in challenging traditional
power dynamics by helping to decontextualize and legitimize difference in cultural capital and
encouraged inclusive participation efforts that create more equitable democratic outcomes. In
Woodburn, this translates into an active Latino business community, which in turn is helping to
amplify the voice of the town’s Latino-​majority population.

244
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

Blight and urban renewal

Urban renewal was a slum clearance project that originated out of the 1949 Housing Act with
the goal of eliminating neighborhoods that were considered “blighted”.The racialized character-
ization of blight, since cities included percentage of non-​white populations in their definitions,2 meant
communities of color were targeted for renewal and consequent displacement (Beauregard 1991).
From 1949 to 1974, the urban renewal program provided local renewal agencies with federal
funds and the power of eminent domain to condemn slum neighborhoods, tear down buildings
and homes, and resell the cleared land to private developers at a reduced price. The program
was intended to stimulate large-​scale private rebuilding and new tax revenues to the dwindling
coffers of cities, revitalize their downtown areas, and halt the exodus of middle-​class whites to
the suburbs (Gans 1982). Cities cleared large tracts of supposed slum land around central business
districts (CBDs) to provide space for and to subsidize high-​cost residential, industrial, commer-
cial, and institutional developments such as cultural museums or even sporting venues (Logan
and Molotch 1987). In most cases, no relocation assistance was provided (Anderson 1964; Jolin
et al. 1998; Mohl 1993). As a result, urban renewal projects displaced large populations of low-​
income individuals, especially African Americans and Latinos, and in some cases destroyed entire
neighborhoods and business communities (Anderson 1964; Krumholz and Forrester 1991;Valle
and Torres 2000; Weiss 1980).
To understand the racial connection between blight and communities of color, the con-
cept of blight needs to be contextualized as a tool for economic development and the taking
of low-​income spaces. Blight is a tool for rationalizing the institutional taking of marginalized
spaces as those spaces are appropriated to what urban planners frame as a “higher and better”
use. The goal is to intervene in marginalized spaces (mainly via economic development, new
housing, and infrastructure investments) and repurpose the use of land for a different popu-
lation. Historically, this has been the outcome, even though urban renewal plans claimed they
were making interventions to “improve” the targeted communities (Logan and Molotch 1987).
Hence, blight needs to be analyzed as an economic development tool used to remove unwanted
communities from locations where developers can invest and profit from the changes in land use.
Fogelson argues that redevelopment increasingly relied on an elastic definition of blight, which
put the health of the CBD at the top of the urban renewal agenda (Fogelson 2001).
Today, blight continues to be rarely defined with any precision, and “courts have granted local
interests almost carte blanche in their creative search for ‘blighted’ areas eligible for federal funds
or local tax breaks” (Gordon 2004: 305–​306). Today’s necessary criteria for positive findings
of blight are more liberal and vague (Gold and Sagalyn 2010). Gold and Sagalyn maintain that
since the definition of blight continues to grow, it needs serious alteration since urban renewal
or economic redevelopment relies on this concept as a cornerstone for their eminent domain
“takings” (Gold and Sagalyn 2010: 1173). The point being that conditions labeled as “blighted”
are unwanted social and physical characteristics in a community that needs to be changed, and
that racialized undertones have historically been linked to labeling communities of color as
blighted.

Latino generative placemaking and cultural resilience

Placemaking occurs from both a generative and regulative approach.That is, regulative institutions
do not control or dictate the placemaking efforts responsible for sustaining community develop-
ment and revitalizing places. Uzzell recognizes that regulative planning is frequently a coercive

245
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

process associated with legally constituted institutions, and that generative planning is engaged
generally by the marginalized who “may or may not be associated with any institution at all”
(Uzzell 1990: 116). In other words, “regulative planning” refers to the style employed by the
government and “generative planning” refers to either informal planning strategies or the kind
of planning used by informal sectors (Uzzell 1987).
Making a distinction between generative and regulative planning processes is useful in
understanding how Latino small businesses are revitalizing Woodburn’s downtown area.
Regulative planning styles rely on power, new systems, large-​scale plans, standardization of infor-
mation, and no feedback (Uzzell 1987: 117). Generative planning processes rely on information,
accommodate existing systems, implement by increments, allow for idiosyncratic and context-​
sensitive design, and incorporate feedback (Uzzell 1987: 117). Scholars have also termed this
type of generative ethnic placemaking as Latino placemaking (Rios and Vasquez 2012).We argue
that Latino communities commonly rely on their everyday placemaking practices, which can
also be viewed as a form of generative planning, to effectively push back against structural racism
and other forms of inequality. The revitalization efforts of Latino entrepreneurs in downtown
Woodburn are consistent with Uzzell’s generative planning framework and represent a form of
ethnic resilience that is exerted via Latino placemaking. Although Latino business owners are
operating within a conflicted and racialized context over cultural capital, their everyday business
practices are transforming the downtown area and represent a form of placemaking grounded
in cultural resiliency.
It is also important to note how Latino small businesses have leveraged their financial, cul-
tural, and political capital to transform and revitalize downtown Woodburn from a bottom-​up
or generative fashion (Flora and Flora 2013). CCF helps us understand why even though the
generative placemaking efforts of Latinos are being suppressed by regulative renewal plans and a
racialized context, Latinos are still transforming downtown Woodburn into a cultural milieu for
the city. First, financial capital is the monetary resource invested in community capacity building
as Latinos finance (without the help of government or formal banks) their small businesses. This
form of financial capital also contributes to the financial viability of the downtown area since
most spaces would be vacant without this type of Latino investment. Secondly, cultural capital
includes the heritages, values, generations, and ethnicities in a community, which in Woodburn are
being challenged by white residents’ conflicting set of cultural capitals. Historic preservationists,
for example, are contesting the cultural capital Latinos are exercising in transforming the his-
toric downtown because they view cultural capital as a Rockwell painting of the 1930s.3 Finally,
political capital is the influence on the distribution of resources, power, voice, and connections
that exist in a community. In Woodburn, the lack of formal Latino political capital is a key struc-
ture that impedes Latino placemaking efforts (Harwood 2012, Irazábal and Farhat 2008; Rios
and Vasquez 2012). Latino business owners, however, are beginning to organize and assert their
dissenting voice in city hall’s decision-​making process. For instance, the Woodburn Downtown
Association (WDA), a Latino business advocacy organization, successfully pressured the city to
reverse its decision regarding their Mother’s Day celebration music permit, and had two hours
added to their 7:00 pm music permit since city code allows public events to host music enter-
tainment until 9:00 pm.

Latino small business and placemaking

The rapid emergence of Latino entrepreneurs and small businesses in Oregon over the past
ten years is evident because of the financial capital present in these rural communities. Latinos
are transforming Main Streets across the state. Latino-​ owned grocery stores, restaurants,

246
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

clothing stores, and small agricultural farms, for example, are rapidly emerging in areas that
were (or are) experiencing economic difficulties. Latino businesses are also revitalizing declining
neighborhoods through local economic investment and activity –​building upon their cultural
and financial capital (Sandoval 2010).
Within the academic literature on Latino self-​ employment and entrepreneurship (i.e.
Latino small business), scholars have focused on comparing immigrant versus non-​immigrant
entrepreneurs and also understanding how self-​employment serves as an immigrant adapta-
tion strategy (Flota and Mora 2001; Mora and Davila 2006; Robles and Cordero-​Guzman
2007). Other academics have focused on the access immigrant-​owned firms have to capital
(Cavalluzzo and Wolken 2005; Craig et al. 2006). Another strand of academic work regarding
self-​employed, Latino-​owned businesses focuses on the organizational, strategic, and tactical
aspects of these businesses (e.g. how they make decisions, and target their markets). Other studies
have emphasized how these businesses function as important parts of ethnic enclaves and niche
markets (Aldich and Waldinger 1990; Portes et al. 2002). However, very little research has focused
on how such Latino-​owned businesses impact revitalization efforts or how these efforts are a
form of cultural resilience. After an extensive review of Latino small business literature, Robles
and Cordero-​Guzman argue that future research is needed that “uncovers the facets of the social
and community links between the micro-​entrepreneur and self-​employed sector with the eco-
nomic realities of community revitalization, gentrification, sustainable urbanism, transnational
migration, ethnic biculturalism, and the permeable boundaries of the ethnic enclave [which]
would provide us with a deeper understanding of the role of these smallest entrepreneurs in
Latino communities and mainstream markets” (Robles and Cordero-​Guzman 2007: 29). This
chapter contributes towards this literature by analyzing how Latino entrepreneurs’ various forms
of capital have been assets or resources for ethnic resilience, which in turn have also revitalized
Woodburn’s historic downtown.

Woodburn as “little Mexico”

Woodburn is a majority-​Latino town (60 per cent) in Oregon, which is a mostly white state
(90 per cent). Oregon is considered a Latino new growth state, even though it has experienced
a long history of Mexican migration, since it has recently (in the last 15 years) seen dramatic
increases in its Latino population.These demographics are significant as there is a long history of
racism towards Latinos in the state (Gonzales-​Berry and Mendoza 2010). Woodburn serves as a
representative case of towns in other Latino new growth states that are also experiencing cultural
conflicts because of the transformative nature of Latino generative placemaking.
Latinos have provided a labor force in Woodburn since the Bracero Program (1942–​1947), as
growers recruited Mexican laborers to replace sugar beet farmers who either entered the United
States armed forces during the Second World War or left farm labor altogether to work in other
industries (Gonzales-​Berry and Mendoza 2010). Starting in the 1950s, Texas-​based “long-​haul”
migrant family crews also started settling in Woodburn because of the town’s affordable housing
stock and ample work opportunities (Kissam 2007). As the influx of Texas migrants dwindled in
the 1960s, however, direct migration from Mexico increased again (Kissam et al. 2000). During
the 1970s and 1980s, indigenous immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico were actively recruited by
Willamette Valley growers to harvest strawberries, berries, and cucumbers. Eventually, they settled
because, like the wave of Texas migrants a generation earlier, they found housing and ample
work (Kissam 2007). Therefore, Woodburn has been a destination site for Latino immigrants
dating back to the mid-​twentieth century. More recently, however, the community has seen a
tremendous growth of its Latino population. According to the US Census, Woodburn’s Latino

247
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

Figure 19.1 Non-​Latino vs. Latino population in Woodburn, Oregon (in percentages)
Source: Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011

population has increased from 18 per cent in 1980 to approximately 60 per cent in 2010 (see
Figure 19.1).
Woodburn’s recent transformation as a community, as is the case throughout rural America,
has been fueled by immigration. Latino settlement patterns in Woodburn have changed over
the last several decades as agricultural and forest industries have restructured and demanded less
of a migratory labor force and Latinos have expanded to work in low-​wage service industries
(Sandoval 2012).These changes have led to both a higher demand for unauthorized Latino labor
and a diversification of Latinos as more educated Latinos have come to Oregon to provide ser-
vices for the high percentage of low-​income Latinos throughout the state. According to a 2007
Survey of Business Owners, the number of Latino-​owned businesses in Oregon increased 78 per
cent between 2002 and 2007.4 This increase placed Oregon in the top ten states with the highest
Latino business growth, at nearly double the national growth rate. Hence, Latinos are now
settling more permanently in Oregon communities (such as Woodburn, Medford, Hillsboro,
Hermiston, and Ontario) and building a more permanent sense of community through their
different placemaking efforts for inclusion and acceptance. These Latino placemaking efforts,
however, have led to cultural and political conflicts as hegemonic white communities have been
forced to redefine cultural milieus.
Woodburn was selected as an exemplary case study since it contains similar dynamics that are
present in other Latino new growth destination states such as rapid Latino population growth, a
context of racial conflict, and a historic downtown that has seen disinvestments and experienced
struggles over redefining cultural changes. The author led a study during the 2012–​2015 aca-
demic school years working closely with a group of five University of Oregon graduate students
and two staff researchers from the University of Oregon’s Economic Development Research
Center.The researchers analyzed both the contributions Latino business owners were making to
downtown Woodburn and the challenges they faced as entrepreneurs.We conducted 40 in-​depth

248
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

interviews that included downtown business owners (who were majority Latino but also some
non-​Latino business owners), statewide small business support service non-​profit organizations,
Woodburn city staff, political officials, historic preservation advocates, and other community
members. This was supplemented with a quantitative analysis of US Census and economic data
and ten site visits to Woodburn. Lastly, since the research team spent an extensive amount of time
in downtown Woodburn documenting observations, it also had the opportunity to speak infor-
mally to many of the local business owners who were not formally interviewed.

Latinos’ generative placemaking efforts and the transformation of

downtown Woodburn
Over the last decade, Latino business owners have made a significant contribution to the
regeneration of downtown Woodburn. Prior to this investment, however, the downtown area
experienced a long period of gross disinvestment that eventually led to high vacancy rates.
Local economic development patterns began to change when Interstate 5 and Highway 99
were completed near the edge of town during the 1960s and 1970s, respectively, and redirected
traffic away from the historic downtown area. The rapid growth of Woodburn’s Latino popula-
tion during the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, reversed this pattern of disinvestment after
many Latino immigrants decided to invest and start businesses in the area because of its low
startup costs.
Latino small businesses are revitalizing downtown Woodburn via their generative placemaking
practices by improving their stores via building upgrades, even if they do not own the store prop-
erty.5 These business owners typically do not have access to formal banking loans or government
loans and grants to finance their businesses because of their lack of credit history, lack of formal
business plans, or lack of legal immigration status. Instead, they build their financial capital by
using kinship networks to borrow funds they need to start their businesses. Latino entrepreneurs
in town have also started their own business association, the WDA,6 which is beginning to advo-
cate for their collective interest and is subsequently building political capital for the Latino com-
munity. Also, these small Latino businesses serve as informal sources of information for recent
immigrant arrivals that need information regarding employment opportunities, educational
programs, social services, community centers, informal daycare services, and community cul-
tural events. Latino entrepreneurs open businesses without developing formal business plans and
sometimes do not apply for formal city permits.While some entrepreneurs have business experi-
ence from Mexico, many had informal, cash-​only businesses that did not rely on bank loans or
detailed record keeping for tax purposes. In most cases, they have continued to operate their
businesses in Woodburn the same way they operated them in Mexico. Many businesses extend
credit to customers based on trust and relationships of reciprocity (social capital) instead of
formal credit-​validating procedures. These various forms of financial capital, although informal,
help Latino business owners establish and maintain their small businesses.
These generative approaches to business development can sometimes be misconstrued as
being ineffective and contributing to blight.To the casual observer, they seem chaotic and out of
place, especially in a business environment that generally requires structure to regulate processes.
Some of these informal activities are framed as being criminal or illegal, as they are outside the
government’s regulatory institutional apparatus. However, we see them as a business response to
structural inequalities that relegate minority business owners to the margins of society. These
informal responses are a form of cultural and ethnic resilience. Some businesses do not even have
a storefront. For example, there are several street vendors that sell ice cream, tamales, and other
types of food along the town’s Main Street and plaza.While these types of informal businesses are

249
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

Figure 19.2 Woodburn, Oregon, historic downtowna

a
Through the 1970s to the mid 1990s Woodburn’s historic downtown experienced disinvest-
ment that lead to a high number of vacant properties. Today’s historic downtown has made
a comeback as Latino small businesses have reinvested in the downtown. The plaza is directly
behind these buildings and there are now back entrances that open directly to that active
public space.
Source: Woodburn Historical Museum and Community Planning Graduate Student Researchers

common in Latin America, they are seen as a new way of doing business in rural Oregon towns.
Individuals also operate informal businesses out of their homes to supplement their income by
selling food to neighbors and friends or providing childcare services. It is important to note,
however, that without Latinos’ informal approach to business development and cultural resili-
ence, the downtown would be a long way from what it is today since Latino business owners
have been investing heavily in the downtown area’s revitalization efforts (see Figure 19.2). One
city leader acknowledged the transformation and contributions Latino entrepreneurs have made
in downtown Woodburn, stating: “If Latino businesses hadn’t moved in, the downtown would
be vacant” (Personal communication, Spring 2012).
These generative forms of financial capital also intermix with cultural forms of capital, which
help to reinforce one another. Several Latino entrepreneurs believe that community events
designed to celebrate Woodburn’s Latino culture help sustain their economic development
efforts, especially in the downtown area where approximately 90 per cent of small businesses are
Latino-​owned. Another Latino business owner, who is also involved with the WDA, said that in
the past he has collaborated with city officials to organize the Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana fes-
tival (which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2012 and annually brings thousands of people
to Woodburn) because it is a great way to promote Woodburn and help increase local tourism.
As one of the area’s key Latino business leaders, he also attended UNIDOS board meetings for
approximately a year to help organize community events, but left because, according to him, it
was not an inclusive environment.
Community Capitals Framework provides an excellent lens for understanding why Latino
business owners’ generative revitalization in Woodburn has been successful as a form of cultural.
resilience. This is in light of the resistance from the town’s planning institutions as they challenge the
role these businesses play in revitalizing the town. Flora and Flora (2013) argue that, “every com-
munity, however rural, isolated, or poor, has resources within it. When those resources are invested
to create new resources, they become capital” (17). Case study interviews in Woodburn revealed,
for example, that many Latino business owners asked family members and friends (i.e. relied on

250
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

social capital) for loans (financial capital) to either open or expand their businesses. In turn, these
capital investments helped to build other community assets, such as cultural capital, since down-
town Woodburn now has a central plaza resembling a Mexican plaza in the Latino business district.
The Latino businesses are also quite diverse in terms of the cultural niches they cater towards
as some restaurants serve El Salvadoran, Guatemalan, or Mexican food. The Mexican restaurants
also offer foods from different regions of Mexico.There are leather goods and dress shops, as well
as sports clothing stores and vintage clothing shops. Shoppers can buy gold jewelry or furniture,
get their taxes done, hair styled, mail a package to Mexico or Guatemala (via Latino carrier ser-
vices), cash a check (without needing a bank account), or even get their car fixed.You can even
buy false identification documents from the miqueros who wait in the plaza and cater to the
large unauthorized workforce in the Willamette Valley. This is an important service, not only to
Latinos but the agricultural growers who depend on the unauthorized labor (Sandoval 2013).
This illegal activity is done in plain sight of the police and Woodburn has decided not to regu-
late the criminal activity.
The mix of retail is reminiscent of a small Mexican town where Latino customers can find
stores for almost all their needs. In short, Latinos in Woodburn have slowly been developing
“community capitals” over several decades as a form of cultural resilience. And because of this,
they now have enough resources and experience to participate in economic development
practices that historically belonged exclusively to white residents. However, even though Latinos
are remaking downtown Woodburn via their generative placemaking efforts, the regulatory
institutions in town are making their efforts difficult.

Views of “blight” via historic preservation and Latino placemaking

Despite the progress Latino business owners have made in revitalizing downtown Woodburn,
the local government has passed enabling legislation –​in this case urban renewal laws –​to
encourage private investment that will help realize “the full potential for downtown revital-
ization.”7 The city’s Urban Renewal Agency (URA) oversees revitalization efforts and relies
on local funding and grants from state and federal sources. The city’s revitalization and eco-
nomic development vision was framed around protecting and building on the downtown’s his-
toric character as a way to spur economic development that more closely aligns with its white
residents’ values:

The vision for downtown Woodburn is to be the thriving, safe, and vital center of the
community. It projects a positive image of prosperity and progress. Improvements and new
development should respect and contribute to the historic character of the City. A vibrant
hub of activity, many permanent residents living in downtown, and a wide variety of active
and unique businesses serve the community and visitors.
(Renewal Plan 2010: 7)

By establishing an Urban Renewal Agency, which will provide plans, strategies and funding
for changing “blighted” areas into “healthy” communities in the downtown, the city has ultim-
ately labeled the downtown as “blighted”, even though the Latino business district is a healthy
commercial area with a lot of cultural capital. The plan’s economic rationale for intervention
claims retail linkage losses in the downtown due to the mixture of current businesses. But the
Latino businesses are keeping the historic downtown afloat.
The racial demographic characterization of blight was eliminated nearly 40 years ago.
However, Woodburn has a racist history of restricting Latino mobility into their downtown

251
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

(Nelson 2008). In the past, Latinos lived in migrant farm camps outside the city limits. This
was the case for decades until Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) fought
to bring affordable housing into Woodburn’s downtown. The fight was a difficult one as the
city tried to block the affordable housing units using what Nelson terms “racialized” codes
to hide the racist planning policies being implemented by the town’s leadership (Nelson
2008). The regulative planning practices that characterize Latino placemaking as contributing
to blight helps to explain why a Latino business district that serves the needs of a diverse
Latino population is characterized as “run down”. Ultimately, by contesting Latinos’ gen-
erative revitalization efforts, town planning and development institutions can have the same
damaging effects on Woodburn’s healthy Latino business district that urban renewal policies
had on minorities who lived in neighborhoods that provided local opportunities for eco-
nomic development and growth.
The conflicted vision of downtown’s renewal between white historic preservationists and
that of Latinos’ placemaking efforts are evident in the urban renewal plan. The 2010 Urban
Renewal plan mentions Latino businesses in their Strategic Business Plan section: “Downtown
Woodburn’s existing retail base includes approximately twenty-​five Latino businesses [there
are actually more, as we counted at least thirty-​five], firmly establishing it as a destination for
the local and regional Latino community. Within the City of Woodburn, 55 percent of the
population is Hispanic (2008) with growth of this market projected to continue” (Updated
Urban Renewal Plan 2010: 45). Hence, the Latino community is mentioned in the plan.
But the plan does not highlight the economic development contributions Latino businesses
are engaged in or suggest specific strategies that would support these businesses. The plan
privileges the white historic preservationists’ perspective. For example, it views the downtown
as run-​down.
“Historic Old Town has a pedestrian-​friendly scale and a charming, albeit ‘run-​down’ char-
acter” (Updated Urban Renewal Plan 2010: 45). The key question is “run-​down” for whom?
Not Latino business owners, who say their beautification efforts (including maintaining the
fronts of their businesses clean by sweeping and replanting flowers they purchase for city-​owned
planters to beautify the area) have made the downtown much nicer and safer than it was ten
years ago when many of the buildings were vacant.The Updated Urban Renewal plan continues
establishing the “blighted” character of the historic downtown: “The concern for personal safety
was a theme when discussing the study area in general and Historic Old Town and Plaza area,
specifically. Loitering, drug use, and prostitution were the primary areas of concern heard during
stakeholder interviews” (Updated Urban Renewal Plan 2010: 46). These are classic community
characterizations identified when community planners want to designate an area as blighted.The
research team spent a lot of time in the downtown and we were not able to validate the claims
of drug dealers and prostitutes hanging out and doing business in the downtown. There were
miqueros, but we could only verify that they sold illegal identification documents. If miqueros
did sell drugs, the police would be forced to intervene, which they do not. The point here is
that regulatory institutions will emphasize the negative and supposedly degenerate aspects of a
community if they want to designate the area as blighted. That gives the green light and power
to urban renewal agencies to change regulatory structures, enabling them to intervene in these
neighborhoods. And since historic preservationists have power, and Latinos do not, their views
are privileged in the urban renewal plans.
Another example of this disparity within the renewal plan is exemplified by how Latino
businesses are characterized in a negative fashion within the Urban Renewal Plan: “There is
currently a lack of diversity in retail and entertainment choices, particularly in Historic Old
Town. Latino-​oriented retailers are well-​represented, but there are few businesses that sell goods

252
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

and services to a broader market. Increasing the variety of retail, service, and entertainment
options would potentially reduce retail leakage in the study area” (Updated Urban Renewal
Plan 2010: 46). Hence, according to the renewal plan, Latino businesses are “well-​represented”
in Woodburn’s downtown. Using the same racialized rationale, one can say that white businesses
are “well-​represented” in mostly every other town in Oregon. By “lack of diversity” the plan
is referring to the lack of retail diversity for white residents. The plan even provides specific
recommendations for increasing this diversity (see Table 19.1). But the ironic part is that Latino
businesses are already providing these services. The table clearly demonstrates that, based on the
types of retail businesses the renewal efforts aim to attract, Woodburn’s current downtown is
already successful and diverse. Since the retail is already “diverse” according to its own criteria,
why does the urban renewal plan characterize downtown as “run-​down” and “over-​represented”
by Latino businesses? Our explanation is that the prism of redevelopment is being viewed from a
white privilege point of view that is linked to the structural racism historically present in town.
And hence, Latino businesses are not worthy of a healthy or prosperous designation and instead
are characterized as blighted.
Other examples of the difficulties Latinos face regarding conflicts over the legitimacy of their
cultural capital relate to permit acquisitions for cultural events. For example, the WDA, a newly
formed association of Latino business owners, decided to organize a Mother’s Day event in May
2012. The WDA applied for a music permit, but city officials only approved the music permit
until 7:00 pm, even though city code allows public music until 9:00 pm.The WDA appealed the
decision, and eventually the city council ruled in its favor.This incident created a strong backlash
against city officials and highlighted much of the tension WDA committee members associate
with the city. Ernesto, one of the community’s informal leaders, discussed the frustration he
shares with his colleagues:

The city needs to respect its own laws and regulations. For example, the city will pass a law,
but then decide not to give us a permit even though our requests lie within these laws and
regulations. So, they’re not adhering to their own laws. We want to help increase tourism.
So, we would like for them not to close down doors or deny us when we make requests
for permits. Their favoritism is geared towards the Historic Woodburn Neighborhood
Association.The city reacts and responds to whatever the Historic Woodburn Neighborhood
Association says. And what’s disturbing is that as Latino business owners, we’re providing
support because we’re paying taxes and the Historic Woodburn Neighborhood Association
is only receiving funds from the government. So, the situation is unbalanced.
(Author Interview with “Ernesto”, Spring 2012)

This type of frustration by Latino business owners is attributed to the conflict around whose
cultural capital is legitimized by the regulative interventions taking place in Woodburn’s his-
toric downtown. The Urban Renewal Plan aims to change the social character of downtown
Woodburn via economic development practices that do not recognize the contributions Latinos
are making to the downtown. Woodburn’s Urban Renewal Plan does not create opportunities
for building upon the financial and cultural forms of capital that exist because of the Latino
community’s small business, generative commercial activities.

The racialized context hinders Latino small business placemaking efforts

The community’s racialized landscape (Nelson 2008), fueled by tensions related to placemaking
(Rios and Vasquez 2012), has played an important role in conceptualizing the downtown as

253
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

“blighted”. While there is a real desire for diverse community members to work together,
and at times the city has responded to Latino needs (like building the Plaza with some phys-
ical characteristics resembling Mexican public spaces), there are strongly ingrained conflicting
views of whose cultural capital will be represented in the downtown. The 2010 Downtown
Development Plan Update emphasizes how “new development should respect and contribute
to the historic character of the City”. This statement is ultimately a contested one if viewed
in a racialized environment. Whose history and cultural capital should be represented? Latinos
have been providing the agricultural labor force in Woodburn for more than 70 years and have
revitalized the dying historic downtown, yet the Latino history is not celebrated in the down-
town. In fact, Woodburn’s Historical Museum located in downtown has no mention of Latinos
in their formal exhibits.
After suffering a long period of disinvestment and abandonment, downtown Woodburn has
been adopted by Latinos as a place to do business, socialize, and participate in community
life. Latino placemaking efforts, however, are made more difficult due to the racialized con-
text and focus on historic preservation efforts downtown. In 2006, the city’s Urban Renewal
Plan was updated and this process activated the Historic Downtown Neighborhood Association
(HDNA) because members believed that their input during the plan’s outreach process would
help them address some of their downtown concerns. As a result, HDNA members, planning
commissioners, and city council members were involved in heated discussions during the devel-
opment of the plan update. In the end, many of the historic neighborhood residents’ concerns
were addressed and included in the urban renewal plan update.
The 2010 Downtown Development Plan Update, for example, states that preserving the his-
toric character of Woodburn’s downtown is a “priority expressed by city leaders and the public”
(46). The plan also documents how business and property owners are “emotionally invested in
making Historic Old Town a success once again” (45). But the questions here are, who is the
public in this case, and how are Latino small business interests being represented in various
forms of public engagement? Photographs taken during community workshops illustrate that an
overwhelming majority of participants were white, which explains why many of the goals in the
plan are also shared by white residents who feel threatened by the influx of Latino immigrants.
A Woodburn leader, Vicki, who is white and is involved with the Woodburn Independent,
a weekly newspaper, explained how the community’s overt and covert racialized context
contributes to placemaking conflict:

There is an undercurrent of racism every time you talk about downtown. It is hard to get
over it.You’ve got people who envision a nice downtown and what they really mean is to
see a “white” downtown. Some of these people would rather see these buildings empty, but
pretty.They don’t see that there is a successful Latino business in them. Woodburn Independent
newspaper does not thrive on empty storefronts. A healthy downtown cannot be made up
of empty buildings, no matter how attractive they are.
(Author Interview with “Vicki”, Spring 2012)

Growing tensions between new Latino immigrants and established community residents
often rise to the surface when the established group’s sense of place and cultural heritage is
threatened by the new immigrants. John, a community resident, highlights this point:

I would say Latino businesses started showing themselves vibrantly in the mid to late 1990s,
and that kind of caused an undercurrent of resentment among non-​Latinos. Our little PIX
Theater became a furniture store with placards all over the front. You know, that’s a piece

254
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

of our own little history. We want to go see movies. Well, the theater ran for a while but
just Mexican movies. Then it closed and became a furniture store. That was kind of a focal
point for a lot of the non-​Latinos. Then [non-​Latinos] started waking up and seeing that
this migration’s taking place and they’re going ‘Oh my God,’ and that’s where we’ve been
going ever since.
(Author Interview with “John”, Spring 2012)

The racialized context becomes an important component of economic revitalization and

historic preservation policy when we explore the tendency of public policy to dispropor-
tionately recognize the history of whites (Jacobson 1998; Lipsitz 2006; Roediger 2007). In
Woodburn, HDNA members and some white community residents, who feel threatened by
the influx of Latino immigrants, played an important role in this process because their involve-
ment in community workshops and stakeholder interviews helped establish future economic
redevelopment goals. In other words, the racialized landscape of the town manufactured
information and created a historic preservation agenda that is mainly concerned with the
social history of white residents. Hence, the Woodburn case highlights an important challenge
in cultural resilience by Latino small businesses, which are able to survive and thrive in spite
of this context.
Since institutional processes tend to recognize structures and sites that reflect the history
of white communities (Jacobson 1998; Lipsitz 2006; Roediger 2007), regulative planning and
community development practices can potentially supersede or transform the generative eco-
nomic development efforts of communities of color if they do not support the cultural values
of the dominant racial group. Hence, cultural capital, “heritages, values, generations, races and
ethnicities in a community” (Flora and Flora 2013), becomes a point of contestation and con-
flict. In downtown Woodburn, this conflict manifests itself around the desire of white residents
to exercise their cultural capital through historic preservation efforts.
When we asked Latino business owners if they could identify potential opportunities for
downtown revitalization, they never discussed that preserving the community’s historic buildings
and character should be a priority for economic development. In fact, Evelyn, a Latina small
business owner, views historic preservationists as obstructing revitalization:

They want to preserve all the buildings in the downtown, so they don’t allow us to make
any upgrades to building facades.They don’t want Spanish advertising.They also don’t allow
large advertisements and signs. In their eyes, large signs interrupt the natural scenery. They
have different concepts. They want to preserve their ideas, but we can’t continue going
down that same “idea” road. We have to adapt to the times, to new technology. They want
to preserve their museum, for example, which has a bunch of old metal pieces. Who’s going
to really visit that type of museum?
(Author Interview with “Evelyn”, Spring 2012)

The lack of Latino public participation during the Urban Renewal Plan’s community out-
reach process (e.g. workshops and stakeholder interviews that helped identify key design and
development themes to improve downtown Woodburn), indicates current redevelopment goals
are not representative of the community’s diverse needs and interests. Preservation issues and
goals, for example, were developed through formal channels and tied to events or community
workshops that were attended primarily by white residents. Consequently, urban renewal pol-
icies will have a disproportionately negative impact on Latinos because their generative eco-
nomic development and placemaking efforts have been determined as contributing to “blight”.

255
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

For Latinos, their lack of political representation, or formal political capital, influences the
distribution of resources, power, voice, and connections (Flora and Flora 2013). This lack of
political capital has further polarized the Latino community’s placemaking efforts, which ultim-
ately leads to higher levels of social and cultural conflict and lack of representation in the regu-
lative structures around placemaking. As of 2019, there is only one Latino city council member
Kissam adds to the complexity of this issue by explaining that the diversity among Latinos in
Woodburn, in terms of nativity and immigration, contributes to the slow pace of socio-​political
change since many Latino immigrants have few ways of impacting the political agenda (Kissam
2006). Many of Woodburn’s Latinos are also unauthorized immigrants, and this serves as a struc-
tural barrier towards participating in public events, participatory outreach efforts, and other
forms of democratic practice. As a result, formal planning and government institutions face little
opposition when they define Latino generative economic revitalization as “blight”. However,
the continued effort of Latino small businesses to revitalize their downtown builds community
capital, which in turn increases the Latino community’s ethnic cultural resilience to Woodburn’s
racialized climate.

Discussion
As Latinos continue to migrate from traditional immigrant gateways to newly growing
destinations, such as Oregon, the cultural hegemony of these rural towns will continue to diver-
sify. In the Woodburn case, although Latinos represent 60 per cent of the population, they are
mostly left out of the democratic process and the halls of power. Conflicts over cultural capital
and the lack of Latino political representation in governance institutions play a significant role in
how local institutions define Latino placemaking as “blight”.The Woodburn case illustrates how,
even though formal community planning institutions contest and hinder Latino placemaking
efforts within a racialized context that favors a white historic preservation perspective, those
Latino small businesses demonstrate ethnic resiliency as they transform Woodburn’s historic
town center via Latino placemaking. Ethnic resiliency challenges traditional power dynamics,
helps decontextualize and legitimize ‘difference’ in rural towns, and provides a voice for the
Latino majority population in Woodburn.
It is evident that Latinos are revitalizing Woodburn via their business investments and con-
tributing to the economic vitality of the town. Besides serving as economic contributors in
the town, Latinos provide an example of ethnic cultural resilience by serving as social hubs
where people congregate to gain important community information. They serve as hubs of
information related to both formal and informal employment opportunities. For example,
Manuel, a Latino business owner in Woodburn’s downtown, describes how “people ask [him]
where they can find a job or questions about employment conditions. That’s probably the
most common question because most of these people are new to the area and are looking
for work.”
Other examples of the ethnic cultural resilience manifested by Latino small business owners
include their role as informal community advisers and community leaders that create opportunities
for entrepreneurship and civic participation.At times, Latino small business owners have pressured
local government via their business organizations to make physical town design investments
that have a Latino cultural flare, such as the construction of the plaza and various streetscape
improvements. Finally, Latino small businesses help provide a place of belonging for new Latino
immigrants in a racialized context of illegality (Nelson 2008). They get involved in organizing
cultural festivals, sometimes work with social service agencies to inform Latinos of their services,
support Latino ethnic radio stations via their advertising, and provide food, supplies, or funding

256
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

for community or religious events.Yet another example of their ethnic cultural resiliency is the
translocal services these businesses provide. Part of their function is to serve as transnational
spaces where immigrants can wire money back to their home countries, buy foods that come
from their regions of origin, and even take a bus directly back to their towns of origin on
Mexican-​owned bus companies (like Fronteras Del Norte) that stop at these local businesses and
travel all along the Pacific Northwest to Mexico. These roles demonstrate the important part
Latino small businesses serve in sustaining ethnic cultural resiliency by building upon their forms
of financial, social, cultural, and political capitals.
By analyzing Woodburn’s contested development via the community capitals framework
(CCF) and identifying the various roles Latino small businesses are playing in sustaining forms
of ethnic cultural resiliency, we directly contribute to Robles’ and Cordero-​Guzman’s call to
understand the role Latino small businesses are playing in “community revitalization” (Robles
and Cordero-​Guzman 2007: 29). We also contribute toward the urban renewal/​redevelopment
literature by demonstrating that racism influences the conceptualization of blight and that cul-
tural capital (although contested) is formally represented in renewal plans via the established
visions and goals of those that maintain power (Anderson 1964; Gans 1968; Krumholz and
Forrester 1991; Weiss 1980).
Finally, we help shed light on the important role ethnic cultural resiliency plays in transforming
racialized structural barriers in a context of illegality. For instance, Erica, a Woodburn business
owner, describes how she gains access to capital even with strong barriers placed on her business.
“If I need money, I’ll borrow from an individual in the Latino community. Loans are usually for
three or four months. I usually rely on these types of loans because a bank isn’t going to provide
me with a three-​month loan. A bank wants me to sign a sixty-​month contract…and you can’t
break the contract.” Hence reliance on ethnic networks for access to capital is a common way of
relying on ethnic cultural resiliency.
Yet another example of how Latino small businesses rely on ethnic networks to increase their
agency can be seen in the WDA’s efforts to resist city regulatory efforts in trying to exclude
their cultural activities from the historic downtown. The WDA determination to overturn the
city’s decision regarding their Mother’s Day celebration music permit illustrates that their col-
lective cultural values gave them power to negotiate as a group. Two of the graduate researchers
on the research project were invited by WDA members to attend a special meeting the WDA
scheduled with city officials regarding their music permit. As passive participants, they observed
this act of political protest firsthand. City officials entered the meeting willing to negotiate and
add an additional hour to their music permit, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. But WDA committee
members demanded that their permit be extended until 9:00 pm because city code allows public
events to host music entertainment until 9:00 pm. The WDA was motivated to act because they
felt the city’s initial response was a direct attack on their identity and cultural celebration. They
understood this as a race-​driven conflict in which the Latino community was being deprived
of its cultural rights. In this case, organizing a Mother’s Day celebration was an issue of cultural
citizenship, of the “right to have cultural rights and the right to contribute to society through
cultural strength” (Flores and Benmayor 1997: 194).
The cultural struggles over Latino placemaking in Woodburn are being experienced in small
towns across the United States. Even though Latino small businesses’ generative placemaking
efforts are not being supported and are in a way impeded by a racialized climate, Latinos are
moving ahead, resisting, building a sense of community, and demonstrating ethnic cultural resili-
ence in Woodburn. They are changing the social, cultural, and even physical characteristics of
Woodburn’s downtown. Latino small businesses are creating a sense of community and belonging,
which might be their most important role in Woodburn’s transformation.

257
Gerardo Sandoval and Roanel Herrera

Notes
1 Miqueros sell illegal identification papers such as social security cards, driver’s licenses, etc.
2 The Fillmore District, PBS Documentary, Copyright 2000-​2001 KQED, Inc. www.pbs.org/​kqed/​fill-
more/​index.html.
3 The closest rural town, about ten miles southeast, is Silverton, a majority white town (without a Latino
population) that has four Rockwell “Freedom” Murals aligning its historic downtown. The murals are
telling because they represent 1940s Americana propaganda that helped sell war bonds for the Second
World War. In Woodburn, there is conflict around the proposed murals that Pineros y Campesinos
Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN, the largest Latino farmworkers organization in Oregon) will paint on
their new Latino youth center near the downtown.
4 Latinos in Oregon: Trends and Opportunities in a Changing State, The Oregon Community
Foundations, August 2016.
5 According to our research, about 20 per cent of buildings are actually owned by Latinos.
6 There is another more formal business association called UNIDOS. It is a community association of
volunteers interested in promoting downtown economic redevelopment. According to Latino business
owners, a large majority of its members are non-​Latino business owners. Many of its volunteers are
also members of the Historic Woodburn Neighborhood Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and
the City.
7 2010 Downtown Development Plan Update, City of Woodburn.

References
Aldrich, H.E. and Waldinger, R. (1990). Ethnicity and entrepreneurship. Annual Review of Sociology.
16: 111–​35.
Anderson, M. (1964).The Federal Bulldozer: A Critical Analysis of Urban Renewal, 1949–​1962. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Beauregard, R.A. (1991). Capital restructuring and the new built environment of global cities: New York
and Los Angeles. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 15(1): 90–​105.
Cavalluzzo, K. and Wolken, J. (2005). Small business loan turndowns, personal wealth, and discrimination.
Journal of Business. 78(6): 2153–​77.
Craig, B., Jackson, W., and Thomson, J. (2006). Small-​firm credit markets, SBA-​guaranteed lending and
economic performance in low-​income areas. Working Paper no. 0601. Cleveland, OH: Federal Reserve
Bank of Cleveland.
Flora, C.B. and Flora, J.L. (2013). Rural Communities: Legacy and Change, 4th edn.. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Flores, W.V. (2003). New citizens, new rights: Undocumented immigrants and latino cultural citizenship.
Latin American Perspectives. 30(2): 87–​100.
Flores, W.V. and Benmayor, R. (1997). Latino Cultural Citizenship: Claiming Identity, Space, and Rights.
Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Flota, C. and Mora, M. (2001). The earnings of self-​employed Mexican-​Americans along the US-​Mexico
Border. Annals of Regional Science. 35: 483–​99.
Fogelson, R. (2001). Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–​1950. New Haven, CT: Yale UP.
Gans, H.J. (1968). People and Plans: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions. New York: Basic Books.
Gans, H.J. (1982).The UrbanVillagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-​Americans. New York: Free Press.
Gold, M. and Sagalyn, L. (2010). The use and abuse of blight in eminent domain. Fordham Urban Law
Journal. 38(4): 1119–​1173.
Gonzalez-​Berry, E. and Mendoza, M. (2010). Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives. Corvallis,
OR: Oregon State University Press.
Gordon, C. (2004). Blighting the way: urban renewal, economic development, and the elusive definition of
blight. Fordham Urban Law Journal. 31(2): 305–​337.
Harwood, S. (2012). Planning in the face of anti-​immigrant sentiment: Latino immigrants and land use
conflicts in Orange County, California. In: M. Rios and L. Vasquez (eds.): Dialogos: Placemaking in
Latino Communities. New York: Routledge Press.
Irazábal, C. and Farhat, R. (2008). Latino communities in the United States: Place making in the pre World
War II, post World War, and contemporary city. Journal of Planning Literature. 22(3): 207–​228.

258
 Latino revitalization as “blight”

Jacobson, M.F. (1998). Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Johnson, K.M. and Lichter, D.T. (2008). Natural increase: A new source of population growth in emerging
Hispanic destinations in the United States. Population and Development Review. 34(2): 327–​346.
Jolin, M., Legenza, S., and McDermott, M. (1998). Tax-​increment financing: Urban renewal of the 1990s.
Clearinghouse Review. 32(3): 81–​99.
Kissam, E. (2007). Migration networks and processes of community transformation: Arvin, California and
Woodburn, Oregon. Journal of Latino-​Latin American Studies. 2(4): 87–​116.
Kissam, E., Garcia, A., and Mullenax, N. (2000). No longer children: Case studies of the living and working
conditions of the youth who harvest America’s crops. Final Report to Office of the Assistant Secretary
for Policy, US Department of Labor, October.
Krumholz, N. and Forrester, J. (1991). Making Equity Planning Work: Leadership in the Public Sector.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Lipsitz, G. (2006). The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Logan, J.R. and Molotch, H.L. (1987). Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Mohl, R.A. (1993). Race and space in the modern city: Interstate-​95 and the black community in Miami.
In: A.R. Hirsch and R.A. Mohl (eds.): Urban Policy in Twentieth-​Century America. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Mora, M. and Davila, A. (2006). Mexican immigrant self-​employment along the US-​Mexico border: An
analysis of 2000 census data. Social Science Quarterly. 87(1): 91–​109.
Nelson, L. (2008). Racialized landscapes: Whiteness and the struggle over farmworker housing in Woodburn,
Oregon. Cultural Geographies. 15(1): 41–​62.
Portes, A., Haller, W., and Guarnizo, L.E. (2002). Transnational entrepreneurs: The emergence and
determinants of an alternative form of immigrant economic adaptation. American Sociological Review.
67(2): 278–​298.
Robles, B. and Cordera-​Guzman, H. (2007). Latino self-​employment and entrepreneurship in the United
States: An overview of the literature and data sources. The Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science. (613): 18–​31.
Rios, M. andVasquez L. (2012). Dialogos: Placemaking in Latino Communities. New York: Routledge Press.
Roediger, D. (2007). The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class.
London: Verso.
Sandoval, G. (2010a). Immigrants and the Revitalization of Los Angeles: Development and Change in
MacArthur Park. New York: Cambria Press.
Sandoval, G. (2010b) Transnational placemaking in small-​ town America. In: M. Rios and L.Vasquez
(eds.): Dialogos: Placemaking in Latino Communities. New York: Routledge Press.
Sandoval, G. (2013). Shadow transnationalism: Cross-​border networks and planning challenges of trans-
national unauthorized immigrant communities. Journal of Planning Education and Research.
33(2): 176–​193.
Sandoval, G. and Maldonado, M. (2012). Latino urbanism revisited: Placemaking in new gateways and the
urban-​rural interface. Journal of Urbanism. 5(2–​3): 193–​218.
Trabalzi, F. and Sandoval, G. (2010). The exotic other: Latinos and the remaking of community identity in
Perry, Iowa. Community Development. 41(1): 76–​91.
Uzzell, D. (1987). A homegrown mass transit system in Lima, Peru: A case of generative planning. City and
Society. 1(1): 6–​34.
Uzzell, D. (1990). Dissonance of formal and informal planning styles, or can formal planners do bricolage?
City & Society. 4(2): 114–​130.
Valle,V.M. and Torres, R.D. (2000). Latino Metropolis. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Weiss, M.A. (1980). The origins and legacy of urban renewal. In: P.Clavel, J. Forester, and W. Goldsmith
(eds.): Urban and Regional Planning in an Age of Austerity. New York: Pergamon Press.

259
 20
Gendered invisible urban resilience
Hanna A. Ruszczyk

Introduction
Cities are where the world’s population lives and future growth will be in sites that have less than
one million people (United Nations 2018). These cities are called regional cities, medium-​sized
cities, even ordinary cities (Robinson 2006). But no matter how they are described, they are not
understood; thus limiting how we understand the governance dynamics in the urban Global
South. Peake and Rieker, paraphrasing Simone (2004), argue “the urban, now more than ever,
is a political stake that opens up and close off new possibilities and constraints” (2013, 12). This
statement continues to resonate in places such as Nepal. When considering the everyday urban
landscape in Nepal, the individual does not have much power and control, especially if the indi-
vidual is a woman. The vital yet invisible (Escobar 2012) role of women’s groups who serve as
providers of social, environmental, and economic resilience in cities of the urban South warrants
consideration. Women provide for those who are unable to manage on their own.
The conceptual framework for this chapter’s exploration of resilience and reworking follows
Cindi Katz’s (2004) understanding of resilience and reworking. Katz explores the concepts of
resilience, reworking, and resistance on politics of social reproduction and everyday life in Sudan
and Harlem. Katz (2010, 318) distinguishes: “Between practices of resilience, reworking, and
resistance so as to better understand the subtleties of people’s oppositional practices and [to] not
overestimate their counter-​hegemonic effects (Katz 2004)”. Using a case study based on one of
the largest cities in Nepal, a conceptual space is created to showcase the invisible and vital role
of women. Women not only provide essential resilience in the city through social reproductive
services, but also provide economic resilience through the financial provision of funds in times of
crisis to those in need.The urban risk governance landscape allows women to be resilient and yet
invisible. Rather, they are not allowed to rework the urban to suit the needs of themselves, their
families and their networks. In this chapter, through the intersection of invisibility and gender,
considerations of resilience and reworking the urban are furthered. The chapter is structured in
the following manner: a brief description of urban Nepal, the conceptual framing of resilience
and reworking, overview of women’s groups, and how they provide social, environmental, and
financial urban resilience, a description of neighborhood groups and how they rework the urban,
followed by a discussion of power and invisibility and, lastly, the conclusion.

260
 Gendered invisible urban resilience

Investigating urban Nepal

Nepal is a post-​conflict, hazard-​prone country where international remittances are the backbone
of the economy. The urban administrative landscape is radically changing in Nepal due to pol-
itical wrangling over control of the country. For example, in 2001 there were 58 municipalities
including the metropolitan city of Kathmandu and four sub-​metropolitan cities (Tanaka 2009).
In 2014, the number suddenly increased to 191 municipalities because of political infighting
between central government ministries. In early 2015, an additional 28 municipalities were
created, for a total of 219. Due to the Gorkha earthquake sequence in Spring 2015, the national
constituent assembly promulgated a new constitution in September 2015 after deliberating for
seven years (Ruszczyk 2018a). Within this changing political and administrative landscape, the
political decision to allow municipal elections to take place in the Spring of 2017 (local elections
were banned in 2002) is creating an environment for dramatic local change (Ruszczyk 2018b).
By the end of 2017, there were over 700 urban and rural municipalities.
There is consensus amongst scholars that there is a “profound failure by the [Nepalese] state to
provide services and stable government” for its citizens, but simultaneously the Nepalese govern-
ment is able to continue to “reproduce itself and to function in some contexts” (Nightingale et al.
2018, 851). This research furthers this point by showing how the government not only functions
but also furthers its interests by controlling who can be resilient and who can rework the urban
context.The chapter is based on research carried out in an iterative manner over a period of three
years (Ruszczyk 2017). Three fieldwork trips during November 2014 –​October 2015 coincided
with the phase commonly referred to by foreigners: “before, during and after” the high intensity
earthquake of April 2015 (Government of Nepal et al. 2015). Subsequently, one other research
visit in November 2017 was carried out to assess on-​going urban changes and the impact on
the (in)visibility of women. The situation has not improved for women. Rather the tremendous
uncertainty regarding how the local authorities will implement their new responsibilities with
unclear levels of financial and human resources is creating a situation where all stakeholders are
waiting to see who will lead and how to engage in the changing local governance landscape.
Bharatpur, the case study site for this research, is one of the largest cities in Nepal and has a
population of 300,000. It is located on the plains of Nepal, in central province seven, bordering
Bihar State, India (Figure 20.1). Bharatpur is a heterogeneous city; the main caste and ethnic
groups are Brahmin, Chettri, Newari, Tamang, and Gurung (Bharatpur Municipality 2014).
Internal migration continues and includes new affluent high caste migrants, migrants who are
fleeing conflict in their villages and towns, as well as economic migrants from the neighboring
Indian state of Bihar. Everyday lives are precarious because there is not a strong economic base
in the city. The local (and national) economy is largely financed by remittances from young men
working in the Gulf countries and Malaysia. Bharatpur’s residents have complex connections to
each other, to the local authority, and to the urban environment.The way they live in the everyday
and what they consider important provides an opportunity to know and learn (McFarlane 2010)
about Bharatpur with the goal to make it a better place to live for all residents.
This research utilized a qualitative approach (McFarlane et al. 2016) investigating changes
in risk perception and resilience strategies among different resident groups in Bharatpur. The
intra-​urban comparison strived to understand the features of intersection and difference (such
as gender, caste and ethnicity, age, education, income levels, employment, length of time in the
city, house ownership status, source of migration, sources of new knowledge, etc.) from a repre-
sentative sample of the city’s inhabitants. Research methods included semi-​structured interviews,
focus group discussions, photography, as well as observation of the daily flow of life in the two
wards of comparison (ward 4 in the city center and ward 11 in a rural rapidly urbanizing part of

261
Hanna A. Ruszczyk

Figure 20.1 Nepal road network

Source: Cartographic Unit, Department of Geography, Durham University

the city) (Figure 20.2). The research also took a multiscale perspective, exploring how different
scales impact each other and how power and influence flows between the scales (individual,
community level, local authority, national, and international level). Over 100 people from the
different scales were interviewed.

Conceptual framing of resilience and reworking

The concepts of resilience and reworking are a lens to consider how groups of residents address
risk in the urban context of the Global South. Cindi Katz utilizes an urban, feminist understanding
of resilience, reworking, and resistance in her scholarly work that is particularly useful for
considering rapidly urbanising and changing Nepal. Katz (2010, 318) proposes: “Resilience, as
the name suggests, is a means of getting by and recuperating one’s self, community, or resources
in the face of dominant social forces. Resilience expresses and fosters what Gramsci (1971) called
autonomous initiative.” Oftentimes, this can be perceived as “everyday acts of neighboring –​the
mutual relations of care giving, the sights on the future that help both young and old people keep
hope, stay alive” (Katz 2004, 246). Katz continues that these practices “not only enable material
and spiritual survival, but also the recuperation of dignity in a range of small transactions”. This
can be seen in the activities of the women’s groups of Bharatpur to be discussed shortly.
On the subject of reworking, Katz argues (2010, 318):

Reworking travels a different register. With more explicit recognition of the social relations
that produce the difficult conditions of everyday life, the practices of reworking are intended

262
 Gendered invisible urban resilience

Figure 20.2 Bharatpur wards 1–​14

Source: Author

to alter if not remake them entirely.The practices and strategies of reworking tend to be prag-
matic and focused, staged in the realms and at the scale in which a problem is encountered,
although their effects may be much more far-​reaching in time, space, and consciousness-​
building. Their intent is to recalibrate power relations and respond to injustices more so
than to challenge the grounds and social relations upon which they are built and sustained.

Katz continues by suggesting there are two interconnected aspects to the material social practices
of reworking (2010, 247): “One is associated with redirecting and in some cases reconstituting
available resources, and the other is associated with people’s retooling themselves as political
subjects and social actors.” Social forms of engaging in the city can be witnessed in the form of
localised, geographically based community groups: women’s groups and neighborhood groups.
Through this chapter, the collective acts of managing perceived everyday risks are described.The
women’s groups and the neighborhood groups strive to bring resilience and or reworking to
their communities to mitigate against everyday risks.The male dominated neighborhood groups
are engaging in practices of reworking the urban political context in a way that the women’s
groups are not allowed to. This will be discussed below.

Women’s groups provide urban resilience

Women’s groups have been a feature of rural Nepal and are being introduced to the urbanizing
areas with migration (although in urban Kathmandu Valley, women’s groups have existed for
many years in the indigenous Newari community). Women organize themselves into women’s

263
Hanna A. Ruszczyk

groups (or mother’s groups in the Nepalese language) with 60–​100 members, on a geographic
basis that appear to overlap with neighborhood groups if they exist. The groups are between
one and ten years old (mostly around two years old as of 2015 when this particular data was
collected) and for the most part, have been established without international donor intervention.
Rocheleau et al. (1996, 18) highlight women have “visions of their rights, roles, and responsi-
bilities and they are aided by participation in groups and organisations”. Unanimously, women
interviewed explained that they established groups because they worried about social and eco-
nomic issues that were not being addressed by the local authority and or by the neighborhood
group (if one existed in the area).
The Little Flower Women’s group is an example of a women’s group in Bharatpur which
contains many features of the women’s groups interviewed. The members of the Little Flower
Women’s Group located in the city center (ward 4) include housewives, teachers, and are “job
holders” (the respondents’ term); many of their husbands are absent –​they are abroad working.
These women are primarily high-​caste Brahmin and Chettri and are newcomers (arrived in the
past five years) who have built homes in the center of town that is rapidly transforming into a
middle class area. Through participation in the Little Flower Women’s Group, they interact with
other women. Otherwise, they are restricted to their houses if they are not employed. Through
engagement in a women’s group, they can learn about diverse subjects such as health care and
earthquake awareness, they build relationships with others, and make networks that can support
them in a time of need. This is especially important for those wives whose husbands are abroad
working and away for long stretches of time.
Dilu is a recent newcomer, with a secondary education, from the Newar ethnic group and
a self identified social activist who helps people in the community. Dilu explains how the Little
Flower Women’s Group serves as environmental and social resilience in the city:

The women’s group cleans the roads and during religious festivals we coordinate with other
organisations.We work for empowerment of women.We solve problems in the community
and resolve disputes.Women have great power in the community.We do a lot of work but it
is unseen [by the local authorities].The major issue is that the municipality does not want to
communicate with the women’s groups. We are working for them, the government, [doing
their work] but they still not seeing it.

Dilu continues by explaining that women solve problems in the community and that women’s
groups offer a range of social services: they support children who cannot access schools due to
lack of money, they intervene in domestic disputes as well as attempt to address alcohol and drug
abuse in the community. In the city center (ward 4), the women’s groups are noticeable and
serve a vital role in the city. The women’s groups are leaders in many areas associated with urban
society in the mixed usage commercial and residential part of the city. This is due to an absence
of neighborhood groups in the city center. Businessmen’s clubs are visible but neighborhood
groups are not. It is not clear why this is the case, but the outward migration of many men for
remittances may be part of the explanation.
In the rural, rapidly urbanizing area of the city (such as ward 11), there are few women’s
groups and more neighborhood groups. Some of the women’s groups have been established with
the support of a donor-​funded project targeting economically poor and socially marginalized
residents of Bharatpur.The goal of the project was to create a link between residents and the local
authority. From discussions with one such newly created women’s group on “Jungle Road”, the
members explained that they have learnt the value of participation in a community group. The
women’s group has changed the way they (as women) interact with the newly established (by

264
 Gendered invisible urban resilience

the donor project) neighborhood groups and the local government. They value the opportunity
to share their household and family problems with other women and also to learn about health
programmes. The leader explains that by participating in the women’s group:

It has made us aware; we did not know how to speak before, now we are confident… We
are proud of our cleanliness campaign [to pick up litter] and also the fact that we are more
aware. We save money and distribute to each other in a time of need. Controlling this
money, this gives us grounds to participate, we can now speak to the men, and we have
a voice.

From a gender perspective, in Nepal financial security can be addressed not through jobs, but
through a safety net in the form of group lending.Women value the guaranteed financial support
in case of a crisis or an emergency. The savings and credit schemes are critical to all women’s
groups. Both the Jungle Road Women’s Group in urbanizing Bharatpur and the Little Flower
Women’s Group in the city center explain that all members contribute 200 NPR monthly
(equivalent of $2) and, each month, one woman can access the funds (if necessary) –​up to
30,000 NPR (equivalent of $300) with minimal interest.The most common uses for the money
include medical treatment, private school tuition fees and materials and, less frequently, construc-
tion of a house.
Through the provision of informal financial resilience in the form of the group saving
and credit schemes, they are addressing economic security through the financial schemes. The
schemes are a safety net if a family faces extreme difficulty in their livelihood’s strategy, if health
deteriorates, in case of death or other everyday crises. It is valuable to note, in Bharatpur, the
women’s saving and credit schemes do not provide income-​generating loans; rather the group
approach enables women to ensure household subsistence and survival, and, less frequently,
planning for the future.Through the management of funds, the women are empowered to “have
a voice” and power to support themselves and other women in a time of need without needing
to ask for approval from husbands.
In the Global South, Chant (2013, 1–​2) argues: “Women make significant contributions to
urban prosperity through a wide range of paid and unpaid labor, including building and consoli-
dating shelter and strategizing around shortfalls in essential services” that should be provided by
government. This can be seen in various ways in Bharatpur. For example, women’s groups are
essential in the organization and implementation of environmental and cleanliness campaigns
in their neighborhoods, as well as the regular and ongoing collection of rubbish at pre-​defined
municipal collection points in their neighborhoods. The women’s groups effectively provide
unpaid governmental services related to the maintenance of streets. In some cases, this is done
willingly and, in some cases, the neighborhood groups require the respective women’s group to
serve as environmental resilience for the city. More often in urbanizing ward 11 where there are
strongly managed neighborhood groups and few women’s groups, the wives of neighborhood
group members provide the same environmental cleanliness services that women’s groups pro-
vide in other parts of the city.
Miraftab (2007) suggests that in third-​world cities, women’s informal labor is not only
within the family but also in the community through the provision of neighborhood care and
municipal services such as those mentioned above. These forms of urban resilience provide a
mechanism to consider the significant role women enact in the urban. Men in neighborhood
groups in both wards of comparison view pollution and environmental cleanliness as a con-
cern. The municipality also is interested in maintaining the cleanliness of streets. Rather than
employing municipal workers, the local authority and the neighborhood groups pressure the

265
Hanna A. Ruszczyk

wives and women’s groups’ members to serve as environmental resilience in the city in the form
of unpaid labor.
Of critical importance for all women interviewed in the city was participation in women’s
groups. Women value participation in the women’s groups more so than participation in neigh-
borhood groups because their voice is heard –​their opinions matter more in the women’s
groups rather than in groups where men dominate discussion and action. Mohanty argues,
“Women are central to the life of the neighborhood and communities [and] they assume lead-
ership positions in these struggles” (2003, 515). This can be seen not only in Mohanty’s research
site of India but also in different ways in Nepal. The women’s groups provide a range of ser-
vices: social support to each other as well as to vulnerable individuals in the neighborhood who
are not members, organization of festivals and, lastly, environmental cleanliness campaigns in
the neighborhood. The groups also attempt to influence ward-​level decision-​making although
with minimal success (Ruszczyk 2017).The local authority does not want to communicate with
women’s groups. They do not see a reason why they should, according to interviews with the
local authority. The local authority interacts with those who it deems important. Women, irre-
spective of caste and ethnicity, affluence or even location in the city are deemed not worthy of
engagement. It is this aspect of gender that is of significance in the understanding of resilience.
Katz (2010) proposes that resilience is a means of getting by, surviving utilizing the resources at
hand in the face of oppressive dominant social forces. Resilience is comprised of everyday acts
of neighboring, giving of care to others, staying alive with dignity if possible. This is what was
made visible in Bharatpur.

Neighborhood groups rework the urban

Neighborhood groups are a voluntary grouping of self-​selected residents, between 50 and 150
households (most frequently approximately 100 households), from the same geographic area
comprising approximately four blocks. This information is based on numerous interviews with
groups throughout the city and the local authorities.There is never geographic overlap of neigh-
borhood groups; rather in places there are no neighborhood groups (where many tenants or
businesses are located such as in the city center). Men, with limited participation of women, are
managing the neighborhood groups through committees.This self-​organization on a geographic
basis has been taking place since the late 1990s. These older neighborhood groups in Bharatpur
were established under the auspices of a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
project called Rural Urban Partnership Project (RUPP). RUPP started in 1997 working in 13
municipalities (of which Bharatpur was one) and concluded in 2007 working in 30 municipal-
ities. According to an UNDP Nepal interviewee, the original mandate of the UNDP neighbor-
hood groups (also called tole-​level organizations) was three fold: poverty reduction including
saving and credit schemes, social development (addressing health, sanitation, disaster, and pro
poor infrastructure), and, lastly, planning and governance (linking people to local government).
The UNDP unsuccessfully lobbied the central government to introduce the neighborhood
groups as a lowest level of formal government in Nepal (one level below the wards). Parallel to
the project’s implementation and institutional support of neighborhood groups, local elections
were held in 1997 and the elected officials served their five-​year term. The king subsequently
dissolved local representation due to the ongoing conflict with the Maoist rebels and the state
of emergency. Since 2002, the lack of elected representation on a municipal and ward level has
created a governance space where the ability of residents to influence the urban local authority
is constrained because the local government officials are central government appointees. Affluent
high-​caste newcomers are creating new neighborhood groups (less than three years old as

266
 Gendered invisible urban resilience

of Spring 2015). These new neighborhood groups are able to address in a collective manner
some of their perceived urban everyday risk in relation to poor physical infrastructure. They
appear to have the social connections with formal government to bring infrastructure to their
neighborhoods faster than the older neighborhood groups established by the ethnic or poorer
high caste groups. For example, the newly created neighborhood groups in ward 11 are more
powerful than the older groups. Narayan, a high-​caste Brahmin shopkeeper who recently moved
to urbanizing Bharatpur ward 11 with his wife and family states: “Our TLO (neighborhood
group) is two years old. There are 100 households in the TLO. It was started in order to make
a link to the ward secretary and municipality. People group themselves so they could talk to
the municipality about physical infrastructure. The TLO also works for [environmental] clean-
liness.” Overwhelmingly, the male-​dominated neighborhood groups are working to address a
specific, perceived everyday risk –​the poor condition of dirt roads. The groups have aspirations
for modernity in their neighborhoods through the provision of paved roads. The municipal
government is also concerned with providing visible forms of physical infrastructure in the
city. The municipality has informally declared that it will bring modernity in the form of paved
roads to parts of the city. The caveat is that there must be an informal neighborhood group that
can provide 25–​30 per cent co-​financing for the construction of the tarmacked road. The local
authority does not communicate directly with all neighborhood groups; rather, information is
communicated informally in a managed, gray space (Yiftachel 2009) only to some neighbor-
hood groups according to interviews conducted with neighborhood groups and with the local
authorities.
Based on their research in Nepal, Nightingale and Rankin (2015, 169) propose that people’s
ability to make “claims on the ‘everyday state’” depend on social position and articulation with
broader political economic currents.This can be seen through the influence of the different caste
groups, length of time in Bharatpur, their geographic location in the city, and affluence. The
Brahmins and Chettris who have lived in Bharatpur all of their lives, those who migrated into
Bharatpur during the past 20 years and also the poorer newcomer Brahmins do not have the
same political influence as the affluent high-​caste Brahmin newcomers who have recently settled
in Bharatpur. The long-​term residents are watching, learning, and enthusiastically embracing the
methods and links to the government brought by these newcomers who live in their area and
who are willing to engage with them.
This collective “we” ness (Simone 2015, 2) of the neighborhood groups cannot be
underestimated because it is allowing for unexpected actions by groups of people who might
not be expected to work together due to their social and cultural histories.This is how the urban
disrupts some relationships and allows new workings or manoeuvrings to transpire and at times
creating new spaces for collective forms of “reworking” (Katz 2004) to address perceived risks.
It is this weaving of diverse people with multiple identities as urban reworking that is useful as
a conceptual tool to understanding the empirical setting of Bharatpur, Nepal. On the subject
of reworking, Katz argues (2010) that reworking travels a different register than resilience. The
practices and strategies of reworking tend to be pragmatic and focused, staged in the realms and
at the scale in which a problem is encountered and at the scale in which it can be addressed or
solved.
All neighborhood group representatives interviewed speak of the benefits of being in a group
(as did the women’s groups’ members). Only by working together, as a collective or group, can
they “rework” (Katz 2004) the urban reality, to address their risk perceptions in their everyday
life. For example, the indigenous group, the Kumals, have learnt how to engage with others, how
to work in a social environment that is unfamiliar.The ethnic Tamangs who live in the same area
have more money to invest in physical infrastructure projects (paved roads and street lighting)

267
Hanna A. Ruszczyk

through the financial contribution of the Kumals. People are learning how to plan for the future,
to make collective decisions that will impact and benefit their wider communities. They are
acutely aware of the financial limitations of the local authority. The neighborhood groups are
skilled at managing the women’s groups to support their community resilience activities while
simultaneously not allowing women to change the urban radically. The neighborhood groups
are not only exhibiting resilient behavior but they are actively reworking their urban context.
They are making vertical connections to the local authority that is allowing the groups to
enhance their environment. The neighborhood groups are not trying to challenge the munici-
pality and the political powers; they are instead attempting to “undermine its inequities on the
very grounds on which they are cast” (Katz 2004, 247).
The neighborhood groups have retooled themselves as political subjects that the local authority
can work with.They organize themselves into units informally acknowledged by the government
and with the financial contribution expected by the government to provide physical resilience.
Katz (2004, 239) utilizes the phrase “negotiating the recent future”. This is an apt phrase for the
rapidly changing urban reality in which people function, but the reality can change very quickly
due to events that are occurring on scales that are beyond the control of residents. People’s
aspirations are bounded by their experiences with government, society, and due to their eco-
nomic resources, location in the city, and other intersecting, identifying factors. The time-​scale
for reworking is also relatively short. People comprehend that their area of influence is limited in
time, space and place; they can negotiate and rework only the recent material future.

Power and invisibility

Women’s groups in Bharatpur provide vital social, environmental, and financial resilience to
the everyday fabric of urban life. They enable the city to function. Women understand the
value of the services they are providing and are proud of their accomplishments (Ruszczyk
2018b). However, women are dissatisfied with the invisibility imposed upon them by the patri-
archal, hegemonic urban governance structures. Several women’s groups highlight limitations
of women’s groups due to social constraints imposed by men (women need permission from
husbands to join women’s groups and men who steer women’s groups (to do the bidding of
men and neighborhood groups) and the government (which is not interested to engage with
women’s interpretations of urban risk). This is the same local authority that is willing to use
women to clean the streets, thus serving an environmental maintenance function in the city most
commonly associated with public sector provision.
There are tensions between women’s groups who control their own financial schemes and
male-​dominated groups. For example, the newly elected president explains that the new man-
agement of the River neighborhood group in the city center will no longer “take” the money of
the women’s group and distribute it to the neighborhood group members as grants. The River
women’s group is very angry that their money was appropriated. They have no recourse and
they unwillingly support the neighborhood group in cleaning the streets and completing other
tasks the neighborhood group “asks” of them. In discussions with many women’s groups, issues
of power, control, and tension-​filled relationships with neighborhood groups are often raised. At
times, women’s groups are a source of tension for the male-​dominated neighborhood groups.
Tensions arise when women’s groups become too visible in terms of their activities and requests
for changes in their communities and too powerful in terms of the money they have under man-
agement. Subsequently, attempts are made to take away the financial resources of the women’s
groups and to decrease women’s ability to request social change.

268
 Gendered invisible urban resilience

Power dynamics between neighborhood groups and women’s groups force women’s groups
to be (only) invisible resilience in the urban. Relationships are negotiated, often to the benefit
of the male-​dominated groups. In the rural areas of the city, the tole-​level organizations are
powerful and influential (partly due to the affluent newcomers’ high-​caste status). They do not
generally support the establishment of women’s organizations suggesting that women do not
need their own groups since “Neighborhood groups take care of everything” according to a
president of a neighborhood group in rural Bharatpur.This same president continued: “The tole
level organization looks at the overall problems of the community but women’s groups –​they
are only confined with women’s problems.” This translates into concerns perceived by women
in relation to social issues, children’s education, health for the family, and other everyday issues.
A member of the women’s group on “Jungle Road” in rural ward 11 (created through an inter-
national aid project) comments on the one-​way relationship with the neighborhood group and
the municipality: “Lines of communication flow from muni[cipality] –​to –​ward –​to –​TLO
[neighborhood group] –​to –​women’s group.This is the process.We work on how to implement
it [what others decide is important].” Stronger, more influential neighborhood groups are effect-
ively silencing women and their significant power through collective action.Women’s groups are
allowed to be resilient but are not allowed to do more, not allowed to rework the city in their
vision. Dilu, the strategic advisor to a women’s group in the city center, explains that women’s
groups are “working but we are in the ‘shade’, not in the sun” of the local authority.They wish to
be seen, acknowledged and engaged with by the government. Chant (2013, 1) argues that there
is a “stark contrast between women’s input to and benefits from the accumulation of wealth in
cities” [of the Global South]. Chant continues (2013, 2): “Women often reap limited reward
in terms of equitable access to ‘decent’ work, human capital acquisition, physical and financial
assets, intra-​urban mobility, personal safety and security, and representation in formal structures
of urban governance.” Chant’s description of the Global South and this empirically-​driven work
based in Nepal augment each other. Escobar (2012) discusses how discourse, visuality and power
are interconnected. He suggests if people are brought into conversation, then it “consign[s]‌them
to fields of vision” (2012, 156). Urban residents want to be “seen” by the government. Peake and
Rieker (2013) explain that women’s organizations in the Global South have argued for women’s
engagement with social and collective rights and issues above those of the individual.They argue
that “women are an important node in the constellations of power, and thus in the production
of centers and margins, in imaginaries of the urban” (2013, 2). Existing governance practices in
Bharatpur, Nepal and the ensuing negotiation for governance space have created multifaceted
sites of contestation between the community groups and the government and also between
the two forms of collective action (neighborhood groups and women’s groups). We can see in
Bharatpur some of the “contested, dynamic processes through which social inequalities in Nepal
are produced and entrenched” (Nightingale 2011, 161) but also how some boundaries are being
reworked and are shifting in the urban.
The government and groups such as political parties and neighborhood groups influence
whose resilience and whose reworking matters in the city. In the city center, where there are
few neighborhood groups, there is no mechanism in place for the voices of women’s groups to
be heard outside of the neighborhood level. They are effectively silenced as islands of collective
governance with minimal opportunities to change the urban.Women’s perceptions of urban risk
are not as important as men’s perceptions of risk. Women’s invisibility is enforced not just by the
government but also by a multitude of subordinating layers in the patriarchal society.Women are
informed by the actions of the patriarchal hegemony that they are viewed as forms of gendered,
invisible, urban resilience. Only the neighborhood groups can rework the urban.

269
Hanna A. Ruszczyk

Conclusion
The opening paragraph of the chapter states that the urban is a political stake that opens and closes
new possibilities and constraints.This is the reality in the urban spaces of the Global South whereby
residents are influencing the urban setting and are simultaneously being changed by it. The empir-
ical evidence suggests both resilience and reworking (Katz 2004, 2010) can be found in the rapidly
urbanizing and changing setting of Bharatpur, Nepal. Women’s groups showcase forms of gen-
dered, invisible, social, environmental, and financial resilience, but they are not allowed to rework the
urban to their benefit. In an atmosphere where local government provision is absent or organized
according to factors including caste, affluence and geographical location, some residents are allowed
by government to attempt to rework the urban through their collective efforts.The male-​dominated
neighborhood groups are enabled to rework the urban to achieve changes in physical infrastruc-
ture (paved roads) thus impacting the changing of ethnic and caste boundaries on a local level.
Unfortunately, gender roles and norms appear unchanged throughout these processes.
Groups aspire for more than they have in the everyday; they desire a link with local authority
in order to create a better future. The government is ambivalent towards women’s groups,
rendering them and their urban resilience activities invisible, but does engage with some neigh-
borhood groups who have similar social and economic characteristics to those in power. The
government decides who will be visible and the government manages the gray space of infor-
mality to suit its agenda rather than addressing the full range of risks as perceived by all residents.
If agendas overlap, as in the case of physical infrastructure provision and preferably in locations
where high-​caste and affluent residents live, the local authorities engage.
Sustainable development goals number 5 (gender equity) and 11 (sustainable cities and com-
munities) are intertwined and require understanding and debate because they are fundamental
to our collective future world. It is in this context where existing forms of social mobilization
need to be made visible, understood, and strengthened in the most appropriate ways. There are
opportunities for intervention to foster progressive change and sustainable development by tack-
ling the root causes of structural inequality that keep women marginalized in the city.This could
involve prodding local authorities to create a policy space where informal groups including
groups created by urban female residents can contribute to social and economic discourse as
well as by supporting women’s groups to advocate for change (in a way they view appropriate).
Given the current context in Asian cities where the local level is the site where risk governance
is increasingly decided, socially just futures can be gained by making visible, listening to, and
engaging with women more substantively.

References
Bharatpur Municipality, Nepal (2014). Bharatpur Municipal Profile. (Accessed May 15, 2016).
Chant, S. (2013). Cities through a ‘gender lens’: A golden ‘urban age’ for women in the global South?
Environment and Urbanization. 25 (1): 9–​29. doi:10.1177/​0956247813477809.
Escobar, A. (2012). Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Government of Nepal, Ministry of Home Affairs, ICIMOD and ESRI (2015). Nepal Earthquake
2015: Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction Information Platform (NDRRIP). http://​apps.geoportal.
icimod.org/​ndrrip/​profile?id=Municipality&Lang=en. (Accessed: April 17, 2017).
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Q. Hoare (ed.)). New York: International
Publishers.
Katz, C. (2004). Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.

270
 Gendered invisible urban resilience

Katz, C. (2010). Making change in the space of injury time. Urban Geography. 31 (3): 315–​320. doi:10.2747/​
0272-​3638.31.3.315.
McFarlane, C. (2010).The comparative city: knowledge, learning, urbanism. International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research. 34 (4): 725–​742. doi:10.1111/​j.1468-​2427.2010.00917.x.
McFarlane, C., Silver, J., and Truelove, Y. (2016). Cities within cities: Intra-​urban comparison of resilience
in Mumbai, Delhi and Cape Town. Urban Geography. 1–​25. doi:10.1080/​02723638.2016.1243386.
Miraftab, F. (2007). Planning and gender as seen from the Global South. Journal of the American Planning
Association. 73 (1): 115–​116.
Mohanty, C.T. (2003). “Under western eyes” revisited: Feminist solidarity through anticapitalist struggles.
Signs. 28 (2): 499–​535.
Nightingale, A.J. (2011). Bounding difference: Intersectionality and the material production of
gender, caste, class and environment in Nepal. Geoforum. 42 (2): 153–​ 162. doi:10.1016/​
j.geoforum.2010.03.004.
Nightingale, A.J., Bhatterai A., Ojha H.R., Sigdel T., and Rankin, K.N. (2018). Fragmented public authority
and state un/​making in the “new” republic of Nepal. Modern Asian Studies. 52 (3): 849–​882.
Nightingale, A.J. and Rankin K.N. (2015). Political transformations: Collaborative feminist scholarship in
Nepal. In: S. Gururani and K. Berry: Gender in the Himalaya: Feminist Explorations of Identity, Place,
and Positionality, 1st edn. Himalaya series in Nepal studies. Kathmandu: Himal Books for Association
for Nepal and Himalayan Studies and Social Science Baha, 159–​185.
Peake, L. and Rieker, M. (2013). Rethinking feminist interventions into the urban. In: L. Peake and M.
Rieker (eds.): Rethinking Feminist Interventions into the Urban. London, New York: Routledge,
Taylor & Francis Group, 1–​22.
Robinson, J. (2006). Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. London;
New York: Routledge.
Rocheleau, D.E., Thomas-​Slayter, B.P., and Wangari, E. (eds.) (1996). Gender and environment, a fem-
inist political ecology perspective. In: Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences.
London, New York: Routledge, 3–​23.
Ruszczyk, H.A. (2017). The Everyday and Events, Understanding risk perceptions and resilience in urban
Nepal. PhD Thesis. Durham: Durham University.
Ruszczyk, H.A. (2018a). Chapter 8: The earthquake and ideas lying around. In: L.J. Bracken, H.A. Ruszczyk,
and T. Robinson (eds.): Evolving Narratives of Hazard and Risk: The Gorkha Earthquake, Nepal, 2015.
London: Palgrave Pivot, 125–​139.
Ruszczyk, H.A. (2018b). A continuum of perceived urban risk –​from the Gorkha earthquake to economic
insecurity. Environment and Urbanization. 95624781774492. doi:10.1177/​0956247817744927.
Simone, A.M. (2004). People as resilience: Intersecting fragments in Johannesburg. Public Culture. 16
(3): 407–​429.
Simone, A.M. (2015). It’s just the city after all!: Debates & developments. International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research. doi:10.1111/​1468–​2427.12275.
Tanaka, M. (2009). From confrontation to collaboration: a decade in the work of the squatters’ movement
in Nepal. Environment and Urbanization. 21 (1): 143–​159. doi:10.1177/​0956247809103011.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Population Division (2018). 2018 Revision
of World Urbanization Prospects. www.un.org/​development/​desa/​publications/​2018-​revision-​of-​
world-​urbanization-​prospects.html. (Accessed November 12, 2018).
Yiftachel, O. (2009). Critical theory and “gray space”: Mobilization of the colonized. City. 13 (2–​3): 246–​
263. doi:10.1080/​13604810902982227.

271
 21
Pathways for resilience
in legacy cities
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Introduction
The ability of regions and cities to cope with economic downturns and transitions has gained
new prominence in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–​2012. Within this renovated
interest, the concept of “resilience” has attracted attention, and its meaning has been expanded to
incorporate complex life mechanisms of creative problem solving (Chandler 2014). Utilizing the
concept of resilience offers an alternative framework for illuminating regional economic change,
analyzing the causes and effects of uneven development, and understanding growth pathways of
regional economies (Martin 2012; Simmie and Martin 2010). Challenges and opportunities of
US “legacy cities” are often viewed through the lens of resilience.
Legacy cities are categorized through their regional position and prominence in manufac-
turing and ancillary economic opportunities. The term is used to describe industrial urban areas
that have experienced significant population and job loss, resulting in high residential vacancy and
diminished service capacity and resources (Mallach 2010). Challenges center on the rocky trans-
formation from manufacturing employment to the ongoing striving for well-​paying jobs of any
sector, set in the shadows of industrial heritage (Liesch 2016). Other challenges in legacy cities
are flights of human capital (suburbanization, regional outmigration, and particularly of skilled
workers) and of economic capital (declining property assessments, incomes, and tax base). These
challenges are compounded by the general lack of cooperation across municipal boundaries.
As civic leaders seek to improve the perception and the material realities of legacy cities, they
increasingly turn to the concept of resilience in thinking through the path to more sustainable
futures, thus making this a commonly-​researched topic in legacy cities (Carter 2016; Longworth
2017; Mallach and Brachman 2013; Thomas 2012).
Legacy cities in the United States are mainly located within the northeast and Great Lakes,
as the US “Rust Belt” (Hollingsworth and Goebel 2017; Longworth 2017). Accordingly, this
chapter investigates how four cities and their metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) of the US
Great Lakes Region (GLR) have coped with the aftermath of the great recession of 2007–​2009,
focusing on the type of resilience, if any, these cities have implemented and the results emer-
ging almost a decade after the crisis started. These cities are: Duluth (MN), Grand Rapids (MI),
Racine (WI), and South Bend (IN) (Figure 21.1).

272
Figure 21.1 Map of selected counties by Metropolitan Statistical Area
Source: Based on US Census
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Located in the heart of what is usually referred to as the US “Rust Belt”, these MSAs have
been severely hit by the great recession (Pagano 2013), and all have an economic fabric long
rooted in manufacturing.
The great recession in 2007–​2009 shocked the GLR, and intensified an already existing
industrial crisis, which had been affecting the region for nearly a decade eradicating one million
manufacturing jobs (Atkins et al. 2011). However, cities in the GLR have displayed different
recovery pathways after the great recession, recording newly positive economic and/​or popu-
lation growth. Today, nearly a decade after the recession, there is a great opportunity to analyze
what kind of resilience, if any, these cities have displayed.
Building upon the conceptual differences in defining resilience described by Chandler (2014),
this chapter investigates what kind of resilience these four cities have displayed, that is, whether
they have initiated an adaptive transition towards new economic sectors, or they have success-
fully “bounced back” within the same economic structure.

What kind of resilience?

The concept of resilience has been applied in a wide range of disciplines from ecology (Berkes
et al. 2000, Nelson et al. 2007) to strategic management (Annarelli and Nonino, 2016). However,
different disciplines used the term in different contexts, which hinders the establishment of a
universal definition. Etymologically, the word “resilience” derives from the Latin resilire, which
means to “leap back”, to “recover from” and position elastically following a disturbance. This
meaning is what the term has been originally associated with. In one of the first works on
resilience, Holling defined resilience as the ability of a system to return to an equilibrium or
steady-​state after a disturbance (Holling 1973, 1986), which could be either a natural disaster
or any type of crises. In this early classical definition of resilience, the system returns to stability
after the subject overcomes the environmental threats or barriers through their inner strengths
and capacities. A different definition of resilience, more popular in the ecological field, refers to a
system’s “ability to absorb” a shock without much change in its structure, identity, and function.
In this context, Walker et al. (2006) defined resilience as “the capacity of a system to absorb dis-
turbance and reorganize while undergoing change to still retain essentially the same function,
structure, identity and feedbacks”. As Holling (1986) suggested, defining resilience as the ability
to “bounce back” links the concept to the “self-​restoring equilibrium dynamics” notion, found
in mainstream economics. In regional economics, the assumption is that the normal condition of
an economy is one of equilibrium (a steady state or a balanced growth path), and, if the economy
is pushed away from this equilibrium by a shock –​in our case a major recession or financial
crisis –​automatic, “self-​correcting” market mechanisms restore the ex ante equilibrium (Martin
and Sunley 2015). In the fields of economics and regional development some objections are
raised to the use of the term, because, given its origins in the natural and physical sciences, the
concept lacks a conception of human agency, and is depoliticized (Davoudi 2017; Davoudi and
Porter 2012).
A third interpretation of the concept of resilience is the one of “evolutionary resilience”,
which involves structural and operational adaptation in response to a shock. This meaning is
often associated with terms such as “bounce forward” rather than “bounce back” (Simmie
and Martin 2010). After the introduction of non-​linear population dynamics theories through
post-​ classical frameworks, the subject/​ object divide is overcome through understanding
resilience as an interactive process of relational adaptation (Chandler 2014). In this approach
the subject is no longer trying to control the external environment or passively survive and
cope with it. Thus, resilience is defined as the process of the subject/​object adaptation to the

274
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

external world, a process through which the world is being reshaped and an ongoing adapta-
tion is taking place.
Following Chandler (2014) and Simmie and Martin (2010), this chapter will not privilege
one definition of resilience over another. Rather, the focus will be on understanding in what
ways resilience has expressed itself in the case studies, that is, whether cities in the GLR have
bounced back, or transformed their economic profile after the great recession of 2007–​2009.
The “resilience” expressed by a city (if any) can therefore occur either “bouncing back” to the
original, pre-​crisis state, or through the ability of a city to transition to a new economic para-
digm, that is, to adapt. In the former case, the ability to restore pre-​crisis levels may actually be
limited to some clusters, leading parts of the regions’ economy to either shrink, or to transform
itself, thus leading to a hybrid result.

Clusters and areal units

This chapter utilizes secondary data on several economic metrics from the Economic Modelling
Statistic International (EMSI) database (EMSI 2017.3) for the years 2001–​2016. Within the
extensive EMSI database, the focus was placed on the Harvard Clusters, groups of related indus-
tries based on Delgado et al. (2014), and routinely utilized by policymakers and researchers for
investigating the state of the economy of the GLR and other regions (see.e.g. Ketels 2015; Lema
et al. 2017). Focusing on clusters has the advantage of highlighting the strengths/​weaknesses
of related industries within each city, thus more accurately understanding the overall status of
major groups of industries (Porter 2000). Within each cluster, the industries are organized using
the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS). NAICS is a “[…] production-​
oriented and supply-​based industry classification system that groups establishments into indus-
tries based on the similarity of their production processes” (OMB 2017, p. 14). The system is
a two to six-​digit hierarchical system: in this study, clusters are populated at the six-​digit level.
For employment, we used the total number of employees, which includes not only the
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) but also Non-​ QCEW employees
and self-​employed persons (EMSI 2017.3). Including all employment categories is important
for clusters such as Hospitality and Tourism, where the share of self-​employed people can be
particularly high.
Finally, the focus of this chapter will be on the performance and relationship between two
macro-​g roups of clusters: Manufacturing and Services. The former reflects the (past?) strengths
of the GLR and these cities (Cronon 1991), whereas the latter represents groups of emer-
ging industries, at least according to economic literature (see e.g. Flew and Cunningham 2010;
Pratt 2008).
The data from the EMSI database were extracted and aggregated by the Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA) they belong to. Studying these cities using their MSA has the advan-
tage of including surrounding areas outside of the jurisdiction of the city per se, which are still
connected to the city by economic flows.

Moving forward in metropolitan areas: Duluth, Grand Rapids, Racine,

South Bend
The Federal Office of Management and Budget-​designated Metropolitan Areas (MSAs) in the
GLR examined in this study share a strong specialization in the manufacturing sector, which
started in the latter nineteenth century, followed by a decline of the manufacturing sector starting
in the last two decades of the twentieth century (Mallach and Brachman 2013). Technological

275
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

advances ascendant during the late 1800s, in tandem with a growing workforce and accessibility
of natural resources, led cities in the GLR to develop and expand (Cronon 1991). Southern
portions of the GLR developed greater access to markets, including Grand Rapids, Racine, and
South Bend, exhibited more growth of cities and of manufacturing. Each GLR industrial cluster
has been part of integrated supply chains. Agriculture, forestry, and mining activities were also
part of these networks, supplying raw materials to be transformed in urban centers for either
local consumption or export (Liesch 2008).
The four MSAs have experienced either a certain level of demographic stability or slight
increase since 2010 (Table 21.1). They represent different sizes in terms of MSAs and play
different roles within each MSA’s broader context. For example, the Duluth MSA is the most
populated area within northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, whereas Grand Rapids is closer to
the larger Chicago MSA to the southwest. In this section, we treat each MSA separately, com-
paring it to the others, and focusing on the type of resilience it has displayed in selected industrial
clusters.
Over the past 15 years, total and cluster-​based employment in the four MSAs have displayed
different dynamics in relation to macroeconomic shocks (Figure 21.2). For example, Duluth has
increased in overall employment, further expanding its service base. During the same period,
Grand Rapids has undergone a more marked decline in both types of clusters until 2009–​2010
and has since then surpassed its 2001 employment levels. In contrast, Racine has seen its employ-
ment levels decline since 2001, although recently its mix of service and manufacturing clusters
appeared to have been changing more markedly.

Duluth, MN: An industrial port open to new development opportunities

The Duluth MSA sits at the western terminus of the Great Lakes –​St Lawrence Seaway region
(Figure 21.1). Its hinterland is larger than most US cities of its size given the distance to larger
cities; Duluth is the largest in roughly a 200km distance, plus to the west, no cities larger than
Duluth exist until Washington State is reached. Across the St Louis River and Estuary, Superior,
WI, has a similar economy, but on a smaller scale. Together the two cities are often referred to
as the “Twin Ports”. Given lower per-​ton shipping costs, Duluth’s shipping hinterland has long
included grain from the Northern Great Plains, iron ore from Minnesota, coal from the Rocky
Mountains, and a variety of bulk cargo used in construction, manufacturing, and energy indus-
tries located throughout the northcentral United States.
Manufacturing has been key until the current era.The harbor’s source as a break of bulk point
created incentives to add value and shed bulk through manufacturing. Changes in the global
economy, manufacturing processes, and Mesabi Range iron ore extraction each contributed to
the decline of large-​scale manufacturing. Notably, US Steel operated in Morgan Park from 1911
through major downsizings in 1971 and 1973 until the last mill closed in 1979 (Alanen 2007).
This traditionally was the Twin Ports’ staple, even as maritime heritage appears to be more iconic
today (see City of Duluth Comprehensive Plan (2006), Martin Associates 2011).
Unsurprisingly, shipping and its related activities are still pivotal to the region’s economy, even
as Duluth gradually developed a diversity of high-​end service-​sector jobs expected of a regional
center. As Great Lakes residents’ relationships to their waterways have evolved, popular demand
for both residential and tourism space has incentivized stakeholders to shift waterfront land use
from space of work to one of residences and tourist spaces. Canal Park is a good example of
this, as a former warehouse district adaptively reused as a tourist district. A summer-​dominated
tourism industry capitalizing upon a partially cleaned-​up harbor with urban and outdoor oppor-
tunities has helped to create a region-​wide buzz about Duluth (Kelly 2016).

276
Table 21.1 Population in the four MSAs, 2010–​2017

Geography 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 % Change,
2010–2
​ 017

Duluth, MN-​WI Metro Area 279,677 279,753 279,339 279,439 279,651 279,197 278,954 278,782 -​0.32%
Grand Rapids-​Wyoming, MI Metro 989,416 997,100 1,007,613 1,019,146 1,029,762 1,039,064 1,048,826 1,059,113 7.4%
Area
Racine, WI Metro Area 195,406 194,931 194,645 194,753 194,908 194,763 195,010 196,071 -​0.34%
South Bend-​Mishawaka, IN-​MI Metro 319,022 318,854 318,160 318,498 319,267 319,651 320,822 321,815 0.875%
Area

Source: American FactFinder, US Census Bureau, 2018

Figure 21.2 Total employment in major manufacturing and service clusters for Duluth, Grand Rapids, Racine, and South Bend (MSAs), in 2001–​2016
Source: Elaboration based on EMSI, 2017
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Economic Dynamics
Since the city’s 1880–​1920 boom years, Duluth was an industrial port city whose skyline was
dominated by its steep hillside with gargantuan manufacturing spaces between the hillside and
Lake Superior. Numerous grain elevators, a cement plant, a steel mill, wire mills, and the Duluth
Works plant were icons of the city. Many of these plants, including Duluth Works, shut down
in the 1980s bringing unemployment up to 20 per cent (Ruff 2014). Globalization in the steel
manufacturing industry has meant that some of the city’s legacy employers, such as US Steel,
have moved manufacturing elsewhere. Despite these losses, manufacturing clusters in Duluth still
pay above the median yearly income of $43,937 (Table 21.2).
The decline in manufacturing employment has continued in recent decades. Between 2001
and 2016 the MSA’s manufacturing clusters lost approximately 20 per cent of their employees.
As shown in Table 21.2 only a few manufacturing clusters flourished between 2001 and
2016: Aerospace, Plastics and Production Technology, and Heavy Machinery were some of
the clusters with the highest growth in employment. After 2007–​2008, Automotive and Food
Processing and most of the other large manufacturing clusters declined and have never reached
the same levels of employment. Others, such as Paper, and Aerospace, traditionally important to

Table 21.2 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in Duluth, 2001–​2016

Manufacturing Clusters Avg. % diffe- % % changes % change Location Location

earnings rence with changes jobs jobs quotient quotient
per job median jobs 2007–​ 2012–​ in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) income 2001–​ 2016 2016
2016

Aerospace $75,927 72.81 310.00 (22.35) 44.37 0.54 0.48

Automotive $82,346 87.42 (55.95) (19.33) (26.52) 0.80 0.90
Biopharmaceuticals N/​A N/​A N/​A N/​A N/​A 0.00 0.00
Downstream Chemicals $86,715 97.36 (12.43) (25.69) (3.57) 1.81 0.81
Downstream Metals $44,864 2.11 (25.68) (43.66) (25.10) 0.50 0.42
Food Processing $68,968 56.97 (40.00) (28.35) 16.04 0.39 0.21
Furniture $52,262 18.95 (18.25) (20.00) (39.16) 0.10 0.62
Information Technology $66,567 51.51 (69.18) (48.35) (3.75) 0.43 0.44
Medical Devices $78,630 78.96 25.00 (11.76) (16.67) 0.10 0.09
Metal Working $53,150 20.97 (15.65) 12.18 (21.07) 0.43 0.54
Paper $61,386 39.71 (35.29) 85.40 94.61 1.19 7.12
Plastics $56,001 27.46 99.56 57.44 (4.61) 0.42 0.66
Printing $36,952 (15.90) (35.00) (24.76) (10.00) 0.28 0.23
Production (PTHM) $71,786 63.39 44.83 12.98 1.85 0.91 1.74
Recreation Equipment $36,992 (15.81) (4.47) 74.49 23.91 0.26 0.52
Trailer $145,333 230.78 (52.94) 140.00 14.29 0.02 0.09
Upstream Chemical $53,363 21.45 0.00 (83.87) (78.26) 0.22 0.03
Upstream Metals $88,007 100.30 (32.69) (14.63) (54.74) 0.25 0.17
ALL MANUFACTURING $68,191 55.20 (20.06) (4.82) 4.41 N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $65,533 49.15
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors work based on EMSI, 2017

279
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

the MSA, went through troubled times up to the first decade of the 2000s, and then started a
remarkable recovery.
Paper manufacturing has had a long presence in the city, and it provides a further example
of the city’s efforts to retain the strongest and most competitive clusters. During the 2001–​2016
period, the cluster had a very high location quotient as well as a high rise in employment, which
were unaffected by the most recent financial crisis. At the industry level, firms are looking to
remain competitive: as an example, the largest paper mill in Duluth is looking to modify their
equipment in order to make a higher-​margin product, and private–​public partnership in the
manufacturing industries are common today (see e.g.Verso 2018).
Employment-​wise, service-​related clusters (Table 21.3) have shown a remarkable degree of
steadiness (and even slight increase) before, during, and after the crisis. Overall, between 2001
and 2016 the service clusters under study gained jobs at a rate of 17 per cent, although only 1.8
per cent was during 2007–​2016. These clusters are composed by a variety of industry groups,
stemming from Education to Business Services, reflecting the evolving role of the city as a hub
for the region.
Among these clusters, tourism has always played an important part in Duluth’s economic
portfolio, although the MSA’s Hospitality and Recreation cluster experienced some losses in the
period under study. The share of employment in this cluster fell overall 7.75 per cent in abso-
lute terms during 2001–​2016, but rebounded within the most recent five years. As is typical for
tourism and hospitality employment, salaries are very low: the average annual salary of $21,710
is less than half of the median for all occupations.
As part of their strategy to enhance this cluster, and the overall quality of life for its citi-
zens, municipalities and states often partner to improve infrastructure and other public services.
Federal or state funding is also common, e.g. the city’s projects for evolving traffic patterns and
land use (Brownfield Grants). For instance, in 2009 the State of Minnesota awarded the Duluth
Port Authority a $50,000 investigative grant to determine the feasibility of redeveloping 123
acres (0.50 km2) of the former steel plant site as a warehouse and light industrial park for storage
of energy-​creating windmills. These initiatives have been further supported by federal programs,
such as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), which contributed about $63 million
(EPA 2018) for restoration projects across the MSA.
Education and Knowledge Creation is another leading service cluster. Duluth’s higher edu-
cational institutions (e.g. the University of Minnesota –​Duluth) are an economic and cultural
asset to the city. The university has extended collaborations with small businesses through the
Natural Resources Research Institute and the Center for Economic Development that also
offers entrepreneurial support. Through these initiatives, employment in universities, colleges,
and other institutions in this cluster has been expanded by 24 per cent in 2001–​2016, and
they only had a very small decline in employment during 2012–​2016. This second bandwidth
focuses on the post-​recession years, starting with the first full two years of continuous GDP
growth and the year in which Real Median Household Income started its recovery (2012),
and ending with the most recent data (2016) (FRED 2018; FRED 2019). These activities also
bolstered other services clusters, such as Business Services and Insurance which also grew over
this period.
Duluth’s Local Health cluster experienced the largest gains of any cluster in the MSA
(Table 21.3). It is also Duluth’s largest sector as measured by jobs employment and pays well
(36.92 per cent above the median). Collaboration with University of Minnesota Duluth
Medical School gives the area a competitive advantage to attract and retain physicians and
other health professionals through the pool of medical students and residents (Halaas 2005,
Zink et al. 2010).

280
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Table 21.3 Employment in Service clusters in Duluth, 2001–​2016

Service Clusters Avg. % diffe- % % % change Location Location

earnings rence changes changes jobs quotient quotient
per job with jobs jobs 2012–​ in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) median 2001–​ 2007–​ 2016
income 2016 2016

Business Services $72,133 64.17 14.96 1.51 2.03 0.47 0.36

Communication $82,901 88.68 (73.71) (83.57) (46.82) 0.58 0.51
Distribution and $65,568 49.23 (13.13) 8.23 0.09 0.65 0.78
E-​commerce
Education and Knowledge $46,715 6.32 24.66 10.88 (4.17) 0.70 0.84
Creation
Electric Generation and $160,167 264.54 (10.29) 25.19 23.57 0.70 17.20
Transmission
Environmental Services $62,738 42.79 (11.83) 24.24 0.00 0.78 0.72
Financial Services $86,919 97.83 (13.25) (13.40) 22.44 0.26 0.79
Fish and Fishing Products $41,749 (4.98) (87.36) 29.41 (29.03) 0.28 2.05
Hospitality and Tourism $21,710 (50.59) (7.75) (1.21) 5.11 1.93 1.68
Insurance $55,787 26.97 31.01 (2.46) (3.01) 0.57 0.57
Local Health $60,158 36.92 37.46 8.52 2.44 1.46 1.55
Marketing $47,504 8.12 (43.67) (49.95) 3.93 0.45 0.35
Transportation and $70,377 60.18 (23.19) (4.68) 5.04 0.66 0.69
Logistics
Water Transportation $96,881 120.50 13.04 34.49 41.02 2.50 4.08
ALL SERVICES $69,379 57.91 17.09 4.37 1.86 N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $59,054 34.41
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ work based on EMSI, 2017

Modest Diversity in Duluth

Services are outpacing the manufacturing sector’s sometimes rocky transitions. During the 2001–​
2016 period, Duluth recorded a transformation towards service sectors and was less affected by
the crisis due to its increasing economic diversity.The fact that Duluth’s manufacturing base had
already been through another crisis in the 1980s and ended up being a much smaller component
of the local economy (as measured by number of jobs) may have played a role. The city had long
ago developed strong service-​oriented clusters such as Tourism, Transportation, Education and
Health. Duluth has some notable high-​end service clusters, yet Duluth’s recent tourism growth
in former manufacturing spaces is an adaptive resilience based in significant part upon its water-
front districts and views of water alike.This creates a buzz but makes more common the situation
of low-​end employee compensation. Other service clusters pay well above the median, making
Duluth the MSA with the highest difference with median earnings among the four MSAs of
our study. With this bifurcation in employment paths, and the decline in middle-​income manu-
facturing jobs, incomes are increasingly polarized (Schaefer et al. 2017).
There is some fragility in that many of these clusters are dependent upon a handful of firms,
resulting in vast fluctuations in job gains and losses (Tables 21.2 and 21.3) over the time period
studied. This is fairly typical for a metropolitan area of this size, but also hinders regional resili-
ency through limited opportunities for employees trained in specific skillsets should those key
employers downsize.

281
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Looking ahead, the MSA has uncommon features in relatively stable industries such the
Water Transportation Cluster through shipping (Martin Associates 2011) and the Electric Energy
Generation and Transmission clusters through notable power plants that have long served the
region’s manufacturing, especially in the energy-​intensive iron ore manufacturing process.These
clusters are expected to play a major role in the MSA’s future development. Unlike other cities
with expanded service sectors, the relatively diverse economy, higher salaries, the region’s out-
door amenities and other quality of life factors, give the MSA a competitive advantage, in terms
of attracting much-​needed talent, especially in the Health Services cluster.
The MSA shows an evolutionary resilience deeply rooted in its manufacturing base, yet
capable of transitioning towards services and building upon its role as a regional hub. Duluth’s
service sector experienced most transformative resilience through adapting and developing the
right clusters that could serve the local and regional economy. The MSA is fortunate to have
a strong research university, which, in collaboration with other agencies, assisted in the restor-
ation and brought much needed funds to the MSA. It also assisted the Local Health cluster.
Beyond their fast growth in employment these clusters acted as a growth engine for the whole
MSA. Grants and external funding brought adapting ways in which water is utilized. Duluth’s
economy has always been water-​intensive, whether it was used in manufacturing, its transpor-
tation advantages, or in services. Through funding (GLRI grants; see Austin et al. 2007), espe-
cially after the crisis, dredging activities and other Environmental Services flourished. Tourism,
Business Services, and Water Transportation followed, bringing Duluth back to what it is good at.
With Duluth, it is unknown precisely how and if the emergence of coastal-​and water-​related
regional economic paradigms (e.g. Maritime Clusters or Blue Economy)1 will play a role in
regional resiliency. Evidences from traditional marine sectors are not univocal: as the Fishing
industry employment declines, water transportation booms, while other industries associated with
these paradigms are still in their infancy in the region. If part of resiliency is the evolutionary pro-
cess of finding innovations in pre-​existing knowledge bases, that is, having industries rebound in
different ways, then Duluth may very well be suited, due to shifts in how water is used.

Grand Rapids: Transition and recovery

Located on the banks of the Grand River, roughly 30 miles inland from Lake Michigan, Grand
Rapids has flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century thanks to furniture and other
wood product manufacturing using Michigan’s hardwood forests (Cronon 1991). However, job
losses mainly due to improvements in labor productivity over the past 50 years have changed
the profile of the city, making it more varied. Most of today’s Grand Rapids manufacturers are
smaller, post-​Fordist, plants: they are vital components in the supply chain for a wide range of
industries, including office furniture, automotive, medical devices, food processing, and aerospace
and defense (Bartik 2018).

Response to the crisis

For a city with a strong manufacturing legacy such as Grand Rapids, transitioning to a new eco-
nomic mix meant a lot of transformation. During 2001–​2016, employment in manufacturing
clusters decreased by about 16 per cent (18,000 jobs), while services gained more than 40,000
jobs (29.27 per cent). Many manufacturing clusters have been recovering between 2008 and
2016, but only a few of them reached the pre-​crisis employment levels. Local policies, govern-
ment and leadership (Miller-​Adams et al. 2017) had a major role in these resilient efforts: after
the great recession local governments have adopted strategies for building and securing social

282
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

safety nets (Pagano 2013). These strategies include the government adopting the role of “con-
nector” as in the case of Duluth and the role of “system builder”, meaning it built networking
relationships among diverse public and private organizations (Weir 2010; Pagano 2013). In the
case of Grand Rapids both these strategies were implemented and resulted in a more diverse
economy (Atkins et al. 2012).
In the Grand Rapids MSA, all the largest (by employment) manufacturing clusters were
hard hit and most of them experienced a steep decrease in employment during 2001–​2016
(Table 21.4). However, most of these losses occurred in the early 2000s, and the post-​2007
period has seen rapid gains in employment.
Automotive is the leading cluster in the region (20,861 jobs in 2016) and generates high
average salaries ($73,461). The cluster suffered significant losses during 2001–​2016 (25.09 per
cent) and it slowly gained back some of the jobs in 2012, thanks to efforts aimed at linking local
manufacturers to a broader regional system across western Michigan (Nowlan 2007), further
increasing the specialization of the MSA.
Grand Rapids has been specialized in office furniture craftsmanship, design, and innovation
for more than a century and the MSA managed to maintain a strong specialization by focusing
on the design and production of office furniture. Employment in the Grand Rapids Furniture
cluster was declining well before the crisis (Atkins et al. 2011) reaching its lowest point in 2012.
This cluster had even more marked losses than Automotive in 2001–​2016, losing about 41 per

Table 21.4 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in Grand Rapids MSA, 2001–​2016

Manufacturing Clusters Avg. % diffe- % % % Location Location

earnings rence changes changes change quotient in quotient
per job with jobs jobs jobs 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) median 2001–​ 2007–​ 2012–​
income 2016 2016 2016

Aerospace $108,459 94.19 73.97 (9.40) 4.21 0.86 0.91

Automotive $73,462 131.53 (25.09) 0.94 29.62 6.78 7.70
Biopharmaceuticals $78,983 41.41 10.04 65.05 45.12 0.26 0.34
Downstream Chemicals $123,187 120.55 (43.42) (21.85) 2.33 4.45 2.93
Downstream Metals $62,466 11.84 (21.35) 1.12 13.47 1.27 1.51
Food Processing $66,222 18.56 39.82 30.08 8.49 1.84 1.93
Furniture $62,689 12.24 (41.02) (4.56) 16.47 11.84 12.97
Information Technology $74,879 34.06 52.43 47.74 36.13 1.45 1.97
Medical Devices $66,637 19.31 29.04 8.93 (23.77) 1.07 1.03
Metal Working $68,811 23.20 (7.57) 9.70 16.50 4.41 5.17
Paper $72,374 29.58 (23.88) (14.59) 20.53 1.55 1.21
Plastics $61,791 10.63 13.92 15.57 13.01 2.65 2.77
Printing $53,828 (3.63) (15.25) (16.75) (1.95) 2.68 2.31
Production (PTHM) $85,824 53.66 (13.05) 23.31 12.98 1.38 1.79
Recreation Equipment $52,584 (5.85) (58.88) (34.60) 60.36 1.84 0.60
Trailer $98,873 77.02 (53.32) 71.47 50.01 1.51 2.52
Upstream Chemical $79,328 42.03 22.97 31.16 (28.56) 0.16 0.21
Upstream Metals $65,636 17.52 (1.29) 18.71 2.58 1.04 1.17
ALL MANUFACTURING $75,335 34.88 (15.95) 7.42 17.10 N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $72,818 30.37
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on EMSI, 2017

283
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

cent of its jobs. With a lag time between the 2008 crisis and changes to office furniture orders,
the trend has slowly, reversed, and, since 2012, employment has started growing again, mainly
thanks to new investments in production processes (Gupta and Subramanian 2008).
Medical Devices is another important cluster, assisted by the “MiDevice” consortium. It is
comprised of 20 leading medical device manufacturers and suppliers in the Grand Rapids MSA
and many others located within the western Michigan region. The MiDevice collaboration
involves meetings in order to identify industry trends, share best practices, and collaborate on
projects (Atkins et al. 2011). This increased the concentration of medical device manufacturers
in the region and subsequently employment which grew by 29 per cent during 2001–​2016. As
health services is one of the fastest growing clusters in the midwest, the medical devices cluster
certainly has a market to serve.
Finally, it is worth pointing out the Food Processing cluster as a successful example of indus-
tries that adapted and grew stronger during and after the 2007–​2009 crisis. The region had long
ago attracted major food processing and manufacturing companies such as Kellogg Co., Frito-​
Lay, and Coca Cola, and has gained further prominence as one of the .. hubs for beer making
(Feeney 2017; Jones 2018; Lorr 2018).
The transformation among the manufacturing clusters is embodied by the growth of Food
Processing (driven by beer making), and is mirrored among the service clusters by the emer-
gence of Health Services (Table 21.5) Employment in this cluster had been continuously rising
in 2001–​2016, and in 2016 it employed 68,853 people. During the past two decades, colleges in
Michigan have opened medical facilities in the “Medical Mile” (Valade 2017;Van Andel 2018), a
hub of health care facilities uncommon to a city of Grand Rapids’ size and scope. The Medical
Mile is aptly named for the research institutes and health care training facilities just outside of the
central business district. Salaries in this cluster are not very high, with the average being $55,442,
just a little below the annual median earnings.This characteristic is worrying in light of the losses
suffered by service and manufacturing clusters combined since 2001.

Resilience in multiple fronts

When looking at the performance of service clusters (Table 21.5), it is evident that the Grand
Rapids MSA has undergone two shifts in its economic fabric.The first shift is marked by service
industry employment growth outpacing manufacturing. The former has increased steadily since
2001, although this growth has been slower in post 2012 than those of services. The second shift
has occurred in the composition of services: several clusters have experienced a long period of
decline, losing as much as 94 per cent of their employment, while others, for example Local
Health and Distribution, have decisively expanded their employment levels. These two shifts
reinforced the view of Grand Rapids as a place where resilience has taken two forms.The first is
an adaptive resilience, where there is a shift towards a service-​based, lower-​paying service clusters.
The second, concentrated in more recent years, is a “bouncing back” resilience, where manufac-
turing clusters have started to grow their presence again through the expansion of new clusters,
and the partial recovery of pre-​existing ones.

Racine: hoping for resilience on the Root River

Racine developed around the mouth of the Root River in the heavily industrialized south-
eastern corner of Wisconsin. Located 70 miles north of Chicago, the city became nationally
known in the mid-​1800s for agricultural manufacturing innovations.The most notable company
was Case Corporation, now integrated into CNH Global’s farming and construction equipment.

284
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Table 21.5 Employment in Service clusters in Grand Rapids-​Wyoming, 2001–​2016

Service Clusters Avg. % diffe- % % % Location Location

earnings rence changes changes change quotient quotient
per job with jobs jobs jobs in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) median 2001–​ 2007–​ 2012–​
income 2016 2016 2016

Business Services $76,829 37.55 (0.59) 2.56 19.16 0.67 0.63

Communication $65,505 17.28 (48.39) (41.49) (9.70) 0.69 0.36
Distribution and $67,174 20.27 22.04 18.95 26.50 1.16 1.47
E-​commerce
Education and Knowledge $50,422 (9.72) 71.27 24.49 3.74 0.75 0.43
Creation
Electric Generation and $182,549 226.84 (78.31) (79.89) (58.92) 0.27 0.22
Transmission
Environmental Services $68,409 22.48 (40.91) (21.82) 30.72 1.98 1.52
Financial Services $107,247 92.01 (50.08) (46.66) (25.72) 0.48 0.37
Fish and Fishing Products Insf. Data N/​A (62.85) (33.33) (68.15) 0.11 0.07
Hospitality and Tourism $29,776 (46.69) 69.63 42.69 24.57 0.57 0.60
Insurance $73,329 31.29 54.48 14.57 9.69 0.69 1.05
Local Health $55,442 (0.74) 49.55 27.37 11.30 0.99 0.94
Marketing $49,230 (11.86) 42.09 14.21 (3.53) 0.77 0.88
Transportation and $60,850 8.95 32.30 32.98 34.39 0.53 0.90
Logistics
Water Transportation $31,194 (44.15) (94.17) (90.97) (50.00) 0.09 0.02
ALL SERVICES $70,612 26.42 29.27 16.53 12.74 N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $60,521 8.36
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on EMSI, 2017

Later, SC Johnson evolved into a global leader in cleaning products, storage solutions, pest con-
trol, and shoe and auto care. SC Johnson’s global headquarters are still in Racine. Other manufac-
turing firms made automobiles, heat exchangers, drills, kitchen appliances, and garbage disposals,
making the city known for its metallurgy.
Racine was hit hard by deindustrialization and the 2008 economic crisis. Over these
years, businesses left the city, and the population continued its long and gradual decline. Real
estate values in the city stagnated and poverty level is higher than in adjacent communities
(Johnson Foundation 2017). The median income in 2016 was $49,868 but obscures small-​scale
municipality-​to-​municipality differences whereby the city lags behind its suburbs.

Response to the Crisis

Employment in manufacturing clusters declined by 20.7 per cent during 2001–​2016 and only a
few clusters had a weak bounce back in the 2007–​2016 period, which never reached pre-​crisis
levels. Similarly, Service clusters had also experienced a small (0.3 per cent) decline during 2001–​
2016 with the exception of the local health cluster.
As shown in Table 21.6, Racine’s largest manufacturing clusters are Downstream Chemicals
and Production Technology and Heavy Machinery (PTHM). The former evolves around SC
Johnson Inc., whose global headquarters are still in Racine. In the 2001–​2016 period the cluster’s

285
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Table 21.6 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in Racine, 2001–​2016

Manufacturing Clusters Avg. % diffe- % % % Location Location

earnings rence changes changes change quotient quotient
per job with jobs jobs jobs in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) median 2001–​ 2007–​ 2012–​
income 2016 2016 2016

Aerospace $70,961 42.30 1.12 20.00 12.50 0.19 0.31

Automotive $94,242 88.98 (3.59) 12.82 0.70 2.50 3.31
Biopharmaceuticals Insf. Data -​ -​ -​ -​ 0.00 0.00
Downstream Chemicals $181,361 263.68 (20.18) (15.80) (7.16) 19.12 18.60
Downstream Metals $59,730 19.78 31.13 3.13 0.00 1.07 1.67
Food Processing $73,048 46.48 0.93 11.41 (12.70) 3.97 3.90
Furniture $13,568 (72.79) (43.35) (32.58) 11.21 0.39 0.45
Information Technology $72,363 45.11 (15.58) (9.00) (4.10) 0.59 0.58
Medical Devices $83,707 67.86 (57.62) (53.85) (58.84) 1.93 0.41
Metal Working $62,426 25.18 (47.97) (9.53) (14.27) 2.27 2.69
Paper $78,719 57.86 6.58 19.08 3.81 0.81 1.04
Plastics $69,129 38.62 0.77 (19.51) 22.50 1.14 0.55
Printing $50,320 0.91 (34.15) 15.71 15.01 0.96 1.62
Production (PTHM) $79,872 60.17 (35.75) (1.44) (16.08) 3.98 4.71
Recreation equipment $69,707 39.78 54.04 13.55 15.27 6.35 13.05
Trailer $95,228 90.96 (33.92) (5.41) 23.30 20.81 22.04
Upstream Chemical $117,863 136.35 708.33 (13.39) (8.49) 1.38 1.38
Upstream Metals $64,983 30.31 (35.71) (5.52) (1.72) 0.45 1.43
ALL MANUFACTURING $78,661 57.74 (20.72) (3.00) (4.83) N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $97,704 95.93
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on EMSI, 2017

employment declined significantly (20.18 per cent), especially during the 2007–​2016 period
when it lost about 500 jobs or 15.8 per cent of its employees.
As with Johnson Wax, CNH Global is Racine’s other iconic manufacturing firm. Through
mergers and global integration of the manufacturing process, the former J.I. Case Tractor com-
pany provides six continents with farming and construction equipment. This firm is the largest
reason why Table 21.6’s PTHM cluster has a significantly high Location Quotient. This cluster
and other manufacturing clusters faced challenges of employment decline. Today they also have
a skill mismatch problem as they have trouble finding properly trained employees for their highly
digitized manufacturing process (Engel and Longworth 2012).
Service employment was also hit by the 2008 crisis (Table 21.7). Noticeably, compared to
the other cities (Duluth and Grand Rapids), most of the service clusters declined after the crisis.
Local Health is the leading cluster with the highest employment, plus above-​median salaries,
and is relatively stable. Rather than a manufacturing firm, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare is
the MSA’s largest employer (see Racine County Economic Development Corp.). Distribution
and E-​commerce Industries, Environmental Services, and Transportation and Logistics clusters
are performing fine. Finally, the city had an increase in low-​paying (43 per cent below the
median) Hospitality and Tourism jobs, although the city is underdeveloped as a tourism
attraction.

286
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Table 21.7 Employment in Service clusters in Racine, 2001–​2016

Service Clusters Avg. % diffe- % % % Location Location

earnings rence with changes changes change quotient quotient
per job median jobs jobs jobs in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) income 2001–​ 2007–​ 2012–​
2016 2016 2016

Business Services $79,346 59.11 10.79 (11.49) (1.28) 0.42 0.21

Communication $88,191 76.85 (74.65) (21.74) (41.94) 0.10 0.06
Distribution and $55,660 11.61 (23.91) (18.88) 14.43 0.97 0.90
E-​commerce
Education and Knowledge $54,122 8.53 (1.95) 10.79 0.40 0.46 0.29
Creation
Electric Power Generation Insf. Data -​ -​ -​ -​ 0.19 0.04
and Transmission
Environmental Services $55,619 11.53 172.86 89.11 103.19 0.79 9.21
Financial Services $98,537 97.59 51.69 (35.69) (18.26) 0.50 0.34
Fish and Fishing Insf. Data -​ -​ -​ -​ 0.16 0.02
Products
Hospitality and Tourism $28,006 (43.84) 13.18 4.65 4.87 0.62 0.73
Insurance $71,850 44.08 (53.71) (38.64) (14.74) 0.15 0.16
Local Health $58,859 18.03 9.24 3.67 (4.71) 0.99 1.19
Marketing $53,648 7.58 (50.28) (55.48) (1.12) 0.45 0.24
Transportation and $69,073 38.51 23.28 10.73 11.95 0.37 0.25
Logistics
Water Transportation Insf. Data -​ -​ -​ -​ 0.00 0.01
ALL SERVICES $64,810 29.96 (0.34) (5.48) (0.40) N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $58,080 16.47
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on EMSI, 2017

Overall between 2001–​2016, Racine’s manufacturing legacy and path dependence continued
(Martin and Sunley 2006). Meanwhile, the sector employed a lower percentage of residents as time
progressed. This reflects what Walker (2000, p.126) described as path dependency: “choices made
in the past, technologies embodied in machinery and product design, firm assets, gained patents,
or specific competencies or labor skills acquired through learning, influence subsequent choices
of methods, designs and practices […] This logic applies to regional location as well”. Today, many
manufacturing plants have relocated from Racine to the south or abroad. One example is Hamilton
Beach, a pioneering kitchen appliance company which left Racine in 1968. Other manufacturing
employers do not create as many jobs due to digitalization and productivity gains (Acemoglu 2017).
More specific, Racine is facing unprecedented workforce challenges: despite the highest
unemployment in the state, employers are finding it difficult to find workers with appropriate
skillsets (Racine County Economic Development report). This is mostly due to differences
between the skillsets businesses require and the skillsets of many local residents (Engel and
Longworth 2012).
Overall, only a few manufacturing industries have grown; these firms are located outside of
the city proper. Disparities between the downtown area and the city’s suburbs make development
and income opportunities even harder for the disadvantaged populations. Transit opportunities

287
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

are problematic: although there is a bus system, the lack of mobility to commute between home
and well-​paying employment options appears to be a challenge, as is a perception of sub-​par
training for skilled labor (Johnson 2014).
As with other Great Lakes coastal communities, new manufacturing plants are dispropor-
tionately smaller niche firms in suburban locations outside of the central city, which shrinks the
city’s tax base. The city started the “Build up Racine” initiative to provide business tools and
financial and technical assistance with available properties or any other help that new businesses
might need.The “Visioning a Greater Racine” group seeks to galvanize an identity and coherent
visioning for the urban and suburban areas of the MSA. As legacy cities benefit from philan-
thropic groups, the Johnson Foundation’s “Resilient Communities” Forum generates dialogue
about how the City of Racine and nearby communities can work together to achieve greater
resiliency, concluding that more effective cross-​municipal governance would make the City of
Racine and surrounding areas more resilient to economic stress.
Although Racine has transportation opportunities and challenges typical of a Great Lakes
legacy urban area, nearby communities are slightly more locationally advantageous. Racine sits
in the shadow of Milwaukee County to the north and Chicago to the south. Within heavily
urbanized southeastern Wisconsin, Racine’s relative distance to airports, the interstate, and nearby
more affluent communities diminishes Racine’s locational benefits. While the MSA is situated
between Milwaukee and Chicago, the location of Interstate 94 eight miles west of the city center
attracts well-​paying service sector jobs in logistics and supply chain management there rather
than to the City. For instance, the Interstate 94 corridor of the Racine MSA has a variety of fac-
tories and transportation jobs and are included in Racine MSA employment statistics, but those
employees do not necessarily live or spend money in the legacy city itself.
Southeastern Wisconsin as a whole is doing well. Immediately outside the MSA boundary,
recent growth of well-​paying service sector jobs has outpaced Racine. Across the county line
from the Racine MSA, Kenosha County’s stretch of Interstate 94 is home to the corporate head-
quarters of ULINE shipping supplies, plus their 1.1 million square foot logistics and distribution
facility. Jelly Belly candy corporation, and Amazon also are some of the companies who chose
Kenosha’s Interstate 94 corridor for transportation benefits, large parcels of land, tax incentives,
and legal access to the Lake Michigan watershed. For instance, Kenosha’s part of the Interstate
94 corridor is home to roughly 1.6 million square feet of Amazon distribution and fulfill-
ment center. Like Kenosha, Amazon is planning a 2.5 million square foot facility in Oak Creek
(Hess 2018), plus Oak Creek has regional distribution centers for the US Postal Service, global
shipping company UPS and Aldi. Oak Creek has locational advantages over Racine in that it
is just south of Mitchell International Airport, a medium-​sized aviation hub. Over the years,
regional transportation planning authorities have recommended building a freeway connecting
the City of Racine to other urban markets, but lack of local and state cooperation held those
back.There are heavily used rail lines for freight, and an Amtrak intercity train route, but no light
rail currently exists.
Racine’s reliance on manufacturing served the area exceptionally well when manufacturing
was not nearly as globally integrated. Given that well-​paying jobs in the Racine MSA have been
reliant upon manufacturing, high-​end management jobs for manufacturing, and local govern-
ment, lack of cooperation with nearby municipalities, transportation, and lack of skilled workers,
the area struggles to keep up in its contemporary transition to a service-​oriented economy.
In this case, the Racine MSA shows little resilience, possibly arising from the lack of broader
coordinated policies within the region, and emerging competition, rather than cooperation
among communities in eastern Wisconsin.

288
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Hoping for Help: The Future with Foxconn

In 2017, the State of Wisconsin awarded Foxconn $3 billion in subsidies to locate in the Village
of Mount Pleasant, Racine County, between Interstate 94 and the City of Racine (Lang 2018).
The scale of this proposed Foxconn plant may create business synergies within the Racine MSA
through economies of scale and policy initiatives.The deal depended on other intergovernmental
and public–​private agreements such as land acquisition, rollback of environmental regulations,
and discount of fees. For instance, Foxconn’s August 2018 agreement with the Racine Water
Utility to drop water hookup fees by 85 per cent may foster growth of other water-​intensive
businesses in rural areas of the MSA presently dependent upon well water and subject to worries
of aquifer degradation (Romell 2018). Proponents suggest that intergovernmental cooperation
such as the water agreement can help the development of high-​paying jobs in the MSA, even as
critics cast doubt about how much the skilled manufacturing jobs will benefit low-​skilled City
of Racine residents (Marquette University Law School Poll 2018).
In many ways, city leaders strive to cooperate with surrounding municipalities within
and outside of the MSA boundary, yet pushback originates amongst citizens of lower-​taxed
municipalities who fear lack of local control, and increased costs. (Wisconsin Budget Project
2017). Together, state and local incentives for Foxconn are unprecedented for Wisconsin but
are viewed by proponents as a way to serve as a catalyst for a once-​proud manufacturing hub.
Whether success or failure, economic development leaders in other legacy cities are presum-
ably looking to the greater Racine area to see if the policy initiatives necessary to attract
Foxconn will actually create multiplier effects optimal to fuel an economic resilience success
story amongst legacy cities.

South Bend MSA: Reinventing manufacturing legacy through

r&d and innovative products
Located 150 kilometers east of Chicago, the South Bend MSA is the second largest of the four
case studies, both in terms of MSA population and city proper. Entrepreneurs saw profit in geog-
raphy: nearby resources of hardwood forests, navigable St Joseph River, land-​based trade routes,
and the resulting accessibility to a growing Great Lakes region. The heavily-​used St Joseph
River and its man-​made canal ways and dams provided a growing and diversified manufacturing
agglomeration with hydroelectric power. Studebaker Corporation became a large wagon and
automobile manufacturer between 1852 and 1967. The carmaker outsourced its South Bend
plant in 1963, resulting in default on pensions and resulting in local-​scale crisis (Monk 2008).
Although Studebaker is arguably South Bend’s most famous corporation, other now defunct
car and wagon companies plus clusters of woolen mills, paper mills, followed waterway devel-
opment. Singer Sewing, a household name in clothes manufacturing, made sewing machine
cabinets here using Indiana hardwoods. Bendix Manufacturing Corporation was an early 1900s
world leader in car brakes, electric starters for cars, and, later, aviation parts. Through a series of
mergers, subsidiary creation, and the occasional buyback, Bendix’s product lines live on through
Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems, part of Munich-​based Knorr-​Bremse, and other products
with Bosch and Honeywell (Knorr-​Bremse 2018). As shown through Bendix, South Bend’s eco-
nomic resilience story, then, is one of a diversified manufacturing sector caught up in mergers
and acquisitions elsewhere in the Global North. As with most other Great Lakes legacy cities
today, the service sector grows faster than manufacturing, and manufacturing’s future might lie
with nimble, small-​scale firms.

289
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Responding to Crisis
Like other cities in the study, South Bend’s manufacturing was hard-​hit during 2007–​2008.
Between 2001 and 2016 the MSA lost 26.4 per cent of its manufacturing jobs. Despite the overall
lower employment however, some specific manufacturing clusters bounced back in 2012–​2016.
Their strategy for growth includes creating a vibe around high-​tech and innovation industries,
trying to imitate the Silicon Valley, and Research Triangle paradigms. South Bend’s Innovation Park
at Notre Dame and the Ignition Park that the city promoted as a high-​tech hub are examples of
these strategy. Given the focus on innovation, Information Technology and Production Technology
and Heavy Machinery clusters have shown some growth, although the former has experienced a
major decline in employment in 2012–​2016. Although higher than the local median income, sal-
aries in these clusters are lower than all other MSAs examined, possibly signaling the lower-​level
positions available in the area. Biopharmaceuticals manufacturing and medical device manufac-
turing, both related to the high-​tech sector have experienced similar employment dynamics, with
slowed growth (or even employment decline) in the most recent years after the crisis. The clusters
have a good location quotient and very high average salaries, which indicates that adaptation efforts
for new specializations and growth is focused on the right industries.
Automotive, the largest and most devastated manufacturing cluster, declined in employment
for the whole 2001–​2016 period and lost more than 3,000 employees or 46 per cent of its
employment. Plastics, Aerospace and Upstream Metals cluster had a good response to the crisis
in the 2008–​2016 period, and managed to attract some new businesses. Similarly, Upstream
Chemicals, Trailers, and Medical Devices cluster also had a rise in employment during 2007–​
2016, a high location quotient and high salaries. Similar to the case of Duluth MSA, collabor-
ation with the University of Notre Dame assisted many local industries. The Midwest Institute
for Nanotechnology, Turbomachinery Research Facility, and life sciences innovator companies
such as Zimmer, OrthoPediatrics, and Biomet, are some examples of industries that benefit from
the related collaboration.
South Bend serves as a regional center for service sector jobs. The city proper, the University
of Notre Dame campus, and adjacent Mishawaka are the physical locations containing all of
the top ten employers in St Joseph County (Hoosiers 2018). During 2001–​2016 (Table 21.9)
service clusters gained about 8,000 jobs, an 18.6 per cent increase. The leading employer is the
University of Notre Dame, the preeminent Catholic, global research university whose perennial
pull factors of talent and money make other sectors of South Bend’s economy more resilient
than they otherwise would have been (see Economic Impact of Notre Dame Report 2017).
High-​end service sector jobs are also found through finance and insurance. Financial employ-
ment today is through the kinds of jobs typically found in markets of this size. The headquar-
ters for AM General (2018), a major defense and transportation contractor, and Liberty Mutual
Insurance contributes importantly to high-​ end service sector jobs through its downtown
Mishawaka office, making that cluster one of Table 21.9’s highest-​paying. Although declining in
terms of absolute employment, the presence of these actors has supported the Insurance cluster
in expanding its relative specialization.
Transportation and Logistics and Distribution and E-​commerce appears to be some promising
clusters as companies in the MSA seek to capitalize upon its premier location. Both clusters had
a small decline in employment during 2001–​2016. The Distribution and E-​commerce cluster is
a major employer with 4,456 jobs in 2016, while Transportation and Logistics had about 1,568
jobs in 2016. Due to its proximity to Chicago MSA the availability and connectivity between
different modes of transport and the easy access to 70 per cent of US market and Canada by
Short Sea Shipping, South Bend is promoting itself as a potential hub center. The nearby city of

290
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Table 21.8 Employment in Manufacturing clusters in South Bend, 2001–​2016

Manufacturing Avg. % diffe- % changes % changes % Location Location

Clusters earnings rence with jobs jobs change quotient quotient
per job median 2001–2
​ 016 2007–​ jobs in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) income 2016 2012–​
2016

Aerospace $112,018 130.63 (43.83) (20.96) (19.26) 1.60 1.41

Automotive $74,483 53.35 (46.18) (52.35) (5.41) 3.97 1.93
Biopharmaceuticals $134,756 177.44 1,757.89 1,434.78 (6.37) 0.22 0.96
Downstream $67,887 39.77 (29.66) (34.90) (29.96) 1.02 0.68
Chemicals
Downstream Metals $50,331 3.63 (51.71) (20.28) 22.91 0.70 0.48
Food Processing $48,053 (1.07) 40.35 7.65 7.83 0.67 0.67
Furniture $51,279 5.58 (45.86) (37.28) 227.98 0.78 0.78
Information $50,345 3.65 53.11 45.48 (48.85) 0.32 0.78
Technology
Medical Devices $80,766 66.29 (11.19) 51.59 2.00 1.46 2.56
Metal Working $74,398 53.18 (22.34) (17.13) (17.40) 3.32 2.82
Paper $61,386 26.39 (15.49) 3.29 8.42 0.65 0.95
Plastics $50,488 3.95 (9.42) (7.37) 16.85 3.50 3.96
Printing $52,771 8.65 (25.34) (29.21) 4.90 0.61 0.58
Production (PTHM) $66,956 37.85 (25.76) 56.55 29.29 0.61 0.99
Recreation $44,137 (9.13) (55.93) (52.73) 52.94 0.26 0.08
Equipment
Trailer $53,554 10.26 (78.80) 51.46 4.70 0.62 0.51
Upstream Chemical $84,927 74.85 57.89 65.00 10.37 2.52 2.26
Upstream Metals $70,220 44.57 (24.73) 6.71 19.18 2.50 3.51
ALL MANUFACTURING $68,264 40.55 (26.39) (16.39) (0.20) N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $68,988 42.04
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on EMSI, 2017

Elkhart and its growing manufacturing sector offers a great market to serve. As a whole, these
service positions pay wages lower than the median household income in the MSA, thus once
more signaling a worrying path shifting from higher-​paying positions in manufacturing towards
lower-​paying positions in services. The lost jobs and the lower location quotient however indi-
cate that South Bend has a long way to go if service income is to serve as a replacement for lost
manufacturing earnings.

Dreaming for a Spot as the Innovators of the Future

Over the last eight years, the MSA is rebranding itself as an innovation hub. Traditionally strong
manufacturing clusters such as Trailers and Aerospace were not given much attention and the
MSA believes in adaptation through new technology. The city’s ambitious plan did not yield
results yet, but this might be an early stage during this transformational phase. After redevelop-
ment in the downtown area, service employment grew, and some neighborhoods have seen a
spurt of retail and restaurant growth but, unlike other cities, the local economy did not transition
to new service clusters, just offered low-​end jobs in education,Tourism, and Health clusters.The

291
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Table 21.9 Employment in Service clusters in South Bend, 2001–​2016

Service Clusters Avg. % % % % Location Location

earnings Difference changes changes change quotient quotient
per job with jobs jobs jobs in 2007 in 2016
(2016 $) median 2001–​ 2007–​ 2012–​
income 2016 2016 2016

Business Services $90,449 86.22 36.70 29.81 30.38 0.41 0.41

Communication $115,319 137.43 (64.37) (31.25) (12.87) 0.10 0.39
Distribution and $61,914 27.47 (5.37) (8.95) 1.30 0.74 0.75
E-​commerce
Education and $45,436 (6.45) 65.34 20.22 1.28 0.95 0.91
Knowledge Creation
Electric Power Insf. Data -​ (97.03) (96.53) (37.50) 0.24 0.06
Generation and
Transmission
Environmental $42,642 (12.21) (29.03) 18.92 33.33 0.43 0.41
Services
Financial Services $112,443 131.51 (58.70) (46.97) 0.93 0.39 0.24
Fish and Fishing Insf. Data -​ -​ -​ -​ 0.08 0.05
Products
Hospitality and $26,548 (45.34) 15.96 18.15 16.27 0.53 0.42
Tourism
Insurance $89,578 84.43 (27.49) (16.72) (4.13) 1.07 1.26
Local Health $56,580 16.49 11.59 12.71 6.93 1.06 0.95
Marketing $69,398 42.88 (11.44) (11.97) (7.22) 0.65 0.57
Transportation and $59,311 22.11 (1.09) (19.79) (3.79) 1.45 0.78
Logistics
Water Transportation Insf. Data -​ 0.00 (64.29) 0.00 0.18 0.06
ALL SERVICES $69,965 44.05 18.58 9.01 5.37 N/​A N/​A
AVERAGE EARNINGS $57,245 17.86
(WEIGHTED)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on EMSI, 2017

local university, Notre Dame, as well as collaboration with nearby cities, boosted results in sev-
eral clusters and seems to be the economy’s main asset. Other Service clusters experienced an
increase in employment but later lost employment, especially in better paying clusters.
Overall, South Bend’s economy is not one of the most well-​adapted MSAs in our study.
Although the city’s leadership tried to attract high-​end, well-​paying industries they did not
develop them enough or improve the current salary levels, which are the lowest between the
MSAs in our study. At the end of 2016, the city had lost both manufacturing and service jobs and
failed to face the challenges associated with economic restructuring and the population’s educa-
tional level changes. And while South Bend was trying to shake off the remnants of the recession,
nearby Elkhart County has emerged as perhaps northern Indiana’s best economic engine, by
developing their manufacturing clusters. South Bend leaders seem to know their MSA mostly
offers lower-​end employment but through some of their Services clusters (Business, Insurance,
Transportation etc.) they are trying to offer a healthier and more diverse marketplace.
The University of Notre Dame gives South Bend some resiliency in terms of employment,
property values, and other multiplier effects that many Great Lakes legacy cities do not have.

292
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Notre Dame is increasingly participating with the city; outside the university’s original mission
but viewed largely as mutually beneficial. Abandoned properties such as the former Studebaker
plant are increasingly priorities for government. The Studebaker plant has recently become
Ignition Park, whose name refers to automotive heritage while focusing on cultivating spin-​offs
from Notre Dame and small businesses.
The region’s ability to develop, attract, and keep talent here is the root factor that will deter-
mine whether the South Bend area can develop greater economic resiliency. Similar to other
legacy cities, the region is still struggling to evolve its manufacturing legacy, retrain its work-
force and find skilled workers. Manufacturing industries can still offer better jobs, but business
owners have long ago expressed their struggle to find people who can work with computerized
machinery (Center of Workforce Innovations 2004).
South Bend’s strategies to accelerate growth in these clusters include talent retention and
attraction, a culture of entrepreneurship, start-​up funding, collaborative efforts with nearby muni-
cipalities in the region, and a goal to improve educational attainment rates. Proclamations from
current South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and other leaders make claims of targeted, place-​based
strategies to incubate homegrown manufacturing firms.Tax increment financing is a tool used in
South Bend and other Great Lakes legacy cities to serve as a catalyst for developing underutilized
spaces (Wiles 2013). Local policies also emphasize incubation of preexisting small businesses
rather than the oft-​criticized method of incentivizing corporations to relocate to a community,
such as efforts by the State of Wisconsin and local municipalities to lure Foxconn to eastern
Racine County (Minter 2012;Wiles 2013). Future scholars will chronicle the extent of success of
recent approaches to cultivate manufacturing in South Bend and other Great Lakes legacy cities.

Conclusions
In this chapter, we presented how four MSAs from the US Great Lakes region have fared and
responded to long-​term decline and recent financial and economic shocks. Although oper-
ating under a diverse range of jurisdictional arrangements, three of the four MSAs in this study
share a common narrative of crisis and recovery, challenged sometimes by path dependencies,
but bolstered by a spirit of resilience and civic pride common among legacy cities (Longworth
2017). This chapter hopes to inform scholars and policymakers about challenges in Great Lakes
urban areas in the 2001–​2016 period. While each resilience case is unique, the following themes
unite these cases and can inform a framework for understanding what works to turnaround cities
and the kind of resilience one can expect from legacy cities.
Overall, we observed more adaptation and transformation in the regional economy than
forms of “recovery”. This conclusion is in line with recent findings on the fast-​paced transform-
ation of the US manufacturing sector, which requires fewer and fewer labor inputs (Accemoglu
and Restrepo 2017, Muro et al. 2017, Hicks and Devaraj 2015). Even the MSA with the greatest
ability to recover from the recent financial crisis, Grand Rapids, has coped with its recovery
through a combination of emerging manufacturing sectors (with lower overall employment),
and expansion of services (often with lower-​paying jobs). The MSA’s strategy included many
collaborative efforts by several group of business leaders from both large firms in the area’s major
industries (such as furniture) and smaller, start-​up firms in other industries. At the other end
of the spectrum, Racine has showed a more limited ability to cope with the long and short-​
term negative economic shocks that affected the region. Competition from surrounding MSAs,
and a lack of strategic leadership capable of initiating the adaptive transformation necessary to
cope with global changes have left the city employment landscape almost equally split into two
declining groups of clusters.

293
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

The story of Racine MSA, and its comparison with the other three MSAs, provides us with
a few lessons for policymakers and researchers. Firstly, diversification, whether within manu-
facturing or as part of a shift towards services, has paid off in terms of overall employment,
partly reducing the risks that MSAs have been exposed to by national and global negative eco-
nomic shocks. Furthermore, local leadership (at county and city level) and regional leadership (at
state and regional level) matter. The examples of Grand Rapids and Duluth, with their efforts to
improve the local economy through a mix of public–​private partnerships, and state funding (par-
ticularly in Duluth) has initiated and sustained a transition process within these cities. Similarly, in
South Bend, the role of a large private university has supported the expansion of innovation parks,
although it is unclear how much local “buy-​in” and state support has been implemented. Finally,
a worrying sign emerges from the overall lower wages paid by consumer service clusters, even
when excluding tourism-​related industries.These characteristics signal to policymakers what they
should consider carefully, and researchers should observe more closely. If transformative resilience
means a new economic landscape where the jobs created pay lower wages, the result will still hurt
local economies, resulting in a non-​desirable transition towards a new economic reality.
To conclude, regarding the kind of resilience that these MSAs exhibited, it is now possible to
say that, except for Racine MSA, the other MSAs followed an adaptive resilience, diversifying
their economic profile by enhancing service clusters when manufacturing jobs moved away or
ceased to exist. This confirms previous findings (Atkins et al. 2012) and contributes additional
evidence that the resilience framework can strengthen some basic known arguments derived
from evolutionary economics, such as related and unrelated variety, the advantages of diversity
for a regional economy, coevolution and the importance of seeing regional economies as path-​
dependent systems (Martin 2012).

Note
1 For a review of the concept of maritime clusters, see: Dolreaux (2017). For the Blue economy,
see: Eikeset et al. (2018) and Ketels and Protsiv (2016).

References
Acemoglu, D. and Restrepo, P. (2017). Robots and jobs: Evidence from US labor markets. (No. w23285).
Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Alanen, A.R. (2007). Morgan Park: Duluth, US Steel, and the Forging of a Company Town. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
AM General (2018). Our Story. www.amgeneral.com/​our-​story. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Annarelli, A. and Nonino, F. (2016). Strategic and operational management of organizational resili-
ence: Current state of research and future directions. Omega. 62: 1–​18.
Atkins, P., Blumenthal, P., Edisis, A., Friedhoff, A., Curran, L., Lowry, L., St Clair T., Wial H., and Wolman,
H. (2011). Responding to Manufacturing Job Loss: What Can Economic Development Policy Do?
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
Austin, J.C., Anderson, S., Courant, P.N., and Litan, R.E. (2007). Healthy Waters, Strong Economy: The
Benefits of Restoring the Great Lakes Ecosystem, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution and the
Great Lakes Economic Initiative.
Bartik, T.J. (2018). Helping manufacturing-​intensive communities: What works?. Prepared for Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). http://​research.upjohn.org/​reports/​232. (Accessed August
29, 2018).
Berkes, F., Folke, C., and Colding, J. (eds.) (2000). Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management
Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Carter, D.K., (2016). Remaking Post-​ Industrial Cities: Lessons from North America and Europe.
New York: Routledge.

294
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Center of Workforce Innovations (2004). Precision equipment manufacturing: an overview of advanced

manufacturing in northwest Indiana. www.innovativeworkforce.com/​wp-​content/​uploads/​2013/​12/​
Adv_​mfg.pdf.
Chandler, D. (2014). Resilience –​The Governance of Complexity. New York: Routledge.
City of Duluth Comprehensive Plan (2006). Economic profile: Duluth in the regional economy. www.
duluthmn.gov/​media/​453379/​Economics.pdf. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
City of Racine Redevelopment Authority (2018). Build up Racine. www.buildupracine.org/​why-​racine-​
for-​business/​market/​. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Cronon, B., (1991). Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West New York. New York: W.W. Norton.
Davoudi, S. (2017). Self-​reliant resiliency and neoliberal mentality: A critical reflection. In: Governing for
Resilience in Vulnerable Places. London: Routledge, 1–​6.
Davoudi, S. and Porter, L. (2012). Resilience: a bridging concept or a dead end? Planning Theory and
Practice. 13: 299–​307
Delgado, M., Porter, M.E., and Stern, S. (2014). Clusters, convergence, and economic performance. Research
policy. 43(10): 1785–​1799.
Doloreux, D. (2017). What is a maritime cluster?. Marine Policy. 83: 215–​220.
Eikeset, A.M., Mazzarella, A.B., Davíðsdóttir, B., Klinger, D.H., Levin, S.A., Rovenskaya, E., and Stenseth,
N.C. (2018). What is blue growth? The semantics of “Sustainable Development” of marine environ-
ments. Marine Policy. 87: 177–​179.
Engel, E. and Longworth, S. (2012). Industrial cities initiative: working paper summary. Profitwise.
(Aug): 2–​17.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2018). GLRI Projects, February 2018. www.glri.us/​projects.
(Accessed August 30, 2018).
Executive Office of the President-​Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (2017). North American
Industry Classification System. www.census.gov/​eos/​www/​naics/​2017NAICS/​2017_​NAICS_​
Manual.pdf. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Federal Reserve Economic Data (2018). Real Gross Domestic Product. https://​fred.stlouisfed.org/​series/​
GDPC1 (Accessed January 9, 2019).
Federal Reserve Economic Data (2019). Real Median Household Income in the United States. https://​
fred.stlouisfed.org/​series/​MEHOINUSA672N (Accessed January 9, 2019).
Feeney, A.E. (2017). Beer-​trail maps and the growth of experiential tourism. Cartographic Perspectives, 87.
Flew, T. and Cunningham, S. (2010). Creative industries after the first decade of debate. The information
society. 26(2). 113–​123.
Great Lake Committee (2018). Great Lakes Restoration at work: GLRI Projects map. https://​glrimap.glc.
org/​. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Gupta,V. and Subramanian, R. (2008). Seven perspectives on regional clusters and the case of Grand Rapids
office furniture city. International Business Review. 17(4): 371–​384.
Halaas, G. (2005). The Rural Physician Associate Program: Successful outcomes in primary care and rural
practice. Rural and Remote Health. 5: 453. www.rrh.org.au/​journal/​article/​453.
Hess, C. (2018). Amazon planning distribution center in Oak Creek, in BizTime Milwaukee Business News.
www.biztimes.com/​2018/​industries/​real-​estate/​amazon-​planning-​distribution-​center-​in-​oak-​creek/​.
(Accessed August 29, 2018).
Hicks, M.J. and Devaraj, S. (2015). The myth and the reality of manufacturing in America. Center for
Business and Economic Research. Ball State University. https://​conexus.cberdata.org/​files/​MfgReality.
pdf.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems.Annual review of ecology and systematics.
4(1): 1–​23.
Holling, C.S. (1986). The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems; local surprise and global change. In: W.C.
Clark and R.E. Munn (eds.): Sustainable Development of the Biosphere, pp. 292–​317. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hollingsworth, T. and Goebel, A. (2017). Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities: Strategies for
Postindustrial Success from Gary to Lowell. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Hoosiers (2018) www.hoosierdata.in.gov/​ major_​employers.asp?areaID=141. (Accessed on August
29, 2018).
Johnson, N.A. (2014). The (rail) road not traveled: The failure of the KRM commuter rail proposal in
Greater Milwaukee, Wi. Thesis in University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. https://​ dc.uwm.edu/​ cgi/​
viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://​scholar.google.com/​&httpsredir=1&article=1412&context=etd.
(Accessed August 29, 2018).

295
Eva Lema, Matthew Liesch, and Marcello Graziano

Johnson Foundation (2017). June 2017 Resilient Communities Briefing Series Executive Summary. www.
johnsonfdn.org/​sites/​default/​files/​1-​TJF%20Resilient%20Communities%20Series%20-​%20Exec%20
Summary_​DJ_​0.pdf. (Accessed January 8, 2019).
Jones, E. (2018). Brewing green: Sustainability in the craft beer movement. In: Craft Beverages and Tourism,
Vol. 2 (pp. 9–​26). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kelly J.F. (2016). Turnaround towns: International evidence Carnegie UK Trust, Case Study 3: Duluth,
Minnesota. https://​d1ssu070pg2v9i.cloudfront.net/​pex/​carnegie_​uk_​trust/​2016/​11/​Turnaround-​
Towns-​Case-​Study-​3-​Duluth-​Minnesota.pdf. (Accessed January 8, 2019).
Ketels, C. (2015). Clusters and regional economies: implications for the Great Lakes-​ St. Lawrence
Region, prepared for the Conference of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers
2015 Leadership Summit. www.gsgp.org/​ media/​ 1604/​ clustersregecoreport.pdf. (Accessed on 24
August, 2018).
Ketels, C. and Protsiv, S. (2016). Priority Sector Report: Blue Economy, European Cluster Observatory
Report. Brussel, Belgium: European Commission.
Knorr-​Brems (2018). More than 110 years of experience in Braking Technologies www.bendix.com/​en/​
aboutus/​g roup/​history/​historyii_​group.jsp. (Accessed on August 29, 2018).
Lang, B. (2018). Potential state and other assistance to Foxconn Memo. www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/​wp-​
content/​uploads/​2018/​01/​2018-​1-​LFB-​memo-​on-​total-​Foxconn-​costs.pdf. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Lema E., Gunther P., and Graziano M. (2017). Productivity in the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence region: Status and
trends, report prepared for the Conference for Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers. www.
gsgp.org/​media/​2015/​productivity-​in-​the-​glsl-​region-​status-​and-​trends.pdf. (Accessed August 31, 2018).
Liesch, M. (2008). A region of hope, a region of despair: Print Media, geographical imagination, and the
gogebic iron range mining boom. Historical Geography. 31(1): 182–​207.
Liesch, M. (2016). Creating Keweenaw: Parkmaking as response to post-​ mining economic decline.
Extractive Industries and Society. 3(2): 527–​538.
Longworth, S. (2017). Looking for progress in America’s smaller legacy cities: A Report for place-​based
funders. Profitwise. (3): 21–​28.
Lorr, M.J. (2018). Pure Michigan beer? Tourism, craft breweries, and sustainability. In: Craft Beverages and
Tourism,Vol. 2. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 49–​64.
Mallach, A. (2010). Rebuilding America’s Legacy Cities: New Directions for the Industrial Heartland.
American Assembly: New York: Columbia University.
Mallach, A. and Brachman, L. (2013). Regenerating America’s legacy cities. Lincoln institute of land policy.
www.lincolninst.edu/​sites/​default/​files/​pubfiles/​regenerating-​legacy-​cities-​full_​0.pdf (Accessed
September 7, 2019).
Marquette University Law School Poll (2018). https://​law.marquette.edu/​poll/​2018/​03/​05/​new-​
marquette- ​ l aw- ​ s chool- ​ p oll- ​ f inds- ​ w isconsin- ​ voters- ​ d ivided- ​ o n- ​ b enefits- ​ o f- ​ f oxconn- ​ d eal- ​ but-​
together-​in-​support-​of-​background-​checks-​for-​gun-​sales/​. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Martin Associates (2011).The economic impacts of the Great Lakes–​St. Lawrence Seaway System. Lancaster,
PA: The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation and The St. Lawrence Seaway Development
Corporation. www.greatlakes-​seaway.com/​en/​pdf/​eco_​impact_​full.pdf. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Martin, R. (2012). Regional economic resilience, hysteresis and recessionary shocks. Journal of economic
geography. 12(1): 1–​32.
Martin, R. and Sunley, P. (2006). Path dependence and regional economic evolution. Journal of economic
geography. 6(4): 395–​437.
Martin, R. and Sunley, P. (2015). On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and
explanation. Journal of Economic Geography. 15(1): 1–​42.
Miller-​Adams, M., Denny G., Behrens T., and Moody M. (2017). Understanding the Philanthropic Character
of Communities: Insights from Two West Michigan Communities. Report. Grand Rapids, MI: Grand
Valley State University, Johnson Center for Philanthropy.
Minter J. (2012). Economic gardening: Mapping fertile gardens (advisors William Drummond). https://​
smartech.gatech.edu/ ​ b itstream/ ​ h andle/ ​ 1 853/ ​ 4 3471/ ​ JohnMinter_ ​ E conomic%20Gardening.
pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Monk, A. (2008). The knot of contracts: The corporate geography of legacy costs. Economic Geography.
84(2): 211–​235. www.jstor.org/​stable/​30033173.
Muro, M., Liu, S., Whiton, J., and Kulkarni, S. (2017). Digitalization and the American workforce.
New York: Brookings Institute.
Nelson, D.R., Adger, W.N., and Brown, K. (2007). Adaptation to environmental change: Contributions of a
resilience framework. Annual review of Environment and Resources, 32.

296
 Pathways for resilience in legacy cities

Notre Dame Office of Public affairs (2017) .The economic impact of the University of Notre Dame.
https://​publicaffairs.nd.edu/​assets/​243633/​2016_​economic_​impact_​report.pdf. (Accessed August
31, 2018).
Nowlan, J. (2007). No automotive business, no problem. Industrial Distribution. 96(9): 30.
OMB (2017). Executive Office of the President-​Office of Management and Budget North American
Industry Classification System. www.census.gov/​eos/​www/​naics/​2017NAICS/​2017_​NAICS_​
Manual.pdf (Accessed September 7).
Pagano, M.A. (ed.). (2013). Metropolitan Resilience in a Time of Economic Turmoil. Chicago: University
of Illinois Press.
Porter, M.E. (2000). Location, competition, and economic development: Local clusters in a global economy.
Economic development quarterly. 14(1): 15–​34.
Pratt, A.C. (2008). Creative cities: the cultural industries and the creative class. Geografiska annaler: series
B, human geography. 90(2): 107–​117.
Racine County Economic Development Corp. https://​rcedc.org/​data-​center/​leading-​employers.
(Accessed August 29, 2018).
Racine Area Manufacturing and Commerce Report (2016). Racine County Labor Market Analysis.
https://​higherexpectationsracinecounty.org/​uploads/​ckeditor/​attachments/​112/​2016_​Racine_​Labor_​
Force_​Study.pdf. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Right Place (2018). Manufacturing in West Michigan, Furniture 2018. www.rightplace.org/​ industry-​
sectors/​smart-​manufacturing. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Romel, R. (2018). Foxconn water deal could further boost growth in Mount Pleasant. www.jsonline.
com/​story/​money/​business/​2018/​08/​17/​foxconn-​water-​deal-​could-​further-​boost-​g rowth-​mount-​
pleasant/​1018177002/​. (Last accessed August 29, 2018).
Ruff, M (2014). Once A troubled rust-​belt city, Duluth turns its finances around, Government Finance
Review, Dec 2014
Schaefer, A., Mattingly, M., and Gagnon, D.J. (2017). A demographic and economic profile of Duluth,
Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. Carsey Research 125(2). https://​ scholars.unh.edu/​ cgi/​
viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1312&context=carsey. (Accessed August 31, 2018).
Simmie, J. and Martin, R. 2010. The economic resilience of regions: Towards an evolutionary approach.
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. 3 (1): 27–​43.
South Bend Chamber of Commerce (2004). www.in.gov/​dwd/​files/​shortages_​reports2.pdf. (Accessed
August 29, 2018).
Thomas, J.M. (2012). Addressing the racial, ethnic, and class implications of legacy cities. Rebuilding
America’s Legacy Cities: New Directions for the Industrial Heartland, 223–​242.
Valade, C. (2017). Meijer, health care, research among GR’s economic catalysts Grand Rapids Business
Journal. 35(53): 4.
Van Andel, D. (2018). Medical Mile: A vision for change in Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids Business Journal.
36(1): 8.
Verso (2018), The Duluth Mill at a glance. www.versoco.com/​wps/​wcm/​connect/​0fde4ac2-​e700-​456e-​
95c2- ​ 2 e38806b2455/ ​ D uluth+Mill+Fact+Sheet+April+2018.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=
mar1FC-​. (Accessed August 31, 2018).
Walker, R.A. (2000). The geography of production. In: E.S. Sheppard and T.J. Barnes (eds.): A Companion
to Economic Geography (pp. 113–​132). Oxford: Blackwell.
Walker, B., Gunderson, L., Kinzig, A., Folke, C., Carpenter, S., and Schultz, L. (2006). A handful of
heuristics and some propositions for understanding resilience in social-​ecological systems. Ecology and
society. 11(1).
Weir, M., Pindus, N., Wial, H., and Wolman, H. (eds.). (2012). Urban and Regional Policy and its
Effects: Building Resilient Regions,Vol. 4. New York: Brookings Institution Press.
Wiles (2013). Planning for economic prosperity: A guide for preparing and implementing economic develop-
ment plans in Hoosier communities.Thesis submitted to Ball State University. http://​cardinalscholar.bsu.
edu/​bitstream/​handle/​123456789/​197219/​WilesA_​2013-​2_​BODY.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
(Accessed August 30, 2018).
Wisconsin Budget Project (2017). www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/​push-​by-​lawmakers-​to-​break-​up-​
racine-​school-​district-​could-​segregate-​students-​by-​race-​income. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Zink, T., Center, B., Finstad, D., Boulger, J.G., Repesh, L.A., Westra, R., and Brooks, K.D. (2010). Efforts
to graduate more primary care physicians and physicians who will practice in rural areas: Examining
outcomes from the University of Minnesota–​Duluth and the Rural Physician Associate Program.
Academic Medicine. 85(4). 599–​604.

297
 22
Energy dimensions of
urban resilience
Antti Silvast

Introduction
Over the past years, the concept of resilience has attracted increasing interest from various
perspectives. While the urban dimension of resilience has been of considerable interest to these
discussions, one type of resilience has received relatively little attention in urban studies: the
resilience of urban energy systems and infrastructures. This chapter provides an overview on
this intersection of urban life and energy resilience, complementing emergent urban litera-
ture on the subject (see e.g. Graham 2006, 2009; Luque-​Ayala and Marvin 2016; Sharifi and
Yamagata 2016).
Energy systems and infrastructures –​including electricity supplies, gas networks, and heating –​
are vital systems that enable the functioning of modern societies (Collier and Lakoff, 2008;
Edwards 2003). These infrastructures ensure, for the most part, smoothly functioning political
decision-​making at all levels, including military defence, products and services, security, health,
the movement of people, a functioning economy, and the welfare of populations. Infrastructures
like universal electricity provision have been also directly relevant to the maintenance of urban
life. In particular, these systems greatly enhanced the expansion of cities and became their under-
pinning support system in so doing. As urbanists Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin (2001)
showed poignantly, infrastructural networks supported and increased security, health, and welfare,
integrated people into cities, and cities into nation-​states.
These considerations on the vitality of infrastructures almost immediately suggest issues
about resilience and risk. Firstly, large infrastructures are used to mitigate risks, increase collective
security, and create conditions for economic activities. Secondly, hence, when infrastructures fail,
this poses a risk to the economy, government, the population, and the continuity of everyday
practices (Silvast 2017, 2018).
In this chapter, I examine these topics concerning energy resilience, with a particular focus on
advancing the study of urban energy resilience. It addresses three main questions: (1) What does
the resilience of energy systems and infrastructures mean? 2) What do these meanings imply
in the urban resilience context? 3) How has such resilience manifested, or not, during major
failures of the energy infrastructure? Each of the questions is addressed in a dedicated order in
what follows.

298
 Energy dimensions of urban resilience

Reviewing infrastructure security and resilience concepts

Defining what energy resilience could actually mean requires understanding of what exactly is
meant to become more resilient in this context. This issue starts from the infrastructural aspects
of energy provision and ranges to the meaning of risk in the protection of infrastructural systems
and the difference between infrastructure vulnerability and resilience.This section opens up these
concepts beginning with what underlies many of the others that follow, critical infrastructure.
It is commonly agreed that infrastructures are society’s vital support systems, which ensure
its functioning (Edwards 2003; Collier and Lakoff 2008). The catalogue of these vital or critical
infrastructures most typically include electricity and energy, water supply, transportation and
logistics, telecommunication and information and communication technologies, banking and
finance, the central government, emergency and rescue services, and health services (Brunner
and Suter 2009: p.529). Also, the European Union (European Council 2008) considers energy
supply to be, along with transportation, one of the two most important critical infrastructures
in Europe. To explain what exactly is meant by such infrastructures, Edwards (2003: p.187) cites
the policy term definition:

The framework of interdependent networks and systems comprising identifiable industries,

institutions (including people and procedures), and distribution capabilities that provide a
reliable flow of products and services essential to the defense and economic security of the
United States, the smooth functioning of government at all levels, and society as a whole.
(US Department of Homeland Security 2013: p. 37)

These infrastructure networks and systems become critical infrastructures when their “incapacity
or destruction […] would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security,
national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters” (US Department of
Homeland Security 2013: p. 29). The European Council in its turn defines a critical infrastruc-
ture as follows:

An asset, system or part thereof located in Member States which is essential for the main-
tenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-​being of
people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact in a
Member State as a result of the failure to maintain those functions.
(European Council 2008: Article 2(a))

While the two definitions are clearly very different, they also share an underpinning goal: to des-
ignate the interdependent networks, systems, capabilities, and assets whose reliable functioning
ensures a number of public goals, such as security, health, a functioning economy, and the well-
being of people. Official policies for protecting critical infrastructure exist in more than 20
advanced industrial and developing states including the United States, the United Kingdom,
Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia, and India (Brunner
and Suter 2009).
As the definitions above show, critical infrastructure protection has frequently operated at one
particular scale, i.e. the sovereign national state (Silvast et al. 2018). Many of the policies toward
this protection have been designed by national governments, such as individual states or EU
members, working with infrastructure providers and focused on homeland security (Sims 2011)
or as a UK civil emergency management programme of infrastructures explained it, on “keeping
the country running” (UK Cabinet Office, 2011).

299
Antti Silvast

Nevertheless, the typical critical infrastructures –​from functioning electricity and energy
systems to water supply and centralized governments –​are also clearly vital systems for the
maintenance of urban life (e.g. Graham and Marvin 2001). As Graham (2006) observes,
the city depends on “vast complexes of infrastructure, public works, and hazard mitigation
systems” that range from “the sourcing of distant food, water, commodities, and energy” to
“their delivery to cities” and “their consumption and the resulting production of wastes”.
The critical role of these systems has been particularly significant in disaster situations. In
New York City, the impacts of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 brought the region’s infrastructure
to scrutiny –​including utilities like electricity, transportation systems, and public housing.
Redesigning these complex infrastructures to become more resilient was the key aim for the
official post-​disaster redevelopment process (Collier et al. 2016). In New Orleans, Hurricane
Katrina in 2005 led to the loss of critical electricity, water, and communications infrastructures,
which affected the functioning of the city. Preparedness in these areas received increasing
attention in the US following Katrina, concerned with the sites of “critical infrastructure that
guarantees the continuity of political and economic order”, such as “the condition of the elec-
trical grid” (Lakoff 2006). All in all, the collective risks that infrastructure breakdowns pose
also to cities and the political efforts to create interventions against them makes the topic of
critical infrastructures, and energy systems in particular, important topics for understanding
urban resilience.

Critical Infrastructure and Risk Frameworks

The concept of risk is subject to very different perspectives and definitions, as scholarship has
established for the past number of years. One of the main ways to conceptualize risk has been to
understand it essentially as a combination of a quantitative chance and measured consequences
of a threat event (Warner 1992).These definitions emphasize the essence of risk in statistical ana-
lysis and probabilistic calculation (Burgess 2016).
Such engineering and physical sciences meaning of risk is also the starting point for social
science works on risk, though the initial starting point is often expanded considerably. Firstly,
scholars have drawn on the theme of risk to exemplify broader, typically global societal and
cultural transformations or to sum up a “metachange” of modern society (Beck 1992; Centeno
et al. 2015). These discussions have put specific emphasis on the “non-​calculable” and therefore
non-​controllable traits of contemporary risks or disasters. These could include financial crises,
major technological accidents, and the impacts of climate change –​events which this research
tradition terms as “modernization risks”, risks produced by the very success of the modern
project (Collier 2008). Secondly, for other risk researchers, the problem is also to do with risk
calculation, but in a different manner: people and organizations do not address future hazards
merely by calculating their probabilities and effects, or at least they do not do it that often.
Instead, understanding of risk is shaped by cultural interpretation, ignorance, values, and other
social and cultural phenomena and social constructions (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Berner
and Summerton 2003).
A third research tradition has emerged in the recent decade and developed a different analyt-
ical focus. Rather than a meta-​change of the whole society, or attention on local non-​calculated
risk interpretations, it has centerd on how experts conceptualize, measure, and minimize
future hazards. Analyzing these topics also unpacks the kinds of subjects –​whether companies
or citizens –​that this risk governance brings about (O’Malley 2004). This research especially
highlights the study of those styles of reasoning and tools (Collier 2008; 2011) –​such as statistical

300
 Energy dimensions of urban resilience

calculations, social and private insurance, and simulated scenarios –​that are used to accomplish
these forms of governance.
The protection of critical infrastructures has also frequently been framed by the terminology
and practices of risk. Risk management frameworks are used to anticipate what events might
threaten infrastructures and their functioning (e.g. European Council 2008; US Department of
Homeland Security 2013; US National Infrastructure Council 2009). One essay has summarized
the concept of critical infrastructure risk as “a function of the likelihood that a given threat
source will attempt to exploit a given vulnerability and the magnitude of the impact, should
a threat source successfully exploit the vulnerability” (Dunn 2006: p.48). This understanding
centers on the measured and quantitative aspects of infrastructure risk such as likelihoods
and threat magnitudes. But risk in critical infrastructures also opens to the broader ways of
social science interrogation. Society’s vulnerability to infrastructure breakdowns may be an unin-
tended consequence of the very success of modern infrastructure expansion. These risks can be
interpreted differently in various situations and contexts, and when they are anticipated and
managed, this is done by different governing tools whose construction and use by experts is of
specific interest to their analysis.

Understanding Vulnerabilities and Resilience in Infrastructures

The definition of critical infrastructure risk, above, drew upon another important security con-
cept, vulnerability. Vulnerability means some characteristic of critical infrastructures –​whether
in their operation, design, or implementation –​that make them prone to incapacitation, even
destruction (Dunn 2006: p.45). These vulnerabilities might include weaknesses in security
procedures or in internal controls of an infrastructure.
Yet, the larger the infrastructural system is, and the more interconnected to other systems
(such as information technologies), the more difficult it may be to know what exactly makes
infrastructures vulnerable. Princeton sociologist Miguel A. Centeno and his colleagues sum this
problematic: “tightly coupled and interdependent infrastructure networks may be vulnerable in
ways that cannot be predicted on the basis of the properties of the constituent networks them-
selves” (Centeno et al. 2015: p.75).
These problematics get us to resilience, which is a flipside of vulnerability. As disaster schol-
arship has established (Manyena 2006), vulnerability and resilience lie on a continuum. If vul-
nerability in a system –​such as an electric power grid –​decreases, it becomes more resilient. It is
hence important to ensure that infrastructure is resilient and not vulnerable to a disaster.
Prior definitions of energy system and infrastructure resilience exemplify these conceptual
differences. In its integrated emergency management programme, the UK Cabinet Office (2011)
focused on the social impacts of natural hazards, understood by resilience as follows: “the ability of
assets, networks, and systems to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and/​or rapidly recover from a disrup-
tive event” (p.14). Infrastructures’ resistance of hazards, the reliability of their components, redun-
dancy through backup installations, and fast response and recovery sum up this vital capability.
As the strategy notes, building resilience in infrastructures directly reduces society’s vulnerability
to natural hazards.
The US National Infrastructure Council (2009: p.8) draws on similar arguments when it
designates the effectiveness of a resilience: “The effectiveness of a resilient infrastructure or
enterprise depends upon its ability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and/​or rapidly recover from a
potentially disruptive event.”This is almost identical to the newer UK definition, which suggests
the same frameworks of resilience has diffused to the two strategies.

301
Antti Silvast

Another explanation of energy system resilience in particular is given by the UK’s network of
academics, UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC):

Resilience is the capacity of an energy system to tolerate disturbance and to continue

to deliver affordable energy services to consumers. A resilient energy system can speedily
recover from shocks and can provide alternative means of satisfying energy service needs in
the event of changed external circumstances.
(UKERC 2011: p.7)

Here, energy system is resilient only when it can provide affordable energy services according to
the needs and everyday demands of its users (see also Silvast and Kaplinsky 2007).
The tools to govern resilience and make the relevant actors –​such as infrastructure owners,
operators, but also emergency responders, industry groups, end-​ users, and government
departments –​responsible for ensuring it differ substantively in these exemplars. The UKERC
(2011) report centers on quantitative computer models.These models simulate the energy system
in different operating conditions and unpack its interdependencies and interactions in doing so.
The output of these models has suggested indicators for resilience in energy systems, concerning
their different subcomponents. For example, in primary energy supply, the diversity of energy
resources increases energy system resilience, while backup power sources and other redundancies
may grow resilience in the energy networks and also among the energy end-​users (UKERC
2011: pp.14–​15). The UK Cabinet Office’s (2011: p.34) approach is more qualitative, suggesting
organizational resilience strategies to be developed in detail. For the US National Infrastructure
Council (2009: p.11), resilience is premised upon a higher scale of improving policy frameworks
and public–​private partnerships, considering that “(c)urrent market mechanisms may be inad-
equate to achieve the level of resilience needed to ensure public health, safety, and security”
(2009: p.10). In this case, resilience hence forefronts policy interventions to the operation and
planning activities by infrastructure owners and managers, which are not seen as resilient enough
without such interventions.
Where conceptual definitions of infrastructure resilience might be clear cut, as these examples
show, its practical uses and governance are shaped by different interpretations and embed varying
goals. These, most likely, relate to how the producers of these concepts view the purpose of
the infrastructure and are shaped by the tools that they use to analyze and govern its resili-
ence, ranging from quantitative computer models to organizational strategies and public–​private
partnerships. These practical differences and varieties of perspectives find their corollary in the
urban level, as I show next.

Urban energy resilience dimensions

What do these various definitions imply for the urban context –​such as electricity utilities
supplying electricity across a single city, or a number of them? The following answers this question
by focusing on the criticality of energy for the functioning of the urban system. Energy has been
recognized among the most important critical infrastructures (e.g. European Council 2008) and
exists as a support system for a number of other urban infrastructure systems. Even short-​lived
electricity supply interruptions can cause significant issues with electricity-​dependent traffic,
communication, waste disposal, drinking water, sewage management, and mobile phone systems.
Interruptions of over a day might mean a practical end to public transportation and the flooding
of sewage systems (Silvast and Kaplinsky 2007). Understanding hence how urban energy systems
are not vulnerable to threats and disasters and are resilient is a growing concern in various

302
 Energy dimensions of urban resilience

Table 22.1 Select planning and design criteria for a resilient urban energy system

Main area Examples

Infrastructure Fortification and robustness (physical security); regular maintenance; backup

energy sources and stocks of energy; water conservation; redesign and
refurbishment (retrofit); fuel efficiency of cars; enhancing energy efficiency
through innovation and technology (building, industry, transportation)
Resources Energy/​Carbon intensity of generation; reducing energy footprint of water
production, treatment and distribution; food waste (harvesting, processing,
storage, distribution, consumption)
Land use, urban Multi-​functionality of urban space; development pattern (sprawl, compact,
­geography and suburbanization, infill, brownfield, greenfield, etc.); size of urban blocks;
morphology surface albedo enhancement (walls, pavements)
Governance Surveillance (manned and/​or automated); scenario-​based energy planning
and risk management; preparation (contingency plans, response and
recovery plans); land-​use and zoning by-​laws (development, enforcement
and update); rationing
Sociodemographic Household size; universal energy access (energy poverty); upgrading slums
aspects and human and informal settlements; car use frequency; communal solutions for
behavior social cohesion and energy saving; energy consciousness of the public and
consumption behavior/​demand-​side management

Source: Sharifi and Yamagata, 2016

academic literatures. A recent review drew together the emerging literature on urban energy
resilience and suggested the following framework for analyzing resilience in urban energy:

It is proposed that in order to be resilient, urban energy system needs to be capable of

“planning and preparing for”, “absorbing”, “recovering from”, and “adapting” to any
adverse events that may happen in the future. Integrating these four abilities into the system
would enable it to continuously address “availability”, “accessibility”, “affordability”, and
“acceptability” as the four sustainability-​related dimensions of energy.
(Sharifi and Yamagata 2016: p.1654)

The review combines a total of 196 planning and design criteria for such resilient urban
energy systems, ranging from infrastructure and land use to changing social practices and
behavior (summarised in Table 22.1). As the authors aptly note, this urban energy resilience
happens at multiple scales from the household to city parts, city planning, and electricity
companies. They call for “the managerial capacity to effectively coordinate preparatory and
recovery actions between various sectors and organizations at different scales” (Sharifi and
Yamagata 2016: p.1665).
These energy-​related planning and design practices and variety of scales demonstrate that
urban energy resilience is a complex problem, cutting across jurisdictional, organizational,
and system boundaries. It ranges from relatively technical goals such as backup installations to
concerns of wide-​ranging policy such as reduction of urban sprawl and energy poverty. But
in spite of this complexity, at its root, the definition of resilience in the above is not at odds
with the energy policy, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency management terms
that were introduced earlier. Again, resilience merges the practices of anticipation, absorbing,
adaptation, and recovery. Also, this framework again sets a purpose for resilience –​including not
only providing affordable energy services to the final users, but adding availability, accessibility,

303
Antti Silvast

and public acceptability of energy systems. These are now understood as the desired end states
of society’s energy provisions among many national governments and commentators on energy
(see World Energy Council 2017). The authors also consider sustainability, which they see as a
broader concept than resilience. In a similar way, science and technology policy scholar Andrew
Stirling (2014, p.318) argues that resilience is one of four cornerstones of sustainability in energy
systems –​others being their stability, durability, and robustness.
Altogether, the concept of resilience, also in the urban setting, shows considerable capability
for expanding and latching onto other concepts such as preparedness, physical security, equity
concerns, and sustainability. Making the concept more inclusive and qualitatively rich is an
important aim, but confronts a critique once the concept expands, namely “What isn’t resili-
ence?” as two organization scholars argue (Roe and Schulman 2008: p.120). To move beyond
this discussion on the “correct” use of the concept, I will now introduce select case studies and
interrogate those practices through which people and organizations have “bounced back” from
infrastructure disruptions. Earlier disaster and crisis scholarship on infrastructure breakdowns
provides a highly suitable resource to this aim.

Case studies of energy infrastructure disruption

An electricity supply disruption, a blackout, indicates a situation where the energy supply chain
breaks down and customers are disconnected from the electricity network. The reasons for
this vary, including shortages of electrical capacity, shortages of operating reserves among infra-
structure providers, various problems in local electricity distribution networks, and sudden fault
events (Dent 2016). Over the past 20 years, disaster and crisis studies have covered various major
blackouts including Auckland, New Zealand in 1998 (Stern et al. 2005), Buenos Aires, Argentina
in 1999 (Ullberg 2005), Canada in 1998 (Scanlon 1999), and Sweden in 2005 and 2007 (Höst
et al. 2010). These outages of power lasted from days to more than a month and their scales
and scope ranged from thousands to millions of customers, affecting areas in some parts of the
city such as Auckland and Buenos Aires or much larger geographical regions with a number of
cities. While blackouts over large regions –​rural areas in particular (Heidenstrøm and Kvarnlöf
2017; Höst et al. 2010; Rinkinen 2013) –​have received attention in scholarship, a number of
major urban blackouts have also been documented. This section will introduce a selection of
those studies and use them to explain what critical infrastructure was affected by the power
failing; why the electricity infrastructure was vulnerable to disruptions; what the response to the
blackout was like; and what scholars have learned by studying these events.
In 1999, a blackout sent major sections of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to darkness for 11 days,
affecting more than 600,000 of its residents (Ullberg 2005). This lack of electricity led to the
ceased functioning of water supplies, public transportation, refrigeration, sewage, and air condi-
tioning. It affected 11,000 shop owners, closed hundreds of traffics lights, and darkened around
1,500 buildings. The blackout was triggered by a cable failure followed by a fire in an electricity
substation. There were a number of subsequent failures to reconnect the electrical cables to the
electricity grid. Initially, all of the involved institutional actors interpreted the blackout mainly
as a technical issue to be solved in a relatively short period of time. As the blackout prolonged,
this initial framing shifted as the power company received public criticism and the failure turned
to a political issue, including street protests and national-​level attention. Meanwhile, the city’s
rescue services became among the central operational actors as they distributed water, food, ice,
and candles to residents, and even participated in installing mobile power generators in certain
strategic places like hospitals. As Ullberg (2005) argues, there seems to have been considerable
potential for learning after the blackout. The crisis had been in many ways unthinkable and

304
 Energy dimensions of urban resilience

stressed preparedness to the power company as well as legislators, introduced a new potential
contingency to the rescue services, and there was an increased attention to communication and
information-​sharing during these kinds of events among the involved stakeholders.
This study on Buenos Aires draws parallels to another major and long blackout in Auckland,
New Zealand, which occurred a year earlier and has been documented by disaster and crisis
scholars (Stern et al. 2005). In 1998, a five-​week power outage confronted the Central Business
District of Auckland, affecting thousands of residents and a number of offices, shops, and govern-
ment buildings. Where the most immediate technical effects were on elevators, air conditioning,
and traffic signals, there were sustained difficulties for businesses such as restaurants and other
commercial and financial services to operate. The trigger for these blackouts was four critical
power cables failing in sequence over several weeks. This concurred with hot and dry weather,
leading to the conclusion of this potentially being a cascading failure where multiple contin-
gencies interact to trigger a systems accident (Stern et al. 2005: pp.108–​110; see Perrow 1984).
Again, as the power cut prolonged, the interpretation of the breakdown shifted toward greater
political attention and toward the economic harms that the cut was causing. The successful
repairs included enacting temporary overhead cables, but this event also led to greater official
scrutiny than the Buenos Aires blackout. This included an independent official report, which
criticized the power company for their management practices of underground power cables.
As these two example cases show, there are several shared impacts that the blackouts triggered
in cities. Urban scholars (Byrd and Mattherman 2014) collected the social effects of blackouts
in cities all over the world and underscore some of these same patterns: power failures cause
direct and measurable economic damage due to lost productive activity, significant impacts on
food safety, sometimes increase in crime rates as well as growing policing, and major impacts on
transportation systems, while further issues are caused by the increasing deployment of backup
diesel generators. As they sum, the causes of urban power failures vary considerably from systems
failures to weather events, sabotage, and lacking energy resources. But one of the contexts of
these infrastructure failures that is discussed in both of the case studies above, is the marketiza-
tion and partial privatization of energy systems that has been increasingly popular all over the
world for the past decades. Byrd and Matthewman (2014) flag increasing complexity, hampering
communication, and intensifying competition and conclude that in “a competitive environment,
reliability and profits may be at cross-​purposes” (p. 87).
This impact is also suggested by various disaster studies of blackouts. Blackouts, as these
studies have found, demonstrate the difficulty of coordinating among market-​based utilities and
public stakeholders on many different levels of administration (Höst et al. 2010; Ullberg 2005).
To many of these earlier studies, energy-​providing companies and decision-​making bodies tend
not to immediately focused on worst-​case scenarios when the power goes out –​which might
have been indicated by the inclusive and widest frameworks of resilience. Instead, they seek
short-​term operational goals –​in other words, short-​term resilience, i.e. “bouncing back” to
the normal state as fast as possible –​which does not systematically address longer-​term crisis
management perspectives (Stern et al. 2005; Ullberg 2005). Because resilience also concerns
very rare events and is not easy to attach with a market price or another economic harm,
some academics recommend attaining resilience “in the public interest for strategic reasons”
(UKERC 2011: p.51). Indeed, in all of the case studies, the blackout showed how important
such public interests may be, and a crisis of public credibility was experienced when the power
failures prolonged. The lack of resilience encountered public and political critique and protests,
suggesting that energy providers had not been prepared enough.
A further commonality, which many studies of power failures have shown, is how groups and
organizations not directly concerned with electricity networks began to manage the disaster,

305
Antti Silvast

including rescue services (Ullberg 2005), self-​organized municipal resource groups, and a feder-
ation of farmers (Höst et al. 2010).The blackouts called for actors to circumvent prior prepared-
ness plans, and even questioned which actors should have been involved as “first responders”
(Boin and McConnell, 2007). In these ways, a failure of an infrastructure and infrastructure
resilience does not mean just bouncing back to “normal conditions” but can partly change
perceptions about what that infrastructural “normality” consists of.
The case of the Finnish and Scandinavian electricity resilience was studied across different
sites of the infrastructure, considering not only specific disasters but how actors in the energy
supply anticipate interruptions in their everyday work and lives (Silvast 2017). This study
shows that building prior robustness against power failures receives significant attention at
various levels –​whether through stockpiling resources such as oil, organizational risk man-
agement frameworks, or the preparedness activities now expected in households by power
companies and national governments. Yet, energy suppliers, people, and organizations seem
also to be capable of handling disturbances after they have occurred and often must circum-
vent prior plans in so doing. Different actors addressed this problem in their own distinct
manners –​on the national scale, by imaginative threat scenario tools prepared by the gov-
ernment; in a studied municipal electricity company, by staying alert to electricity systems,
transnational energy markets, and their volatile environments through operator skills tailored
to the city’s particular conditions and critical infrastructures; and in energy-​using households
and communities, by overall resourcefulness and drawing upon normally hidden skills as the
power failed (see also Heidenstrøm and Kvarnlöf 2017; Rinkinen 2013; Trentmann 2009).
Similarly to particular blackout events documented in disaster studies, these varieties of
practices are used to bounce back from the often partially unthinkable situations where the
electricity infrastructure fails.

Resilience and transition

The urban energy systems and infrastructures we have today are not fixed and static. Energy
experts –​including social scientists, energy economists, and high-​level policymakers –​have
pointed to the rapidly changing operational environments and systems goals of energy provisions.
This has also direct implications for the concept of infrastructure resilience and understanding
how it might manifest during infrastructural disruptions. Decarbonization of energy systems is
among the key challenges as seen by governments and international institutions –​often posited
as part of the “energy trilemma”, namely decarbonizing energy while keeping it affordable and
reliable (World Energy Council 2017). But some experts, for example in the United Kingdom,
suggest further future problems demand our attention (see Copeland and Brown 2017). They
point to the numerous interrelated shifts that energy systems currently face: from their decarbon-
ization to their increasing digitalization, tendency for decentralization via small-​scale renewables,
and democratisation via emerging concepts such as “energy justice” (Jenkins et al. 2014). These
shifts happen alongside the impacts of “deregulation”, such as commercial logics and fragmen-
tation of universal services, which could have undermined resilience according to earlier urban
studies literature (Graham 2006; 2009; Graham and Marvin 2001).
One possible outcome of these co-​existing shifts concerns the scales and temporalities of
energy systems. As energy systems open up to participation –​whether by new service providers
or citizens –​the number of relevant actors in them increases, possibly at increasingly diverse
scales (ranging from local energy communities through to transnational power markets). With
the emergence of sophisticated energy markets, economic tools and theories, and “smart” infor-
mation and communication technologies added to energy systems, energy provision also happens

306
 Energy dimensions of urban resilience

at increasingly compressed time-​scales. Long-​term urban and national infrastructure planning

concerned years or even decades ahead, but that now co-​exists with more or less real-​time sens-
ibilities of energy stock exchanges, and including, as some envision, peer-​to-​peer energy trading
between local actors such as households that generate their own energy.
The concept of resilience points to various possible directions where these technological
visions hold promise. One is that an increasing number of actors, with increasingly dynamic
relationships between them, could address one important element of resilience, namely the need
to adapt to situations at hand and circumvent prior preparedness plans if a critical infrastruc-
ture fails. Smaller-​scale systems also have fewer vulnerabilities that are difficult to recognize
by the constitutive parts of the systems at stake. But the current energy shifts are not merely
making the systems smaller and closed, but also more interconnected and open. Here, the effect
may be increasing complexity in energy supply chains along with the difficulty of recognizing
where their vulnerabilities lie –​including whose responsibility they are –​in interconnected
infrastructure systems at multiple geographical scales (Centeno et al. 2015). Likewise, real-​time
interconnections via information and communication technologies might help coordinate
between these scales and systems, but also cause systemic cascading risks and propagate them
more rapidly than before.
As the established argument goes, the increase of vulnerabilities decreases resilience in a
system. By understanding the ongoing urban energy transitions and their impacts, infrastruc-
ture owners, operators, policymakers, citizens, and all others that depend on infrastructure could
increase their abilities to “bounce back” to functioning if the infrastructure fails.

References
Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Berner, B. and Summerton, J. (eds.) (2003). Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice.
London: Routledge.
Boin, A. and McConnell, A. (2007). Preparing for critical infrastructure breakdowns: the limits of crisis man-
agement and the need for resilience. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. 15(1): 50–​59.
Brunner, E. and Suter, M. (2009). International CIIP Handbook 2008/​2009: An Inventory of 25 National
and 7 International Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Policies. Zürich: Center for Security
Studies.
Burgess, A. (2016). Introduction. In: A. Burgess, A. Alemanno and J. Zinn (eds). Routledge Handbook of
Risk Studies. London: Routledge: 1–​14.
Byrd, H. and Matthewman, S. (2014). Exergy and the city: The technology and sociology of power (failure).
Journal of Urban Technology. 21(3): 85–​102.
Centeno, M.A., Nag, M., Patterson, T.S., Shaver, A., and Windawi, A.J. (2015). The emergence of global sys-
temic risk. Annual Review of Sociology. 41: 65–​85.
Collier, S.J. (2008). Enacting catastrophe: Preparedness, insurance, budgetary rationalization. Economy and
Society. 37(2): 224–​250.
Collier, S.J. (2011). Post-​ Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics: Princeton,
NJ: Princeton Univeresity Press.
Collier, S.J., Cox, S., and Grove, K. (2016). Rebuilding by design in post Sandy New York. Limn. 5(7).
Collier, S.J. and Lakoff, A. (2008). The vulnerability of vital systems: How “critical infrastructure” became
a security problem. In: M. Dunn Cavelty (ed.): The Politics of Securing the Homeland: Critical
Infrastructure, Risk and Securitisation. London: Routledge, pp.40–​62.
Copeland, C. and Brown, D. (2017). D-​Day for UK Energy Policy: Is there a plan? Sussex Energy Group
at SPRU. http://​blogs.sussex.ac.uk/​sussexenergygroup/​2017/​10/​26/​beis-​uk-​energy-​policy-​plan/​.
(Accessed August 31, 2018).
Dent, C. (2016). What is an electricity blackout? Durham Energy Institute. www.dur.ac.uk/​dei/​resources/​
briefings/​blackouts/​. (Accessed July 20, 2018).

307
Antti Silvast

Douglas, M. and Wildavsky, A. (1982). Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and
Environmental Dangers. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Dunn, M. (2006). Understanding critical information infrastructures: An elusive quest. In: M. Dunn
and V. Mauer (eds.): International CIIP Handbook 2008/​2009: An Inventory of 25 National and 7
International Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Policies. Zürich: Center for Security
Studies, 27–​53.
Edwards, P.N. (2003). Infrastructure and modernity: Force, time, and social organization in the history
of sociotechnical systems. In: P.Brey, A. Feenberg, and T. Misa (eds.): Modernity and Technology.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 185–​226.
European Council (2008). On the identification and designation of European critical infrastructures and
the Assessment of the need to improve their protection. Directive 2008/​114/​EC.
Graham, S. (2006). Cities Under Siege: Katrina and the Politics of Metropolitan America. Understanding
Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences web site. http://​understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/​Graham/​
. (Accessed December 12, 2018).
Graham, S. (ed.) (2009). Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructure Fails. London: Routledge.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2001). Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures Technological
Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge.
Heidenstrøm, N. and Kvarnlöf, L. (2018). Coping with blackouts: A practice theory approach to household
preparedness. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. 26(2): 272–​282.
Höst, M.; Kristofersson Nieminen,T.; Petersen, K., and Tehler, H. (eds.) (2010). FRIVA –​risk, sårbarhet och
förmåga samverkan inom krishantering [FRIVA –​Risk,Vulnerability and Capability to Co-​operate in
Crisis Management]. Lund: MediaTryck.
Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H., and Rehner, R. (2016). Energy justice: A conceptual
review. Energy Research & Social Science. 11: 174–​182.
Lakoff,A. (2006). From disaster to catastrophe: The limits of preparedness. Understanding Katrina: Perspectives
from the social sciences web site. http://​understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/​Lakoff/​. (Accessed December
12, 2018).
Luque-​Ayala, A. and Marvin, S. (2016).The maintenance of urban circulation: An operational logic of infra-
structural control. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 34(2): 191–​208.
Manyena, S.B. (2006). The concept of resilience revisited. Disasters. 30(4): 434–​450.
O’Malley, P. (2004). Risk, Uncertainty and Government. London: Routledge.
Perrow, C. (1984). Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Rinkinen, J. (2013). Electricity blackouts and hybrid systems of provision: users and the “reflective practice”.
Energy, Sustainability and Society. 3(1): 25.
Roe, E. and Schulman, P.R. (2008). High Reliability Management: Operating on the Edge. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Scanlon, J. (1999). Emergent groups in established frameworks: Ottawa Carleton’s response to the 1998 ice
disaster. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. 7(1): 30–​37.
Sharifi, A. and Yamagata,Y. (2016). Principles and criteria for assessing urban energy resilience: A literature
review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 60: 1654–​1677.
Silvast, A. (2017). Making Electricity Resilient: Risk and Security in a Liberalized Infrastructure.
London: Routledge.
Silvast, A. (2018). Co-​constituting supply and demand: Managing electricity in two neighbouring control
rooms. In: E. Shove and F. Trentmann (eds.): Infrastructures in Practice: The Evolution of Demand in
Networked Societies. London: Routledge, pp.171–​183.
Silvast, A., Bolton R., Lagendijk,V., and Szulecki, K. (2018). Crossing borders: Social sciences and human-
ities perspectives on European energy systems integration. In: C. Foulds and R. Robison (eds.): Social
Sciences and Humanities for Advancing Policy in European Energy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 97–​110.
Silvast, A. and Kaplinsky, J. (2007). White Paper on Security of European Electricity Distribution. Project
UNDERSTAND, Leonardo da Vinci, EU Education and Culture.
Sims, B. (2011). Resilience and homeland security: Patriotism, anxiety, and complex system dynamics.
Limn. 1(1).
Stern, E.; Newlove, L., and Svedin, L. (2005). Auckland Unplugged: Coping with Critical Infrastructure
Failure. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Stirling, A. (2014). From sustainability to transformation: Dynamics and diversity in reflexive govern-
ance of vulnerability. In: A. Hommels, J. Mesman, and W. Bijker (eds.): Vulnerability in Technological
Cultures: New Directions in Research and Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 305–​332.

308
 Energy dimensions of urban resilience

Trentmann, F. (2009). Disruption is normal: Blackouts, breakdowns and the elasticity of everyday life. In: E.
Shove, F. Trentmann, and R. Wilk (eds.): Time, Consumption, and Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg, 67–​84.
UK Cabinet Office (2011). Keeping the Country Running: Natural Hazards and Infrastructure: A
Guide to Improving the Resilience of Critical Infrastructure and Essential Services. London: Cabinet
Office. www.gov.uk/​government/​publications/​keeping-​the-​country-​running-​natural-​hazards-​and-​
infrastructure. (Accessed November 9, 2016).
UKERC (UK Energy Research Centre) (2011). Building a Resilient UK Energy System. Written by
Modassar Chaudry, Paul Ekins, Kannan Ramachandran, Anser Shakoor, Jim Skea, Goran Strbac, Xinxin
Wang, and Jeanette Whitaker. London: UKERC. www.ukerc.ac.uk/​asset/​C01431B1-​F1A5-​4275-​
833D969F89E5B7AE/​. (Accessed August 31, 2018).
Ullberg, S. (2005). The Buenos Aires Blackout: Argentine Crisis Management across the Public–​Private
Divide. Stockholm: CRISMART/​Swedish National Defence College.
US Department of Homeland Security (2013). National Infrastructure Protection Plan 2013: Partnering
for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience.Washington, DC: Department of Homeland Security.
www.dhs.gov/​sites/​default/​fi les/​publications/​National-​Infrastructure-​Protection-​Plan-​2013–​508.pdf.
(Accessed October 10, 2016).
US National Infrastructure Council (2009). Critical Infrastructure Resilience Final Report and
Recommendations. Washington: Department of Homeland Security. www.dhs.gov/​ xlibrary/​
assets/​
niac/​niac_​critical_​infrastructure_​resilience.pdf. (Accessed October 10, 2016).
Warner, F. (1992). Introduction. In: Royal Society Study Group (ed.): Risk: Analysis, Perception and
Management. London: The Royal Society, pp.1–​12.
World Energy Council (2017). World Energy Trilemma Index 2017: Monitoring the Sustainability of
National Energy Systems. www.worldenergy.org/​publications/​2017/​world-​energy-​trilemma-​index-​
2017-​monitoring-​the-​sustainability-​of-​national-​energy-​systems/​. (Accessed July 20, 2018).

Further Reading
Boin, A. and McConnell, A. (2007). Preparing for critical infrastructure breakdowns: the limits of crisis man-
agement and the need for resilience. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. 15(1), pp.50–​59.
Graham, S. (ed.) (2009). Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructure Fails. London: Routledge.
Roe, E. and Schulman, P.R. (2008). High Reliability Management: Operating on the Edge. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Silvast, A. (2017). Making Electricity Resilient: Risk and Security in a Liberalized Infrastructure.
London: Routledge.
Sims, B. (2011). Resilience and homeland security: Patriotism, anxiety, and complex system dynamics.
Limn. 1(1).
Ullberg, S. (2005). The Buenos Aires Blackout: Argentine Crisis Management across the Public–​Private
Divide. Stockholm: CRISMART/​Swedish National Defence College.

309
 23
Climate resilience, mitigation,
and adaptation strategy
Case studies from the
Middle East and West Africa

Adenrele Awotona

Introduction
Iraq and Nigeria are two of the most vulnerable countries with regard to the effects of climate
change on environmental degradation, on their fragile economies, on various aspects of national
development, on the livelihoods of their citizens (especially the low-​income, the poor, and slum
dwellers), on social order, and on national security. While Iraq has not yet developed a com-
prehensive climate change adaptation strategy in spite of considerable assistance from various
multilateral international agencies, Nigeria has recently developed one that is clearly doomed
to fail. This chapter examines vulnerabilities to climate change in Iraq and Nigeria and their
implications for human development and national security.

Climate change adaptation strategy in Iraq

Iraq was widely regarded as the most developed nation in the Middle East in the 1980s and was
indeed classified as an upper-​middle-​income country by the World Bank. However, its human
development indicators now rank lower than some of the poorest countries in the world, due
to the effects of wars, insurgencies, repressive political structure and instability, which have all
undermined social wellbeing and created mass poverty across the country.
Over the past two decades, various UN agencies have provided financial and technical
assistance to Iraq (more than 40 per cent of which is desert and thinly populated due to severe
weather conditions) but the government is yet to formulate a full adaptation strategy. For instance
(UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF 2012):

• UNDP and UNEP have jointly supported the Ministry of Environment on the development
of a National Environmental Strategy and Action Plan;
• UNDP has worked to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Water Resources and support
the development of a National Water Council;

310
 Resilience, mitigation, adaptation strategy

• UNDP, UNIDO and UNEP have joint initiatives for the development of mitigation
approaches, clean development mechanisms and renewable energy;
• UNDP has assisted the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) in developing local water
committees to improve water governance at the sub-​regional level, ensuring that the water
supply and quality issues specific to each sub-​region could be properly tackled by the full
range of water users;
• UNESCO has led the UN Country Team and UNAMI’s efforts to draw up an integrated
strategy for supporting the restoration of the Marshlands;
• UNESCO has launched a scientific survey of Iraq’s groundwater to improve government cap-
acity to address water scarcity and improve agricultural planning; and,
• FAO has supported the Ministry of Water Resources and the Governorate of Erbil in the
rehabilitation of infrastructure to enhance water supply and drainage across eight governorates.

Furthermore, UNDP invested $6.5 million in developing disaster risk management capaci-
ties from 2013 to 2016; the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) funded,
with $1.5 million from 2010 to 2014, the improvement of food security and climate change
adaptability of rain-​fed barley farmers in Iraq and Jordan; UNDP and partner agencies invested
$58.7 million, from 2014 to 2017 in the Iraq Crisis Response and Resilience Program (ICRRP);
and, the International Bank For Reconstruction and Development/​ World Bank invested
$1,200 million in the Iraq Emergency Fiscal Stabilization and Energy Sustainability program
from 2015–​2016 (USAID 2017, p.6).
In addition to the international technical and financial support for Iraq, the country also
has several sectoral policies, which include the National Development Plan and the National
Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. So, why has Iraq not developed an all-​inclusive climate
change adaptation strategy? The following are some of the reasons (Awotona 2008; Awotona and
Donlan 2008; Dobbins et al. 2009; IRIN 2010):

• The funding for climate change mitigation is tight due to security needs, a lethargic economy,
and the fact that the majority of Iraq’s state budget is devoted to security needs by the Iraqi
National Police and the Army.1
• There is a widespread belief that things cannot get worse for the country than it has been
during war, insurgency and occupation. This impulse is not helped by the cautious nature of
Iraq’s policy-​making process and its divided structure that cultivates an atmosphere of risk
aversion, small steps, and a focus on providing for sectarian interests.
• There is a lack of capacity for the effective administration of natural resources and stability of
the ecosystem.
• The country has a divided political system, spread along sectarian lines that fails to address
long-​term issues.
• The government’s capability to formulate and implement the required adaptation and mitiga-
tion policies is undermined by scarce resources due to rapid demographic growth; water scar-
city (which is based on two declining rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, that supply more than
half of Iraq’s freshwater resources and is intimately tied to two neighbors, Turkey and Syria);
desertification; climate variability; rising temperatures (projected to rise by 2°C by 2050, with
more frequent heat waves); intense droughts; declining precipitation (with a projected decrease
in average annual rainfall of 9 per cent by 2050); salinization; the increasing prevalence of sand
and dust storms (causing more respiratory infections); and, various socio-​economic conditions
including intensified food insecurity leading to increased and severe malnutrition (mostly
in children) (UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF 2012; USAID 2017). Iraq’s three major climate

311
Adenrele Awotona

zones are predominantly demarcated by rainfall quantities. They are (USAID 2017): a largely
uninhabited and extremely arid lowland desert, a semi-​arid steppe, and a moist Mediterranean
region in the sub-​humid upland and mountainous north and northeast.
• The escape from the desert, mainly due to poverty, crop failures, and loss of livelihoods, has
increased Iraq’s urbanization. The Iraqi cities are swelling with former countryside citizens
pushing the central government’s ability to provide services (USAID 2017).

Indeed, the only major initiative that attempts to address climate change adaptation was
announced by the Government of Iraq in June 2018, which, in partnership with the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP), established a National Designated Authority “to help
mobilize global climate funding in support of dealing with pressures imposed by a range of
environmental and climate change-​related issues” (UNDP 2018). Supported by a two-​year grant
assistance (2018–​2019) from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Government of Iraq aims to
develop national readiness programs that will “strengthen the national capacities to effectively
access and efficiently manage, track and guide climate financing”.
There are four major unintended consequences inherent in Iraq’s lack of a climate change
mitigation strategy. These are: increased urbanization, increased emigration and regional migra-
tion, decreased economic output, and increased political instability. This instability is somewhat
inherent in the current Iraqi government composition but the increase due to a failure to
mitigate climate change will heighten these tensions (Mallat 1998; Sowers and Weinthal, 2010;
Sirkeci 2005).
As noted by the BBC’s Iraq country profile, the mainly Shia-​led governments that have held
power since the US-​led ouster of President Saddam Hussein in 2003 have struggled to main-
tain order, and the country “has enjoyed only brief periods of respite from high levels of sect-
arian violence. Instability and sabotage have hindered efforts to rebuild an economy shattered
by decades of conflict and sanctions, even though Iraq has the world’s second largest reserves of
crude oil” (BBC 2018).
Iraq’s five largest cities, Baghdad (7,216,000), Basrah (2,600,000), Al Mawsil al Jadidah
(2,065,597), Al Basrah al Qadimah (2,015,483), and Mosul (1,739,800) (World Population
Review 2018) are already incredibly diverse and are under strain to provide for their current
populations. As the urbanization of Iraq increases, these five cities will serve as templates of
instability.There are major problems in housing, water supplies and food production throughout
Iraq.With regards to political instability, as basic services are cut in Iraqi cities and municipalities,
and as the infrastructure is taxed beyond its means, there will be many political actors that will
try to assume power.
In order to understand how the failure to mitigate climate change effects will result in polit-
ical instability, it is necessary to understand the current composition of the Iraqi political system
and society. The two major sects in Iraq are the Sunni and Shia. The two ethnic nationalities
are Arabs and Kurds. They are all facing difficult political choices and the specter and increasing
reality of climate change has made some of these problems more difficult. The Sunnis comprise
about 20 per cent of the country’s population and are primarily located in the western and
central regions. This is the area hardest hit by desertification. The Sunnis do not currently hold
a foremost national office and this is a major source of friction. The Shia are the largest ethnic
component of Iraq and they are concentrated in the center and south of the state. The Shia
comprises roughly 60 per cent of the population but they are far poorer and less well educated
than the Sunnis. The Shia were oppressed throughout the rule of Saddam Hussein. They now
have control of the central government. With their political clout and demographic advantage,
the Shia are in the enviable position of controlling the flow of resources to the harder hit Sunnis

312
 Resilience, mitigation, adaptation strategy

in the arid and urban areas of Iraq. Prime Minister Haider al-​Abadi and Moqtada al-​Sadr –​the
Shia cleric whose political bloc won most votes in the May 2018 parliamentary election –​have
agreed to work together to form a new government.
The Kurds are located in the most northern portion of Iraq and they constitute about 15–​
20 per cent of Iraq’s population. Improved relations between Baghdad and the autonomous
Kurdistan Regional Government has allowed them to share the country’s oil wealth and military
resources. However, democracy and representative governance is no guaranteed protection from
popular protest or sectarian instability as demonstrated by the recent unsuccessful effort by the
Kurdish Regional Government to negotiate an independent Kurdistan.
The most likely pathway from the present government to internal instability is a continued
decrease in economic output and failure of the political system to provide for the needs of the
citizens even after the armed Islamic State group, which emerged in 2014 as a major force in the
region that seized large parts of Iraq, was driven out in 2017 by a government offensive.
Also, BBC (2018) has noted that although there are “hundreds of publications and scores of
radio and TV stations in the country, political and security crises have resulted in an increasingly
fractured media scene; […] (while) television is the main medium for news, many media outlets
have political or religious affiliations.”

Climate change adaptation strategy in Nigeria

In a major study of Climate Change Adaptation in Nigeria, Moran (2011) observed that “Nigeria’s
climate security vulnerability lies predominantly along the coast and the north of Nigeria.” Along
the coast is the low-​lying Delta State which experiences frequent flooding and high political
violence (due to its extreme poverty and perceived unequal allocation of resources) and where
“Nigeria is expected to see among its most significant climate change impacts”. It is home to
Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. Its oil industry has brought pollution and environmental damage that,
according to the June 2009 report of Amnesty International as quoted in the Business & Human
Rights Resource Center website, have in turn “resulted in violations of the rights to health and
a healthy environment, the right to an adequate standard of living (including the right to food
and water) and the right to gain a living through work for hundreds of thousands of people”.The
country depends on oil exports for more than 80 per cent of government revenue and 95 per cent
of foreign-​exchange income (Bala-​Gbogbo 2011). The four main problems in the north of the
country are drought, highly variable rains, low household resilience due to acute mass poverty, and
increasingly high political violence from an Islamist religious sect, Boko Haram, which, according
to Johnson (2011) is leading “an armed revolt against the government’s entrenched corruption
[…] and widening regional economic disparity in an already impoverished country.”
There are also stark economic disparities between the north and the rest of the country.
Johnson (2011) notes that in the north, 72 per cent of people live in poverty compared to 27
per cent in the south and 35 per cent in the Niger Delta. Nationwide, almost 70 per cent of
the population lives on less than $1.25 a day. Ferocious competition for the country’s oil wealth
continues to fuel numerous regional, ethnic and political violence especially in the Niger Delta.
Fragile rule of law, poor governance, and political violence are, according to Moran (2011) “sig-
nificant drivers of climate change vulnerability in Nigeria”, and Nigerian conflict events con-
tinue to increase in both frequency and fierceness.
Among the many sectors of Nigeria’s economy which are directly vulnerable to the impacts
of climate change are agricultural production, health, biodiversity, social, economic, manufac-
turing, and energy (Ebele and Emodi 2016). For example, climate change adversely impacts
agricultural production in the following ways (Ebele and Emodi 2016):

313
Adenrele Awotona

• The reduction of arable lands due to sea incursion in the coastal plains and desert encroachment
with its associated sand dunes in the north, depriving farmers of their agricultural farmlands
and grazing lands. Official studies have concluded that sand dunes and desert encroachment
have covered from 25,000 hectares to more than 30,000 hectares with its attendant negative
impact on food and livestock production;
• The fishing activities in the various eco zones of the Nigerian coastal regions have drastically
reduced due to the rise in sea level and heavy rainfall, which have caused a great decline in the
fish production business in these areas;
• Increases in the severity of storms have resulted in the flooding of fish ponds, especially those
sited in wetlands and farmlands nationwide;
• The viability of inland fisheries is threatened by increased salinity and shrinking rivers and lakes;
• Lower rainfall and drought have shrunk Lake Chad, which provides a lifeline to nearly
30 million people in four countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger), to about 36 per
cent of its original size; and,
• The estimated rise in sea level by up to 1.9 feet by 2100 will see several of Nigerian coastal
states being submerged in water, resulting in the disruption of the life and activities of the
inhabitants as well as wreaking great havoc on the ecological balance. It will also negatively
affect the following: beach-​based tourism as the beaches and lagoons will be submerged by the
sea; the country’s transport systems will require costly changes to ports, coastal roads, railways
and inland navigation; the destruction of other infrastructure such as oil well plants and indus-
trial layouts that can hamper productivity and efficiency in the sector; oil production wells in
the coastal regions will be submerged by sea level rise of 1–​3 meters, which will cut down oil
production and other commercial activities, costing Nigeria $43 billion in GDP over 30 years.

Until recently, Nigeria did not have a climate change adaptation strategy. She now has a
National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action on Climate Change, which was published in 2011.
Additionally, the Nigerian Government has developed a governance structure to manage the
national response to climate change (BNRCC 2011). This includes the following:

• The creation of a national focal point –​the Special Climate Change Unit (SCCU) within the
Federal Ministry of Environment;
• The establishment of an Inter-​ministerial Coordinating Committee on Climate Change;
• The development of a National Climate Change Policy and Response Strategy;
• The development of a Strategic Framework for Voluntary Nationally Appropriate Mitigation
Action (NAMA) program; and,
• The involvement of several other government agencies in climate change adaptation issues.
They include the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), the National Emergency
Management Authority (NEMA), and the National Planning Commission (NPC).

Anticipated Failure of Nigeria’s National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy

and Action Plan
The plan and institutional structures are doomed to fail to address the impacts of climate change
in the country for the following reasons, amongst others:

• A lack of an integrated, comprehensive approach that fails to include security considerations

in its national adaptation strategy;
• A fragmented and uncoordinated governance structure that adopts a top-​down approach;

314
 Resilience, mitigation, adaptation strategy

• The exclusion of the vast majority of the stakeholders, especially the low-​income, the poor
and vulnerable populations, in the policy formulation and implementation processes;
• A national adaptation strategy that fails to address the differential impacts of climate change on
women and men, on youth and ethnic communities (Moran 2011).
• A failed political system that is incapable of addressing long-​term national issues; and
• A massively corrupt state bureaucracy.

These are further elaborated on in the next section.

Nigeria as a Failed State

The political system is incapable of addressing long-​term national issues because Nigeria is, quite
frankly, a failed state (Ifowodo 2009):

• The federal and state governments are inept and incapable to deliver basic social service;
• Corruption is widespread and deep-​rooted at all the levels of government bureaucracy;
• The legal system is dysfunctional;
• Government institutions are so exceedingly weak and insubstantial that they are unable to
address a multitude of security threats to the country such as the growth of criminal violence,
widespread civil conflicts and environmental degradation.
• In short, Nigeria is “unable or unwilling to provide essential public services, which include
fostering equitable and sustainable economic growth, governing legitimately, ensuring physical
security, and delivering basic services” (Rice and Patrick 2008, p. 5)

Fund for Peace’s Failed State Index, in ranking Nigeria as 14th in 2011, noted that Nigeria’s
worst-​scoring indicators were Group Grievance (9.6), Uneven Development (9.0), Legitimacy
of the State (9.0), Public Services (9.0), Security Apparatus (9.1), and Factionalized Elites (9.5).
The country’s deep grievances along religious and communal lines have resulted in violence in
the Niger Delta region, the Middle Belt, and the north. There is also endemic corruption and
deep distrust of the state, inadequate public services, and security forces that often operate with
impunity. The country is also subject to campaigns of violence by a number of militant and mil-
itia groups. Finally, there are deep divisions among the political elite.
Similarly, Nwabueze (2018) used Google’s Failed State Index in his analysis of Nigeria
and concluded that the country “is now qualified as a failed state”. Google’s 12 indicators
that measure a state’s vulnerability to collapse are (Nwabueze 2018): demographic pressures
resulting from drought, crop failure; incidence of massive movement of refugees and intern-
ally displaced persons; civil disorders caused by ethnic, racial or religious conflicts; chronic
and sustained human flight; uneven economic development along group lines as manifested
in group-​based inequality in opportunities for education, jobs, and economic advancement,
and as measured by group-​based poverty levels, infant mortality rates; sharp and/​or severe eco-
nomic decline as measured by a progressive economic decline of the society as a whole (using
per capita income, GNP, debt, child mortality rate, poverty levels, business failures); endemic
corruption or profiteering by ruling elites and resistance to transparency, accountability and
free elections; widespread loss of popular confidence in state institutions and processes; pro-
gressive deterioration of public services particularly basic state functions that serve the people,
including failure to protect citizens from terrorism and violence and to provide essential ser-
vices, such as health, education, sanitation, public transportation; widespread violation of human
rights; private security apparatuses, and “praetorian” guards operating with impunity more or

315
Adenrele Awotona

less as a “state within a state”; state-​sponsored or state-​supported private militias, operating as

an “army” outside the regular army of the state, which terrorize political opponents, suspected
“enemies”, or civilians seen to be sympathetic to the opposition in furtherance of the interests
of the dominant political clique; and, factionalization of the ruling elite and state institutions
along group lines.
Indeed, Ikhide (2018), in his online newspaper article, “At last President Buhari admits
Nigeria is a failed state”, quotes Robert D. Kaplan’s prognosis of the tragedy that is Nigeria’s des-
tiny thus: “As environmental stress worsened, bringing with it widespread disease and resource
conflict, social disharmony would increase as identities are redefined along religious, cultural
or tribal lines rather than the lines of often artificial political borders. Politics would become
localized as states’ powers fade, with sub-​national conflicts about self-​defense, not ideology,
becoming commonplace.”

Nigeria’s Massively Corrupt State Bureaucracy

Ifowodo (2009) has observed that Nigeria “is plagued by corruption so endemic and monu-
mental it is hard to separate it from state policy”. Similarly, Obayelu (2007) reveals that in Nigeria
corruption stifles economic growth; reduces economic efficiency and development despite the
enormous resources in the country; creates negative national image and loss of much-​needed
revenue; devalues the quality of human life; robs schools, agricultural sectors, hospital and welfare
services of funds; discourages foreign investments leading to decrease in foreign direct invest-
ment; exacerbates inequality; desecrates the rule of law; and undermines the legitimacy and sta-
bility of democratic regimes.
Obayelu (2007) also notes that corruption impedes “administrative processes thereby making
the implementation of government reforms policies ineffective”. Besides, corruption continues
to affect public finances, business investment, and standard of living. Consequently, the country’s
President Muhammadu Buhari launched an anti-​corruption drive after taking office in May
2015. However, a 2017 study of “the dynamic effects of corruption that affect the long run
capacity of the country to achieve its potential” reveals that “corruption in Nigeria could cost
up to 37 per cent of GDP by 2030 if it’s not dealt with immediately. This cost is equated to
around US$1,000 per person in 2014 and nearly US$2,000 per person by 2030” (PwC 2017,
pp.2–​3). Furthermore, the study notes that corruption depresses governance effectiveness, espe-
cially through smaller tax base and inefficient government expenditure; reduces human capital
as fewer people, particularly the vulnerable populations (low-​income households, the poor,
women, the elderly, and the disabled) are unable to access health care and education; and
weakens investment, especially foreign direct investment (FDI), as it is harder to predict and do
business. Poor levels of FDI have the following negative consequences: insubstantial promotion
of investment in key areas such as infrastructure development as a result of which there will
be less production of capital goods; fewer new technologies such as recent developments in
the communications system; a decrease in capital inflow into the country especially in key and
core sectors of the economy; a decrease in exports; less scope for employment opportunities
especially for the young university-​and college-​educated graduates; weakens financial services
of the country (including its banking industry, merchant banking, portfolio investment, the
establishment of new companies, and the capital market); incapability to maintain the solidity
of the exchange rate in the country through its exchange control measures; slower pace of the
development of rural and backward areas; less utilization of natural resources; and slower rate of
change in the lifestyle of the people.

316
 Resilience, mitigation, adaptation strategy

Consequences of a Failed Climate Change Adaptation Policy and Strategy

A study (BNRCC 2011, p. 15), which was funded by the Department for International
Development of the UK Government (DFID), used an integrated analytical assessment
model to show projected economic impacts of climate change in Nigeria. According to this
study, if no adaptation is implemented, climate change could result in a loss of between 2 per
cent and 11 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP by 2020, rising to between 6 per cent and 30 per cent
by 2050. This loss is equivalent to between $100 billion and $460 billion. A failed adaptation
policy would also result in “damaging and irrecoverable effects on infrastructure, food pro-
duction and water supplies, in addition to precipitating natural resource conflicts” (BNRCC
2011, p.26); an increase in cross-​border crimes (Daramola et al. 2014; Folami and Karimu
2010); and, an increase in violent conflict across the country because of shortages of resources
such as land and water (Sayne 2011);

Conclusion
In the short term, nothing at this stage will slow or reverse the desertification of northern
Nigeria and Iraq or coastal erosion in southern Nigeria due to rising sea levels. Nevertheless,
there are several excellent proposals for mitigating Nigeria and Iraq’s climate change problem.
The difficulty, however, is not a lack of good ideas. It is one of implementation, funding and
political will. Without a plan to fund projects that will create more efficient electricity grids,
water projects, and food programs, Nigeria and Iraq will continue to descend into political
instability and, with it, their respective regions. According to Moran (2011), although Nigeria
was the top recipient of foreign aid in Africa between 2005 and 2008 (11.64 per cent), inter-
national aid for climate change adaptation “makes up a small percentage of total development
aid” dedicated to the country. Consequently, just as in Iraq, the way to increase Nigeria’s
climate change resilience is to provide an influx of money and expertise (both planning and
technical), the management of which must be closely monitored by the donor countries in
order to ensure transparency.
Specifically, the new international resources should be invested in the following areas, amongst
others (Ijeoma 2012):

• A comprehensive and affordable health care system (to eliminate infectious and food-​borne
diseases; to engage in widespread information campaigns to help people adapt before any dis-
aster, and after it, by aiding recovery from harm);
• Suitable water management policies;
• Insurance programs to mitigate risk;
• Weather indexed agriculture (so that farmers could adapt their crops to a climate rife with
both drought and flooding; and, use seeds that can withstand higher temperatures, more or less
water, and fluctuating crop seasons);
• Climate resilient housing projects (which use sustainable and efficient building practices);
• Improved weather prediction technology; and,
• The development of a resilient, localized economy.

Political stability and the smooth functioning of sectarian relations are basic requirements for an
effective governance and crucial for climate change mitigation strategies to succeed in both Iraq
and Nigeria. Therefore, these need to be integrated into national and local development plans.

317
Adenrele Awotona

Note
1 The costs of defense, policing, and courts continue to be quite high. In 2014, the World Bank estimated
that defense, public order, and safety (including police, courts, and prisons) together accounted for 16
per cent of Iraq’s total expenditure or 9.2 per cent of GDP (Bisca 2017).

References
Awotona, A. (ed.) (2008). Rebuilding Sustainable Communities in Iraq: Policies, Programs and International
Perspectives. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,.
Awotona, A. and Donlan, M. (2008). Reconstructing Iraq: Massive investment, little sustainable results.
In: A. Awotona (ed.): Rebuilding Sustainable Communities in Iraq: Policies, Programs and international
perspectives. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bala-​Gbogbo, E. (2011). Nigeria’s oil revenue rose 46% to $59 billion in 2010 on improved security.
Bloomberg. April 14. www.bloomberg.com/​news/​2011-​04-​14/​nigeria-​s-​oil-​revenue-​rose-​46-​to-​59-​
billion-​in-​2010-​on-​improved-​security.html. (Accessed March 15, 2012).
BBC (2018). Iraq country profile, May. www.bbc.com/​news/​world-​middle-​east-​14542954. May 21.
Bisca, P.M. (2017). Stabilizing Iraq: A job for soldiers, diplomats, and economists. Brookings, October
30. www.brookings.edu/​blog/​future-​development/​2017/​10/​30/​stabilizing-​iraq-​a-​job-​for-​soldiers-​
diplomats-​and-​economists/​. (Accessed August 16, 2018).
Building Nigeria’s Response to Climate Change (BNRCC) (2011). National Adaptation Strategy and Plan
of Action on Climate Change For Nigeria (NASPA –​CCN). November. www.naspanigeria.org/​docs/​
2011/​october/​naspa-​ccn.pdf.
Business & Human Rights Resource Center website (2018). Human rights impacts of oil pollution: Nigeria.
www.business-​humanrights.org/​en/​human-​r ights-​impacts-​of-​oil-​pollution-​nigeria-​40. (Accessed
December 5, 2018).
Daramola, C.O., Amali, I.O.O., Yusuf, A., and Bello, M.B.. (2014). Factors hindering retention of basic
school teachers in border areas as perceived by educational stakeholder in Katsina State, Nigeria.
Public Policy and Administration Research. 4 (10). www.iiste.org/​Journals/​index.php/​PPAR/​article/​
viewFile/​16419/​16910. (Accessed August 15, 2018).
Dobbins, J.F., Laipson, E., Cobban, H., and Korb, L.J. (2009) US Withdrawal from Iraq: What are the
regional implications?. Rand Corporation Middle East Policy. 16 (3): 1–​27
Ebele, N.E. and Emodi, N.V. (2016). Climate change and its impact in Nigerian economy. Journal of
Scientific Research & Reports. 10(6): 1–​13. www.journalrepository.org/​media/​journals/​JSRR_​22/​
2016/​Apr/​Emodi1062016JSRR25162.pdf. (Accessed August 22, 2018).
Folami, A.O. and Karimu, O.O. (2010). Climate change and cross border crime in Nigeria. Paper presented
at the 250th Anniversary Conference Organized for the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and
Letter on Climate Change and Security in Trondhiem, Norway.
Fund for Peace (2011). The Failed States Index 2011. www.fundforpeace.org/​global/​?q=fsi.
Ifowodo, Ogaga (2009). Debate: Is Nigeria a Failed State? BBC, July 7. http://​news.bbc.co.uk/​2/​hi/​africa/​
8112800.stm. (Accessed August 16, 2018).
Ijeoma, S. (2012). Nigeria and climate change adaptation. Journal of the International Society for
Sustainability Professionals. May. www.sustainabilityprofessionals.org/​sites/​default/​files/​May%202012-​
Nigeria%20and%20Climate%20Change%20Adaptation.pdf. (Accessed December 5, 2018).
Ikhide, E. (2018). At last President Buhari admits Nigeria is a failed state. Sahara Reporters. May 23. http://​
saharareporters.com/​2018/​05/​23/​last-​president-​buhari-​admits-​nigeria-​f ailed-​state-​erasmus-​ikhide.
(Accessed August 29, 2018).
IRIN News (2010).Climate change: adaptation strategy hit parade. August 9. www.irinnews.org/​Report.
aspx?ReportId=90104. (Accessed February 5, 2011).
Johnson, T. (2011). Boko Haram, The Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC. December 27.
www.cfr.org/​africa/​boko-​haram/​p25739?cid=ppc-​Google-​boko_​haram-​122711&gclid=CP6zker9z6
4CFYbe4AodTzQYQA. (Accessed March 5, 2012).
Moran, A. (ed.) (2011). Climate change adaptation in Nigeria: Key considerations for decision makers.
March 8. Working Paper. www.files.ethz.ch/​isn/​133060/​2011-​03.pdf. (Accessed March 5, 2012).
Mallat, C. (1998). Religious militancy in contemporary Iraq: Muhammad Baqer as-​Sadr and the Sunni-​Shia
paradigm. Third World Quarterly. 10 (2): 699–​729

318
 Resilience, mitigation, adaptation strategy

Nwabueze, B. (2018). Why “NIGERIA” is now qualified as a failed state. Vanguard. February 3. www.
vanguardngr.com/​2018/​02/​nigeria-​now-​qualified-​failed-​state/​. (Accessed August 29, 2018).
Obayelu, A.E. (2007). Effects of corruption and economic reforms on economic growth and develop-
ment Lessons from Nigeria. Paper presented at the African Economic Conference. www.uneca.org/​
aec/​documents/​Abiodun%20Elijah%20OBAYELU.pdf. (Accessed February 16, 2012).
PwC (2017). Impact of Corruption on Nigeria’s Economy www.pwc.com/​ng/​en/​publications/​impact-​of-​
corruption-​on-​nigerias-​economy.html. (Accessed August 17, 2018).
Rice, S.E. and Patrick, S. (2008). Index of State Weakness in the developing world. Washington, DC: The
Brookings Institution. www.brookings.edu/​~/​media/​Files/​rc/​reports/​2008/​02_​weak_​states_​index/​
02_​weak_​states_​index.pdf.
Sayne, A. (2011). Climate Change Adaptation and Conflict in Nigeria, United States Institute of Peace.
www.usip.org/​files/​resources/​Climate_​Change_​Nigeria.pdf. (Accessed February 8, 2012).
Sirkeci, I. (2005). War in Iraq: Environment of insecurity and international migration. International
Migration. 43 (4): 197–​214.
Sowers, J. and Weinthal, E. (2010). Climate change adaptation in the Middle East and North Africa: Challenges
and opportunities. The Dubai Initiative (A joint venture between the Dubai School of Government
(DSG) and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University). September.
UNDP (2018). Iraq sets up national authority to mobilize global climate finance, manage environment
and climate change challenges. www.iq.undp.org/​content/​iraq/​en/​home/​presscenter/​pressreleases/​
2018/​06/​27/​iraq-​sets-​up-​national-​authority-​to-​mobilize-​global-​climate-​finan.html. (Accessed August
13, 2018).
UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF (2012). Climate change in Iraq fact sheet, June https://​reliefweb.int/​sites/​
reliefweb.int/​files/​resources/​Climate%20change%20In%20Iraq%20Fact%20sheet%20-​%20English.pdf.
(Accessed August 13, 2018).
USAID (2017). Climate risk profile –​ Iraq. www.climatelinks.org/​sites/​default/​files/​asset/​document/​
2017Mar3_​GEMS_​Climate%20Risk%20Profile_​Iraq_​FINAL.pdf. (Accessed August 14, 2018).
World Population Review (2018). http://​worldpopulationreview.com/​countries/​iraq-​population/​.
(Accessed August 16, 2018).

319
 24
Resilience, reconstruction, and
sustainable development in Chile
Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene

The transformative potential of resilience

The reduction of risks from natural disasters initially arises from a humanitarian perspective, but
in recent years it has been associated with the concepts of sustainable development and resili-
ence, since it reduces the economic, social, and environmental consequences of disasters. This
chapter explores the transformative potential of reconstruction programs through experiences
from Chile, aiming at enriching the evolutionary perspective towards resilience and sustainable
development, incorporating not only the future reduction of risks but also the possibility of
improving existing, and many times long-​lasting, prior deficiencies. This approach aims at using
the disaster as an opportunity.
Since 2008, the European Union, the World Bank and the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP) have promoted and supported national governments in the process of dis-
aster impact assessment and sustainable recovery planning emphasizing resilience (PNUD 2017).
Davoudi (2014) distinguishes three perspectives of resilience: engineering, ecological, and evolu-
tionary. Resilience from engineering and physics is defined as the ability of a system to return to
equilibrium after an event and is measured by the speed with which it returns to its original state
(Davoudi 2012; 2014, Holling 1973; 1986). On the other hand, ecological resilience emphasizes
the ability of a system to adapt and stay within its limits in the face of an event (Davoudi 2014;
Lewontin 1969). Although these two types of resilience are based on equilibrium, ecological
resilience assumes the existence of multiple possible equilibria where the system can adapt within
certain limits (Davoudi 2012; 2014). In relation to urban development, this equilibrium system
theory has been interpreted as a “normality” to which systems must return (Davoudi 2014); and
has been criticized precisely because of it, arguing that is neither adequate nor desirable, since
that state is what initially caused the vulnerability (Glantz and Jamieson 2000; Tobin 1999).
A third view is the evolutionary resilience, which is not based on equilibrium but on the
understanding of the world as a complex, chaotic, uncertain, and unpredictable system (Davoudi
2012; 2014; Simmie and Martin 2010). This perspective suggests that systems are not linear
but are part of an evolutionary process that occur in a series of cycles through spatial and
temporal interactions (Berkes and Folke 1998; Davoudi 2012; 2014). This vision allows for a
transformative potential, alternative trajectories, and opportunities for adaptation from an event,

320
 Sustainable development in Chile

where the objective is not to return to “normality” but to evolve. The Chilean Commission for
Resilience to Disasters of Natural Origin has defined resilience as the capacity to “absorb, adapt
and recover” from the effects of a threat, to achieve “the preservation, restoration and improve-
ment of its structures, basic functions and identity” (CNID-​CREDEN 2016; González et al.
2018). Although this definition is seen as conservative, based on its reactive scope, it still considers
the improvement and transformation of the initial status. From this perspective, the transforma-
tive potential of resilience can be linked to the idea of sustainable development.
To achieve sustainable development, the context of vulnerability and the risks that affect
communities need to be understood. This requires observing, assessing, and understanding
risks, strengthening coordination, investing in resilience, and improving preparedness, response,
recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (UNISDR 2015). Moreover, the integration of pre-​
and post-​disaster processes in a simultaneous and multisectorial manner has been identified as a
way of improving the response and enabling future development, both in the international con-
text by the Sendai Framework for Action (UNISDR 2015) and in the Chilean national context
by the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (ONEMI, n.d.-​b).

Chilean context
Chile is located in the south-​western part of South America, and its geological and geomor-
phological evolution is defined by the subduction of the Nazca and Antarctic plates beneath
the South American Plate at the Chile-​Peru Trench (Cecioni and Pineda 2009). Due to this
situation, Chile faces many hazards, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, which affect vulnerable
populations located in high-​risk zones. In addition, Chile is recurrently exposed to wildfires,
volcanic eruptions, and hydro-​climatological events such as floods and mudslides. Consequently,
Chile is a natural laboratory for learning on disaster management, risk reduction, and on the
transformative potential of natural disasters, thus contributing to the contemporary discussion
on resilience and sustainable development. Past experiences have influenced and improved urban
development policies, especially regarding construction codes and response to disasters, but still
have to incorporate the evolutionary aspect of resilience.
On the one hand, several appraisals have been conducted both quantitatively and qualita-
tively, regarding emergency and reconstruction processes, and the country’s capacity to respond
to emergencies in an effective way has been praised. In this line, the normative and institu-
tional framework to respond to and prepare for disasters in Chile has been developed after
major catastrophes.The country building codes have been revised after big seismic events leading
to a safer behavior of buildings, especially in urban areas, and have significantly reduced the
number of casualties. The Law of Urbanism and Constructions was created after the earth-
quake of 1928; the 1960 earthquake and tsunami gave rise to the National Emergency Office
(ONEMI); and recently the consequences of the earthquake and tsunami of 2010 has motivated
the proposal of the new National Emergency and Civil Protection System and the National
Civil Protection Agency (DIPECHO 2012). Chile has been working towards a national policy
on disaster risk reduction (DRR) that should include the phases of prevention, preparation,
response, and recovery (ONEMI 2014). On the other hand, despite these efforts, recent events
still cause large-​scale destruction, especially to the housing stock, and the emergency and recon-
struction processes have focused excessively on housing, without achieving an integral urban
perspective. Reconstruction has been addressed with a market-​driven approach, where the state
distributes a series of subsidies and incentives among the affected population. Although this has
proven successful in terms of attracting the private sector to the reconstruction process, and
thus producing large numbers of dwellings, it has generated other problems, such as poor spatial

321
Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene

quality (housing and neighborhoods), lack of a global urban vision and displacement of affected
residents due to speculators targeting their sites –​now “available” after the disaster –​with higher
prices.
What is the transformative potential of reconstruction programs in Chile that can enable sus-
tainable development and resilience? To address this question, this chapter presents two cases: the
earthquake and tsunami of 2010 and the Valparaiso fire of 2014. Both cases are selected due
to their scale and impact in terms of destruction of housing caused by two different hazards.
Through these cases, the mechanisms of reaction and adaptation carried out by the institutions
in charge and the affected population after the disaster are discussed.These cases allow discussing
the effectiveness of reconstruction processes from the perspective of resilience as an opportunity
for transformation that allows sustainable development.

Earthquake and tsunami of 2010

On February 27, 2010, an 8.8 magnitude (Mw) earthquake was followed by a tsunami in the
central and southern regions of Chile. The earthquake was recorded as the second-​strongest
earthquake in Chile’s history (Verdugo and González 2015). It affected around 75 per cent of
the population, killing 526 people and leaving more than 200,000 houses destroyed or seriously
damaged (Cárdenas-​Jirón 2013). The most severe damage occurred in coastal areas and parts
of Chile’s central valley (American Red Cross Multi-​Disciplinary Team 2011). The destruc-
tion left by the earthquake was severe, although the large majority of buildings performed well
during the earthquake (Jünemann et al. 2015). This has been explained by the constant revision
of the building codes and the compliance with updated seismic design. The tsunami destroyed
ports, roads, and other structures, and made the immediately surrounding areas uninhabitable or
inaccessible (American Red Cross Multi-​Disciplinary Team 2011). Liquefaction affected ports,
bridges, and roads, most significantly along the coast, and induced ground deformations affected
the seismic performance of several modern buildings (EERI 2010;Verdugo and González 2015).
Also, the tsunami devastated the areas near the epicenter and caused more life losses than the
quake due to failures in the communication systems. The government led the post-​disaster
coordination in three phases: immediate emergency for assisting the victims and restoring public
order; winter emergency to build temporary shelters and prepare for the winter; and reconstruc-
tion to build permanent housing (Gobierno de Chile 2013).
During the “Winter Emergency Phase”, temporary houses in private plots were built, as well
as temporary settlements called aldeas (villages). In total, 70,489 temporary houses were built
during the first half of 2010, of which 65 per cent were built by the government, 32 per cent by
TECHO NGO and 3 per cent by private companies, individuals, and other NGOs (Gobierno
de Chile 2012). In total, 106 aldeas were built on land rented or owned by the government,
with the goal to ensure that all displaced families would have a permanent house before the
winter of 2012 (Gobierno de Chile 2013). Nevertheless, this goal was not fully achieved. In
2012 the government recognized that the process would take longer than planned, and started
a programme to subsidise rents for families living in the aldeas, with the aim of closing the tem-
porary settlements by mid-​2013 (Gobierno de Chile 2013). However, many families did not
want to move because they felt this would delay the construction of permanent houses or that
they would lose benefits from the government (Wagemann 2017). ONEMI and SUBDERE
were in charge of the provision of temporary houses, sanitary facilities (prefabricated modules
for shared toilets and showers), electricity, and water (water tanks), and the municipalities were
charged with coordination, as well as building fences, drainage, and firewalls, with support from
the armed forces in some cases (MINVU 2011b; Wagemann 2017).

322
 Sustainable development in Chile

In addition, FOSIS (Fondo de Solidaridad e Inversión Social, Ministerio de Desarrollo

Social) built greenhouses and vegetable patches, mud ovens, and solar water panels. Moreover,
international and humanitarian organizations, such as Catholic NGO Caritas, provided
some families with individual chemical toilets (Wagemann 2017). The Ministry of Housing
(MINVU) created a handbook for planning settlements. These guidelines provided technical
advice to support minimum standards, acknowledging parameters defined by the Sphere Project
(MINVU 2010b). Also, the guidelines provided four options for grouping houses, including
playgrounds and communal buildings, and defining the distance between units depending on
the orientation of the houses in relation to the plot. Despite these efforts, it was recognized
by experts and the government that the temporary houses were inadequate for the climate
of southern Chile, due to a lack of insulation, waterproofing, and poor quality. The Ministry
of Planning (MIDEPLAN) provided basic equipment to improve the quality of the houses,
consisting of insulation, mattresses, kitchens, and electric kits with connection to the elec-
tric network (Gobierno de Chile 2010; Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, Gobierno de Chile
2010). Other organizations also provided materials for insulation, such as the NGOs Hogar de
Cristo and Save the Children. The government provided recommendations to support muni-
cipalities and other institutions, through the “Guide of Technical Recommendations for Post-​
Earthquake Emergency Housing” (FOSIS 2010). These guidelines suggested the addition of
bracing to the walls, insulation, and rain protection, as well as electric systems, toilet units, and a
roof extension with a detailed itinerary of materials. The government also started a program for
covering the shelters with a waterproof layer made from high density polyethylene (Granadillo
2010). However, timber specialists criticized its use because it traps the humidity, developing
unhealthy internal environments, attracting fungi and deteriorating the wood, shortening the
lifespan of the house (Bluth 2010).
During the reconstruction phase, MINVU started a program called “Chile Together Builds
Better”. The aim was to provide 220,000 subsidies for repairing, building and buying houses
depending on the type of damage to the house (MINVU 2011a; 2017). The families whose
houses were classified as unrepairable were oriented to two previously existing social housing
programmes: “Solidarity Fund for Housing” for vulnerable families and “Housing Subsidy
Supreme Decree N° 40” for middle-​class families (MINVU 2011a). The new houses considered
a minimum area of 45 m2, including one bedroom, living-​dining room, kitchen and toilet, with
the possibility of extensions to be approved by the local authorities (MINVU 2011a). The con-
struction should be done by builders approved by the government, using optional plans provided
by the government or designed individually (MINVU 2011a).

Valparaíso fire of 2014

On April 12, 2014, a forest fire started in the urban outskirts of the city of Valparaíso, in the
highest part of the hills, which advanced quickly towards the urbanized sector.The event created
massive power cuts due to damage to the infrastructure and more than 12,000 people were
evacuated (CFE-​DM 2017). The fire destroyed 1,090 hectares, 2,900 homes, affected 12,500
people and killed 15 (ONEMI et al. 2018). The fire was caused by a sum of factors: many years
of drought in the region, the geomorphological conditions of Valparaíso, unusually strong winds,
very high temperatures, the lack of firebreaks, urban expansion on a risk area, lack of emergency
networks, and limited accessibility to control the fire. Moreover, the fire affected the most vul-
nerable, population settled on unsuitable lands for construction with limited accessibility for
emergency vehicles and lack of water supply to meet the emergency (identified by CONAF as
a danger zone).

323
Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene

Shelters, emergency housing, and subsidies were arranged by the government, but the process
presented many challenges such as construction of shelters on irregular land and poor quality
of the temporary houses. Also, the central location of the event meant than the number of
volunteers surpassed the capacity of the state to coordinate them and to accommodate them in
the area, providing basic shelter and food. To control this situation, the authorities restricted the
volunteers, who could only provide support after registration and vaccination against tetanus,
influenza, and meningitis (ONEMI et al. 2018). The municipality provided communal shelters
for the affected population, although most chose to stay in their plots, since they feared eradica-
tion given that they had no formal tenure and it was mainly informal housing.
The Ministry of the Interior was ready to deliver 1,600 temporary shelters to the affected
families (ONEMI et al. 2018).The coordination and selection of the beneficiaries was organized
by the municipality, and was due to be carried out in accordance to the location and requirements
of the Local Authority Masterplan (Plan Regulador Comunal). However, as much of the affected
area corresponded to informal land occupation, and the state cannot build on informal land or
in risk areas, this approach could not be implemented. Due to the lack of land for temporary
housing, the government provided temporary lease and host subsidies. The temporary lease is
a subsidy provided to those affected to rent a dwelling while a permanent housing solution is
being built, and the host subsidy is a financial aid provided to families that host those affected
during the reconstruction process. However, affected families were reluctant to accept these
subsidies because they had to abandon their land, risking losing their “occupation rights”. The
scarcity of available land within the urban area to relocate affected families, whether for transi-
tional or for permanent housing on the one hand, and the speed of the families in rebuilding
with lightweight materials on their informal plots to avoid other occupants to settle on them,
made the process more difficult to coordinate (ONEMI et al. 2018).
Another issue was the quality of the shelters. Similar to the ones built after the 2010 earthquake,
the government was forced to provide elements to improve them, such as insulation equipment,
electrical kits, paint, and sanitary solutions (ONEMI et al. 2018). Although the response capacity
of the government offices was celebrated, the complementary kits were not good enough to pro-
vide minimum standards, since in most cases the sum of parts did not result in a good quality tran-
sitional house. Therefore, the quality of the houses was widely questioned due to their minimum
size, material conditions (little insulation, poor durability, not adequate for the level of develop-
ment of the country), and the lack of involvement of communities in the decisions (Wagemann
and Moris 2018). For example, a month after the disaster many of the emergency houses leaked
with the first rain. The results and critique led to its redesign by civil society organizations, such
as TECHO, Fundación Vivienda, and private organizations, such as Térmica, CINTAC, and
PREVIRED, who focused on building better quality temporary housing. However, many of
these houses were built on plots with irregular tenure and in risk areas, creating other problems.
Consequently, the government introduced a new requirement, which included an authorization
signed by the plot owner to allow his or her relatives to build a temporary house.

Resilience: From emergency and reconstruction to sustainable

development
Experience from the two cases presented here encouraged the government and stakeholders to
modify the existing systems and strategies, such as emergency alerts, improvement of housing
standards, and the creation of urban regulations in order to improve the status quo. These
improvements are important lessons to be shared and can be summarized in the following five
aspects:

324
 Sustainable development in Chile

(1) Non-​ structural measures: Alert and early communication systems. Failures in
communication after the 2010 earthquake led the government to improve the communica-
tion systems. The Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Armed Forces (SHOA),
the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin), and Regional Development
Undersecretaries (SUBDERE), have coordinated the installation of signage, early warning, and
alarm systems, information systems, and education of communities. Also, ONEMI has used
their website and social media to inform the population about hazards and how to be prepared
for future events (ONEMI, n.d.-​a).These systems were applied during the 2015 earthquake,
when around one million Chileans were efficiently evacuated from the tsunami risk zone after
receiving text alerts in their mobile phones and hearing evacuation sirens (CFE-​DM 2017).
(2) Structural measures: Tsunami resilience. Promenades and elevated housing were
developed in coastal communities after the 2010 tsunami, with mixed results.The promenades
increased awareness, boosted economic resilience (due to tourist-​related food businesses),
and reinforced a culture of preparedness, although residents do not feel they provide sub-
stantial physical protection due to their insufficient height (Khew et al. 2015). On the other
hand, elevated housing was seen to separate large family units, due to its small size, and
increasing conflict among citizens.
(3) Temporary housing standards. Encouraged by the experience from 2010 and 2014, a
working group called “Transitional Habitability” was created including representatives from
ONEMI, MINVU, and MDS, researchers from academic institutions, stakeholders from
NGOs, and private companies (Wagemann and Moris 2018). The group aimed to update
the standards of emergency housing, to define criteria for the location, administration, and
operation of emergency settlements, and to provide guidelines for the process that goes from
emergency to reconstruction (Wagemann and Moris 2018).The concept of “transitional hab-
itability” was defined as adequate shelter provided to serve between the emergency and the
permanent reconstruction, allowing time to face a sustainable development through better
planning (Garay et al. 2016; Moris et al. 2015;Wagemann and Moris 2018).As a result, ONEMI
defined a new standard that was applied after floods and mudslides that affected the country
in 2015, and since then has been revised and improved. The new houses are bigger (24 m2),
with new materials (structural insulated panels), and sanitary modules. The new requirements
were made mandatory, therefore all government’s providers improved the quality of the tran-
sitional houses. The new model proved to be of better quality and faster to build, but it also
presented some problems, which are currently being addressed, such as the need to include a
holistic perspective including the design of the temporary settlements and the definition of
roles, responsibilities, and management of them (Wagemann and Moris 2018).
(4) Planning in the reconstruction phase. MINVU is the national institution in charge of
planning and providing permanent housing; nevertheless, since the 1980s the main social
housing programs implemented by the government consists of the delivery of vouchers
to the selected applicants, who then buy houses in the open market. This system has been
described as “subsidy to the demand” and has been successful in terms of the number of
houses built and delivered, but not so in terms of housing quality and urban impact, with
an unequal provision of services and equipment and a general lack of urban planning. This
weakness has persisted in the process of reconstruction (Moris 2016; Wagemann and Moris
2018).Therefore, an overall planning framework at the local level including the participation
of residents is still needed (Comerio 2014). Nevertheless, after the 2010 earthquake and tsu-
nami, efforts were made to develop planning instruments, such as the Sustainable Strategic
Reconstruction Plans (PRES), the Urban Regeneration Plans for Inner Cities (PRU), the
Coastal Border Reconstruction Plans (PRBC), and emergency plans for each region and

325
Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene

municipality (Wagemann and Moris 2018). The aim of these plans was to develop urban
guides for the recovery of cities, although they were not part of the official structure of ter-
ritorial planning instruments (Moris and Walker 2015).
(5) Participation process during emergency. Although the government made an effort in
including public opinion and participation in the reconstruction process, quick decisions
based on limited information were made, especially regarding private residential housing,
conflicting with resident’s aspirations, such as the size of the houses (Khew et al. 2015), or
the desire to stay in their location versus reconstructing on another place. The difficulty to
coordinate the large number of institutions involved in the process, and the need to define a
macro-​scale plan, made it difficult, for example, to include small-​scale details, such as custom-
izing evacuation routes (Khew et al. 2015; MINVU 2010a; Platt 2012). Also, disaster mitiga-
tion in new construction was carried out with limited knowledge, such as minimum height
and materials (Khew et al. 2015). The experience showed insufficient institutional capacity,
scarce resources, lack of influence of local authorities in decision making and the reliance on
the private sector (Khew et al. 2015). This meant that, during the emergency, coordination
was undertaken by the regional or national level, generating discontinuity in the process of
local learning and transfer, not supporting decentralization, a major problem in Chile.

Experience from the cases presented here suggests that key elements to improve the institu-
tional response and overall spatial result after a disaster include articulating the various phases of
the post-​catastrophe process and incorporating inhabitants’ needs from the first days of the dis-
aster. Nevertheless, without underestimating the value of these lessons and improvements in the
systems, they still correspond to a reactive approach to disaster, rather than a proposal for future
sustainable development.To see these events as an opportunity to create more resilient landscapes
and urban settlements in Chile should not only allow for better use of time and resources but for
improving previous problematic situations. This means using the catastrophe as an opportunity
for development beyond baseline conditions. An appropriate framework for emergency and
reconstruction strategies, including the transformative opportunity of these events, design should
be the next step for the Chilean context.

References
American Red Cross Multi-​Disciplinary Team (2011). Report on the 2010 Chilean Earthqueake and
Tsunami Response (Open-​file report No. 2011–​1053, 1.1). Reston, Virginia: US Geological Survey.
https://​pubs.usgs.gov/​of/​2011/​1053/​.
Berkes, F. and Folke, C. (1998). Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social
Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Bluth, A. (2010). Reconstrucción Post Terremoto ¿Por qué fallaron las mediaguas? LIGNUM. Bosque,
Madera, Tecnología (Techno Press, Fundación Chile): 32–​40.
Cárdenas-​Jirón, L.A. (ed.). (2013). The Chilean Earthquake and Tsunami 2010: A Multidisciplinary Study
of Mw8.8, Maule. Southampton ; Boston, MA: WIT Press.
Cecioni, A. and Pineda, V. (2009). Geology and geomorphology of natural hazards and human-​induced
disasters in Chile. Developments in Earth Surface Processes. 13: 379–​413. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
S0928-​2025(08)10018–​9.
CFE-​DM (2017). Chile: Disaster Management Reference Handbook. Hawaii: Center for Excellence in
Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance.
CNID-​CREDEN (2016). Hacia un Chile Resiliente frente a Desastres. Una Oportunidad. Estrategia
Nacional de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación para un Chile resiliente frente a desastres de origen
natural. Santiago, Chile: Consejo Nacional de Innovación para el Desarrollo (CNID). www.cnid.cl/​
wp-​content/​uploads/​2016/​12/​INFORME-​DESASTRES-​NATURALES.pdf.

326
 Sustainable development in Chile

Comerio, M.C. (2014). Housing recovery lessons from Chile. Journal of the American Planning Association.
80(4): 340–​350. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​01944363.2014.968188.
Davoudi, S. (2012). Resilience: A bridging concept or a dead end? Planning Theory & Practice. 13(2): 299–​
307. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​14649357.2012.677124.
Davoudi, S. (2014). Deconstructing resilience. Scroope: The Cambridge Architecture Journal. 23.
DIPECHO (2012).Analisis de Riesgos de Desastres en Chile.VII Plan de Acción DIPECHO en Sudamérica
2011–​2012-​Departamento de Ayuda Humanitaria de la Comisión Europea. Santiago: Unesco. www.
unesco.org/​fileadmin/​MULTIMEDIA/​FIELD/​Santiago/​pdf/​Analisis-​de-​r iesgos-​de-​desastres-​en-​
Chile.pdf.
EERI (2010). Learning from Earthquakes. The Mw 8.8 Chile Earthquake of February 27, 2010. Special
Earthquake Report. Oakland, CA: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). Retrieved from
www.eeri.org/​site/​images/​eeri_​newsletter/​2010_​pdf/​Chile10_​insert.pdf.
FOSIS (2010). Manual de recomendaciones técnicas para la vivienda de emergencia post-​terremoto.
Habitabildad FOSIS 2010. Santiago: Ministerio de Planificacion, Gobierno de Chile. www.
plataformaarquitectura.cl/​cl/​02-​53543/​manual-​de-​recomendaciones-​tecnicas-​para-​la-​vivienda-​de-​
emergencia-​post-​terremoto.
Garay, R.M., Pfenniger, F., Tapia, R., and Larenas, J. (2016). Viviendas de emergencia; criterios técnicos y
reglamento para estándares de calidad de viviendas y conjuntos de viviendas en asentamientos provisorios
(pp. 120–​140). Santiago: Fundación Vivienda. http://​repositorio.uchile.cl/​handle/​2250/​141931.
Glantz, M. and Jamieson, D. (2000). Societal response to hurricane mitch and intra-​versus intergenerational
equity issues: Whose norms should apply? Risk Analysis. 20: 869–​ 882. https://​
doi.org/​ 10.1111/​
0272-​4332.206080.
Gobierno de Chile (2010). Plan de Reconstrucción Terremoto y Maremoto del 27 de febrero de 2010.
Chile: Gobierno de Chile. www.preventionweb.net/​files/​28726_​plandereconstruccinagosto2010.pdf.
Gobierno de Chile (2012). Reporte de Cumplimiento de la Reconstruccion del Terremoto del 27 de
Febrero de 2010. Santiago: Ministerio Secretaria General de la Presidencia. www.preventionweb.net/​
files/​28726_​reportecumplimientoreconstruccionen.pdf.
Gobierno de Chile (2013). Reporte de Cumplimiento de la Reconstruccion del Terremoto del 27 de
Febrero de 2010. Santiago: Ministerio Secretaria General de la Presidencia. http://​ issuu.com/​
gobiernodechile/​docs/​130226_​reporte_​cumplimiento_​reconstrucci_​n_​27f2010.
González, D.P., Monsalve, M., Moris, R., and Herrera, C. (2018). Risk and resilience monitor: Development
of multiscale and multilevel indicators for disaster risk management for the communes and urban areas
of Chile. Applied Geography. 94: 262–​271. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.apgeog.2018.03.004.
Granadillo, M. (2010). Chile Terremoto. Informe de Situacion n.18, 17–​23 de Mayo (No. 18). Chile: United
Nations, Oficina del Coordinador Residente. http://​reliefweb.int/​sites/​reliefweb.int/​files/​resources/​
9BE9F3C7BD2F009B4925772F0000AC68-​informe_​completo.pdf.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics. 4: 1–​23.
Holling, C.S. (1986). The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: Local surprise and global change. In: W. Clark
and R. Munn (eds.): Sustainable Development of the Biosphere. London: Cambridge University Press,
292–​317.
Jünemann, R., de la Llera, J.C., Hube, M.A., Cifuentes, L.A., and Kausel, E. (2015). A statistical analysis of
reinforced concrete wall buildings damaged during the 2010, Chile earthquake. Engineering Structures.
82: 168–​185. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.engstruct.2014.10.014.
Khew,Y.T. J., Jarzebski, M.P., Dyah, F., San Carlos, R., Gu, J., Esteban, M., … Akiyama, T. (2015). Assessment
of social perception on the contribution of hard-​infrastructure for tsunami mitigation to coastal com-
munity resilience after the 2010 tsunami: Greater Concepcion area, Chile. International Journal of
Disaster Risk Reduction. 13: 324–​333. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ijdrr.2015.07.013.
Lewontin, R.C. (1969).The meaning of stability. Diversity and stability of ecological systems. In: Brookhaven
Symposia in Biology N. 22. New York: Brookhaven.
Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, Gobierno de Chile (2010, March 21). Ministro Kast informa sobre la
construcción de viviendas de emergencia en Penco. www.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/​noticias/​
2010/​03/​21/​ministro-​kast-​informa-​sobre-​la-​construccion-​de-​viviendas-​de-​emergencia-​en-​penco.
MINVU (2010a). Planes Maestros de Borde Costero (PRES y PRBC18), PRES/​PRBC18 §. www.minvu.
cl/​opensite_​20101207165334.aspx.

327
Elizabeth Wagemann and Margarita Greene

MINVU. (2010b, March). Lineamientos Basicos para Asentamientos de Emergencia. MINVU, Division
Desarrollo Urbano. www.plataformaurbana.cl/​archive/​2010/​03/​12/​lineamientos-​basicos-​para-​
asentamientos-​de-​emergencia/​.
MINVU (2011a). Programa de Reconstruccion de Vivienda. Guia de Alternativas de Solucion y Pasos a
Seguir para Obtener un Subsidio Habitacional. Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo, Gobierno de Chile
(Third). Santiago: MINVU.
MINVU. (2011b). Reconstrucción Nacional. Programa Aldeas. Secretaria Ejecutiva Desarrollo de Barrios.
www.minvu.cl/​opensite_​20100813175824.aspx.
MINVU (2017). Reconstruccion [Institutional]. www.minvu.cl/​opensite_​20150401161345.aspx.
Moris, R. (2016). From government-​led to market-​based housing programs. In: Slum Upgrading and Housing
in Latin America. New York: Inter-​American Development Bank, 13–​23. https://​publications.iadb.org/​
bitstream/​handle/​11319/​7879/​Slum-​Upgrading-​and-​Housing-​in-​Latin-​America.pdf?sequence=1.
Moris, R., Pacheco, C., and Ketels, F. (2015). Sistema integrado de respuesta para la provisión de habitabilidad
transitoria. Santiago: Centro Nacional de Investigación para la Gestión Integrada del Riesgo de Desastres
Naturales (CIGIDEN).
Moris, R. and Walker, R. (2015). Pelluhue. Reconstrucción de territorios vulnerables en un escenario
de reconstrucción inequitativa. El caso de Pelluhue, Chile. In: Learning from 27F. A Comparative
Assessment Of Urban Reconstruction Processes after the 2010 Eathquake in Chile. Santiago: Latin Lab,
GSAPP Columbia University & Santiago Research Cell, 103–​122.
ONEMI (2014). Política Nacional para la Gestión de Riesgo de Desastre. Santiago, Chile. www.onemi.gov.
cl/​plataforma-​de-​reduccion-​de-​r iesgos-​de-​desastres/​.
ONEMI (n.d.-​a). Familia Preparada [Institutional]. http://​familiapreparada.cl/​.
ONEMI (n.d.-​b). Plataforma Nacional para la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres –​PNRRD. www.
onemi.gov.cl/​plataforma-​de-​reduccion-​de-​r iesgos-​de-​desastres/​.
ONEMI, MINVU, MINDES, CIGIDEN, CITRID, Fundación Vivienda, … TECHO-​ Chile (2018).
Habitabilidad Transitoria en Desastres. Santiago: ONEMI.
Platt, S. (2012). Reconstruction in Chile Post 2010 Earthquake. ReBuilDD Field Trip September 2011.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd. www.carltd.com/​ sites/​
carwebsite/​files/​
Reconstruction%20in%20Chile%20Post%202010%20Earthquake_​0.pdf.
PNUD (2017). Recuperación Resiliente. www.undp.org/​content/​undp/​es/​home/​ourwork/​climate-​and-​
disaster-​resilience/​resilient-​recovery.html.
Simmie, J. and Martin, R. (2010). The economic resilience of regions: towards an evolutionary approach.
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. 3(1): 27–​43. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​cjres/​
rsp029.
Tobin, G.A., (1999). Sustainability and community resilience: the holy grail of hazards planning?
Global Environment Change Part B Environment Hazards. 1: 13–​ 25. https://​ doi.org/​10.1016/​
S1464-​2867(99)00002-​9.
UNISDR (2015). Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–​2030. Geneva: United Nations.
http://​gndr.org/​images/​newsite/​PDFs/​SFDRR.pdf.
Verdugo, R. and González, J. (2015). Liquefaction-​ induced ground damages during the 2010 Chile
earthquake. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering. 79: 280–​ 295. https://​ doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.soildyn.2015.04.016.
Wagemann, E. (2017). Need for adaptation. Transformation of temporary houses. Disasters. 41(4). http://​
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/​doi/​10.1111/​disa.12228/​full.
Wagemann, E. and Moris, R. (2018). Transitional habitability: Solutions for post-​ catastrophe in
Chile. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 31: 514–​ 525. https://​ doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.ijdrr.2018.06.007.

328
 Part IV
Resilience building in practice
 25
Urban risk readdressed
Bridging resilience-​seeking
practices in African cities

Adriana Allen, Braima Koroma, Mtafu Manda,

Emmanuel Osuteye, and Rita Lambert

Reframing urban resilience

Urbanization in sub Saharan Africa is increasingly associated with the production and repro-
duction of risk accumulation cycles or urban “risk traps”, which are still poorly understood and
tackled. This framing encapsulates both the cumulative impacts of what are termed “extensive
risks” (including everyday hazards such as infectious disease, and small disasters such as localized
floods and fire outbreaks) and “intensive risks” (larger, less frequent disaster events such as tropical
storms and earthquakes).
While intensive risks are receiving increasing attention in disaster risk management (DRM)
and climate resilience debates, in most African cities the accumulation of preventable extensive
risks remains unattended, while accounting for a high proportion of all disaster-​related injuries,
impoverishment and damage or destruction of housing and social and physical infrastructure.
As a result, risk accumulation is often normalized as part of life and quietly confronted through
a combination of individual and collective coping strategies by those most affected. Overtime,
these cumulative efforts erode the capacity to act of poor women and men who find themselves
locked in risk traps.
We define “risk traps” as the vicious cycle through which various environmental hazards and
episodic but repetitive and often unrecorded disasters not only accumulate in particular localities,
but tend to grow exponentially over time (Allen et al. 2015; Bull-​Kamanga et al. 2003). Just as
urban poverty traps are produced through combined aspects of urban deprivation that over time
undermine the potential benefits offered by cities, we argue that urban risk traps undermine the
multiple resilience-​seeking efforts and investments made by the urban poor and state agencies to
disrupt risk accumulation cycles (Allen et al. 2017).
The slow-​burn effects of risk traps have significant consequences not just for those caught
in this vicious cycle but for the present and future development of a city as a whole, as over
time multiple risk traps at various scales lock urban systems and dwellers into intractable risk
trajectories. But as argued by Coaffee and Lee (2016: 243), “path dependency need not be path
determinacy”. Capturing risk accumulation and resilience-​seeking strategies across space and time

331
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

is thus a necessary step towards the disruption of risk traps.This requires engendering grassroots-​
led processes to assess not only how, where, why, and with what consequences risk accumulates
but also what and whose responses are adopted. We therefore argue that it is not enough to look
at the question of resilience of what and whom, but also by whom.
The discussion focuses on what and whose capacities to act are embedded in resilience-​seeking
practices and explores the processes and relations that expand or constrain the political space
to bridge the resilience-​seeking practices adopted collectively and individually by those most
vulnerable to risk with those of the state and external support agencies. Over time, the notion
of “political space” has been developed by different scholars with different but interconnected
meanings and aims. Webster and Engberg-​Petersen (2002) define political spaces as the institu-
tional channels, political discourses, and social and political practices through which the poor and
their supporting organizations can pursue poverty reduction. McGee (2004) takes this notion
as a means to examine specific moments or junctures where citizens and policymakers come
together, and the opportunities arising from such moments to abridge actions and interactions
“sometimes signifying transformative potential” (p. 16). Cornwall and Coehlo (2006) concep-
tualize such spaces as opportunities that might advance democratizing effects, enabling ordinary
women and men to claim citizenship and affect governance processes. Building upon these
conceptualizations, we use the notion of “political space” to explore the whereabouts of the
nexus between power, space, and the networked boundaries that delineate fields of possible
action (Hayward 2000). This entails an interrogation of how the resilience-​seeking discoursive
and material practices adopted by national and local governments, external support agencies
(ESAs) and local communities converge into specific geographies and the social, political, and
material resources deployed in the process by different actors.
Where risk accumulation cycles manifest and where actions are taken to mitigate, reduce,
or prevent such cycles has significant consequences for who is effectively reached by DRM
practices. Interrogating such practices at different scales unveils the real scope of decentralized
approaches to DRM not only to reach those most vulnerable to risk but also to include their
experience, learning, voice, and capacity to act. This involves travelling across the scales that
delineate (1) the policy “boundaries” of decentralized DRM bodies; (2) the actual “bound-
aries” under which DRM practices take place and articulate collective and individual resilience-​
seeking practices; and (3) the micro scale at which risk is experienced. Travelling across these
three scales enables an understanding of why certain risk-​accumulation processes remain more
invisible than others –​both socially and spatially –​and therefore restrict the capacity of localized
resilience-​seeking efforts to tackle urban risk traps.
Another key consideration in the analysis is that of time, or, in other words, the need to
understand both risk trajectories and resilience-​seeking practices in historical perspective. Doing
so allows capturing not only who tends to become trapped in risk accumulation cycles but
also what factors and processes shape their mobility in and out of risk trajectories. Such an
approach also enables the understanding of how risk is perceived and experienced, what learning
is acquired and applied to act upon risk, and how such learning travels or not from individual
to collective and city-​wide resilience-​seeking practices. Furthermore, a historical perspective
also allows us to understand the socially constructed processes that often result in the produc-
tion and reproduction of risk. Such processes might be connected, for instance, with the way
in which low-​lying areas or steep slopes are built up, or man-​made infrastructure developed
in a way that disrupts the ecological infrastructure of the city resulting in multiple hazards of
frequent occurrence such as localized floods, landslides and mudslides. Examining the way in
which specific risk-​prone areas have been intervened over time reveals the actual drivers of risk
accumulation and the way in which ongoing resilience-​seeking practices need to be reworked.

332
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

The chapter reflects on the approach adopted to co-​produce actionable knowledge on how
risk traps work and can be disrupted in collaboration with local communities in Freetown (Sierra
Leone) and Karonga (Malawi). The experience was part of the Urban Africa Risk Knowledge
(Urban ARK) project, and led by a team from the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU),
University College London, the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) and the Mzuzu
University in Malawi, in collaboration with a city-​wide network of collectives of the urban
poor, NGOs, and local authorities. A similar methodological approach has been adopted in Lima
(Peru) (Allen et al. 2017).
The next section examines how risk accumulation works in the two contexts under study.
This is followed by a discussion of policy trajectories seeking to decentralize DRM. The section
that follows offers a critical examination of the junctures and disjunctures for transformative
change emerging along the process.There are then some final reflections on the challenges faced
to widen the political space of DRM governance and resilience-​seeking practices in a relational
and inclusive way.

Setting the context: What and who is to be made resilient?

While our understanding of urbanization in risk across Africa has been significantly expanded in
recent years –​and to a large extent indirectly explored through the examination of the region’s
“urban turn” –​the bulk of the knowledge produced in this field focuses on mega-​cities at the
expense of small and medium cities (Dodman et al. 2017; Jaglin et al. 2011; Resnick, 2014;
Satterthwaite, 2016). Addressing this gap, our choice to focus on Freetown and Karonga is based
on three considerations: the demographic significance of small and medium cities in Africa, their
under-​investigated political, social, and environmental specificities; and the challenges these cities
face in building resilience.
Karonga is a township in the Karonga District in Northern Region of Malawi, located on
the western shore of Lake Nyasa. Its population has almost trippled between 1966 and 2008 and
estimated at 63,000 people by 2018 (Manda et al. 2016). At the national level, Karonga is cur-
rently the fifth largest and one of the most rapidly growing towns in Malawi and is situated in
one of the top five districts experiencing frequent disaster events.
In the nineteenth century, Karonga was the stronghold of Arab slaver Mlozi and became a
consolidated agricultural and trading center after slavery was abolished. However, soon after
independence, Karonga and the entire northern Malawi became known as the “dead north” until
the late 1980s. Then, the civil war in Mozambique prompted the construction of large infra-
structural projects to connect Malawi to the coast, creating the “Northern Corridor”. As a result
of improved connectivity, Karonga witnessed accelerated demographic and physical growth and
became the first major stop from the port of Dar es Salaam. Over subsequent years, the town
also became a receptor of refugees and asylum-​seekers displaced from neighboring countries.
Major disasters include flooding, earthquakes, and droughts, though the incidence of everyday
and small hazards is significant, such as those related to inadequate provision for water and sani-
tation (diarrhoeal diseases and cholera), traffic accidents and fires, as well as politically linked
violence. Between 2009 and 2016 Karonga experienced frequent floods, with a major flooding
disaster destroying most of the old town along the lakeshore in the 1980s. Over the years,
this prompted a number of infrastructural interventions to make the town resilient to floods,
including a major flood control project and the Secondary Centres Development Programme
to redevelop the town. These interventions attracted migrants and investments, leading to the
town’s declaration as a township and also as a planning area under the Town and Country
Planning Act in 1992.

333
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

In December 2009, four large Richter magnitude earthquakes experienced within two weeks
caused fatalities and significant damage to housing and infrastructure. The earthquakes also
compromised the integrity of the dyke, which over time become further damaged by soil mining
for brickmaking and via erosion, thus increasing flood risk. Considering the full spectrum of
risks facing Karonga’s inhabitants, Manda and Wanda (2017) contend that everyday risks may be
causing more premature deaths than disaster events; and that the cumulative impact of small-​scale
events is larger than that of major disasters. A household survey by these authors revealed that,
despite the widespread impact of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, and malaria, 56
per cent of households interviewed consider floods as the most serious hazard in Karonga, with
the majority living in flood-​prone areas along the river where flooding is annual. Another key
problem is the location of social infrastructure and facilities in flood risk areas. Furthermore, there
is also evidence of a lack of awareness of the scale of risks to which inhabitants expose themselves
when settling in areas that are attractive because of ease of accessing land and fertile soil.
Although the whole of Karonga is exposed to many various hazards, risk accumulation is
most prevalent in three specific areas: the informal settlements, the areas along the river, and the
town center. Informal settlements house the largest proportion of the population, and are mainly
settled on customary land on the flood plain along the North Rukuru River, the lakeshore, and
encroachments in the artificial flood-​control drainage channels constructed in the late 1970s.
Their inhabitants are highly vulnerable due to a combination of factors including insecure
tenure, poor housing quality, lack of or blocked drainage, and limited access to statal infrastruc-
ture and service provision because they are informal. Many of these challenges are associated
with urban development policy and practice that condemn the poor to occupy hazards-​prone
areas in high density permanent and traditional housing.
The city of Freetown has experienced rapid urbanization and a significant population growth
rate of about 3 per cent per anum since 1985, in a country with the highest annual rainfall in
Africa. The origins of the city towards the end of the eighteenth century are well-​documented
as the outcome of British philanthropists, abolitionists, and entrepreneurs to establish a slave-​
free settlement in Africa (Adderley 2006; Banton 1969). Throughout the nineteenth century,
Freetown grew through the settlement of released slaves from all across West Africa by the Royal
British Navy’s West African Squadron.This explains the foundations of today’s largest segment of
the Christian Creole population. After Sierra Leone’s independence in 1961, Freetown received
further migrants from all the region, most of whom were Muslim. In 1991 a civil war that lasted
11 years destroyed much of Freetown’s infrastructure and economy, while ethnic violence in the
countryside forced mass migration into the city.
Freetown currently has a population of just over one million residents, making it the most
populous and densely settled city in Sierra Leone. Its rapid urbanization has contributed to the
proliferation and expansion of pockets of informal settlements.Today, this process is underpinned
by other factors than migration, notably, by a growing demand for proximal living to business
centers and markets, coupled with unaffordable land and housing in formalized areas.
The topography of Freetown, a peninsula constrained between the sea and the hills, limits
the spatial expansion of the city, forcing low-​income groups to settle mostly on marginal lands.
The city has developed in three geographic areas: coastal settlements along rocky beaches of the
Atlantic Ocean; sprawling inland settlements along the Sierra Leone river estuary; and, thirdly,
hillside settlements in the steep peninsula hills of the city, which are rapidly encroaching into
the vital forestland towards the eastern end of the city. In these settlements, flooding, rock-​falls,
building collapse, and landslides are common phenomena, which result in significant economic
and social losses.The incidence of disease epidemics, especially those that are water borne, is also
significantly high. The geographic location and spatial distribution of informal settlements (on

334
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

hillsides, coastal or inland) present unique sets of challenges. Only four out of the 34 recognized
informal settlements in Freetown have been studied in-​depth (Macarthy and Koroma 2016),
although Shack/​Slum Dwellers International (SDI) estimates that the city is home to at least
61 informal settlements, many of which are perched on the last vestiges of land and articifically
banked land along the sea, while others sprawl over the hillsides of the city.
Irrespective of the obvious difference in scale between these two urban centers, the com-
monality of risk occurrence and accumulation makes it clear that both small and medium
urban centers in Africa equally need urgent attention to make them resilient. And within these
contexts, the non-​uniform distribution of the burdens on the urban poor and informal settle-
ment dwellers places a critical lens on who is most at risk and why.

Policy trajectories: Emerging DRM decentralized structures in

Sierra Leone and Malawi
African cities have notoriously weak governance systems and outdated and highly bureaucratic
structures and regulatory regimes, conditions that often make these systems unresponsive to
the needs and demands of ordinary citizens and, in particular, those of poor and impoverished
dwellers (Myers 2011; Parnell 2016; Pieterse and Parnell 2014; Simone and Abouhani 2005).
Among other normative visions, in recent years the resilience agenda has been pushed forward
to gain a prominent role in urban governance across the region. Internationally endorsed by
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN-​Habitat Urban Agenda, a political
discourse calling for “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” cities is galvanizing across many
African countries, reframing risk management and climate adaptation as part of integrated devel-
opment planning.
As part of this process, the national governments of Sierra Leone and Malawi –​among
several other African countries –​have subscribed to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk
Reduction (2015–​2030) and adopted new policy measures and institutional channels advocating
for the integration of DRM into wider development strategies. While seeking societal resilience
through decentralized governance features highly in policy rethoric, in practice efforts are still
highly reactive and largely triggered in response to large-​scale disasters. Furthermore, the insti-
tutional architecture of building resilience in urban areas remains an ad hoc matter, generally left
to the coping efforts of those most affected.
Malawi only developed a national DRM policy in 2015 in reaction to external pressure
following a devastating flood in the south of the country but, up to present, only the 1991
Disaster Preparedness and Relief Act is operational. The weaknesses of the 1991 Act have been
acknowledged for decades, particularly in regards to its elusive focus on disaster relief and lack
of linkages with prevailing global legal frameworks such as the Hyogo Framework and more
recently the Sendai Framework.This justified the need for the formulation of a new DRM legal
framework, which still remains at draft stage. Thus, the 2015 DRM policy is currently the main
reference document, which explicitly acknowledges the need of enhancing disaster resilience
through a wider integration of DRM in development planning and programming.
DRM policy implementation falls under the Department of Disaster Management Affairs
(DoDMA), which from 2018 is under the Malawi Ministry of Home Affairs, recently renamed
as Ministry of Homeland Security. This might suggest that disasters are now framed as a national
security concern, although it is unclear if the transfer strengthens the role of DoDMA or
obscures it into an already heavy loaded bureaucracy. Furthermore, it is feared that shifting
lines of reporting might lead to loss of both institutional memory and key documentation.
For implementation purposes, a national decentralized framework that seeks to support the

335
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

Local Government Act has been adopted and relies on the National Disaster Preparedness and
Relief Committee (NDPRC). NDPRC calls upon a national disaster risk management platform
(DRM Platform) every two years to deliberate on selected themes and agreed recommendations
and demands to NDPRC. Platform members are drawn from government, NGOs, media, aca-
demia, private sector, and local, UN, and donor agencies.
The DRM Committee also establishes several technical subcommittees referred to as
“clusters”. However, despite the apparent flexibility, these technical subcommittees have become
almost permanent and no new ones have been accepted. Calls for the creation of an urban
DRM subcommittee have not been implemented with the usual argument being inadequacy
of resources. So far, the focus of the policy and its implementation has been on rural areas. Only
in recent times have steps been taken to include issues on urban DRM and there are strong
demands from the DRM Platform to revise the policy.The debate is probably one of the reasons
for the delay to finalize the DRM bill.
Another challenge is that, in general, Malawi relies heavily on external support to imple-
ment its policies and the functioning of the National Platform. In the absence of a supportive
and updated legal framework, DRM projects are merely squeezed through to appease external
organizations that provide the funding. In this process the DoDMA plays only a coordinating
role and, as disasters escalate countrywide, the institution gets overstretched. At the lower level,
DRM structures have been established only in rural areas up to village level but their function-
ality is negatively impacted by limited resources, knowledge, and capacity. In urban areas attempts
have been made to establish disaster committees, but only at city level. Little progress has been
made in establishing DRM structures at the ward, neighborhood, and block level, despite the fact
that it is at this level, especially in informal settlements, that disasters tend to have more serious
impacts. In Karonga, a different approach has been pioneered. Despite the fact that the town
still lacks a local government, “village” or neighborhood disaster risk management committees
(NDRMCs) have been established as an initiative of projects such as Urban ARK, an experience
that has also been replicated in Mzuzu City.
A similar process characterizes DRM governance in Sierra Leone, where resilience building
has been institutionalized as a national security issue. The legal instrument dealing with dis-
aster management is the 2002 National Security and Central Intelligence Act No. 10, which
established the Office of National Security (ONS), mandated to coordinate the management
of all national emergencies. In 2004 the Disaster Management Department (DMD) was created
within ONS to coordinate actions in response to natural and man-​made disasters to build “safe
and resilient societies”. Thus, the DMD is meant to play a pivotal role, supporting the develop-
ment of DRM national policies and coordinating the implementation of local activities.
At the strategic level, the country drafted a national disaster management policy (NDPM) in
2006, which gives strategic directives on the steps to be taken before, during and after disasters
and recognizes community participation as a good practice.This policy is further supported by a
national disaster preparedness and response plan that maps out the roles of different stakeholders.
According to these documents, community leaders should play a key role in coordinating local
responses prior, during, and after disaster events. However, these instruments are not fully oper-
ational, and therefore lack official status despite the country’s commitment to the resilience-​
building agenda. At present, there is no comprehensive policy or legal framework to enable
government agencies to mainstream resilience-​seeking activities into their cross-​sectoral devel-
opment strategies, plans, and programs. In addition, local government councils do not have legal
responsibility and budget allocation for disaster risk reduction.
As in Malawi, DRM governance also relies on multisectorial platforms. A National Platform
(NPF) for DRM and Climate Change Adaptation was launched in 2011, with the aim to bring

336
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

together a wide range of stakeholders to promote the integration of resilience-​seeking strategies

into national development policies, plans, and strategies, yet implementation on the ground
remains patchy. In 2013, the GoSL with support from UNDP commissioned a further study to
assess DRM capacities to act in three districts, including Freetown, yet plans to pilot capacity-​
building and to expand the initiative to the rest of the country are still to be implemented.
Despite these and similar initiatives, the residents of informal settlements still respond to exten-
sive risks on their own and through their collectives –​notably the Freetown Federation of
the Urban Poor (FEDURP) and through the establishment of local DRM structures, such as
community-​based disaster management committees (CDMCs) and community health workers
(CHWs).
DRM decentralization has also featured high in national attempts to restructure the sector
in Sierra Leone. As shown in Figure 25.1, institutional channels are expected to work at various
levels from national through district government, reaching the chiefdom level as the lowest
governance level. Like in Malawi, this structure is conceived to mirror the governance of rural
areas in an effort to invigorate and acknowledge customary authorities and structures de-​
amalgamation, with currently 190 chiefdoms forming what the media has defined as a “new
map of Sierra Leone”.1 Different ethnic groups are poorly diffused spatially in the country
and remain dominant and concentrated in particular regions. However, the opposite is true in
Freetown, where ethnic diffusion is higher than in other parts of the country. Here, ethnically
heterogeneous community-​based organizations (CBOs) represent the lowest governance level.
This is not to claim that customary authorities do not play an active role in shaping urban devel-
opment; rather, it is their legitimacy as interlocutors that is treated differently in urban and rural

Figure 25.1 DRM decentralization attempts in Sierra Leone

Source: Authors

337
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

settings. While CBDMCs or local DRM networks –​which include customary authorities –​are
acknowledged in the urban DRM structure, they are considered “volunteer groups” and thus
ad hoc of mainstream DRM structures. However in reality, local communities account for the
bulk of resilient-​seeking efforts and investments in Freetown. The latter are often in the form of
non-​financial contributions (labor and manpower) and one-​off investments to meet identified
shared needs, frequently pooling together household contributions, in addition to project-​based
resources from ESAs.
CBDMCs are vital for communicating information and knowledge on DRM, reporting
disasters to relevant authorities and helping to build coherent localized responses; however, they
operate without legal acknowledgement and support by the government coordinating agency.
Local resilience-​seeking practices in informal settlements are also supported by organizations
such as Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Red Cross,World Food Programme (WFP),
and the Centre of Dialogue on Human Settlement and Poverty Alleviation (CODOHSAPA),
which aer often involved in coordinating disaster relief efforts. They are engaged in develop-
ment aid in shaping both the national adoption and ground implementation of DRM policy
models and ideals. Informal networks established by ESAs mostly operate in response to dis-
aster events but also play an important role in assessing damages and conducting scoping activ-
ities, feeding their findings through to ONS and other NGOs to guide relief/​recovery efforts.
A preventative approach would require the development of an enabling legislative framework
and procedures for action endorsed by the DRM National Platform to support interfacing
organizations working with local communities.
The previous discussion shows that policy efforts to mount the governance of resilience-​
seeking practices in both countries have been typically framed within the DRM sector as
national security issues. A number of further similarities can be observed through the above
policy trajectories. First, we can see emerging frameworks adopted to enhance resilience against
those hazards that are frequently documented and monitored –​such as large-​scale floods –​but
without sufficient attention to the combined impacts of everyday risks and small-​scale episodic
disasters that result in obdurate risk trajectories. Second, there is prevailing concentration of
state efforts on rural areas. To a large extent, urban local authorities remain the missing link in
resilience-​seeking and sectoral approaches still prevail, limiting the scope of interventions to
reactive responses to large-​scale disasters.
However, in the two contexts under analysis, it is possible to observe a number of processes
that are starting to disrupt these policy trajectories. While this process can be characterized in
Karonga as a policy-​driven attempt to decentralize DRM through the creation of neighborhood
disaster risk management committees (NDRMC); in Freetown, the search for more agile and
effective DRM arrangements appears to be grounded on community-​based disaster manage-
ment committees (CBDMC), which in informal settlements are driven by the Federation of the
Urban Poor (FEDURP). These grassroots structures fill the critical gap left by the local govern-
ment authorites at the lowest level and, more importantly, straddle the formalized–​informalized
spaces that challenge the current operation of DRM. Even without the necessary formal recog-
nition and allocation of resources to these community-​based structures, the growing evidence of
their capacity to mobilize action at city-​wide scale demands recognition and futher study.

Junctures and disjunctures for transformative change

The previous sections reveal not only how risk accumulation works but also why and how cer-
tain resilience-​seeking policy narratives and practices have matured in a particular way –​often
and paradoxically reproducing risk. As argued in the introduction, it is then particularly useful to

338
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

scrutinize specific moments or junctures when discoursive and material practices have changed,
expanding or limiting the political space to tackle risk traps. Such moments could be seen as
what Capoccia and Keleman (2007) define as “critical junctures”2 encompassing accelerated
moments of decision making with potential impacts for transformative change.
The action-​research work conducted by the authors in Karonga and Freetown sought to
expand the room for manouvre opened by policy commitments at the national level towards the
decentralization of DRM and a shift from risk mitigation to resilience-​building. The rest of this
section reflects on key moments along this process.

Grounding Political Spaces

Carving political spaces to advance the decentralization of DRM governance involved building
upon the apparent fragilities of the institutional channels in place to ground a more proactive
approach incorporating the experience, voice, and learning of those most at risk.
In Karonga the project identified the NDRMCs –​or ‘civil protection committees’ as termed
within the national DRM decentralization framework –​as the lowest level of decision-​making
to tackle risk accumulation. The NDRMCs were seen as the best entry point to consolidate
decentralized governance structures due to their pseudo-​networked nature in the town, espe-
cially in the absence of other recognized grassroots collectives, ever since the failed attempt
to integrate Karonga into the Malawi Federation of the Urban Poor. Four NDRMCs were
therefore established encompassing 44 existing local committess in order to comply with decen-
tralizing DRM policies. This initiative was endorsed by local customary authorities as a way to
overcome the defunct role of existing DRM committees due to lack of governmental funding
and support. The chiefs identified eight resident school leavers with an equal gender split to
champion the data collection and action-​planning process promoted by Urban ARK. These
champions were also responsible for supporting the NDRMC meetings and participated in a
series of capacity-​building events. Throughout the project, the NDRMCs were instrumental in
driving tangible changes to tackle the risk exposure and vulnerabily of residents.
In Freetown, DRM decentralization was also ubiquitous on paper but vaguely operationalized
in practice. As previously explained, CBDRMCs were identified as the lowest DRM governance
level in policy documents, but on the ground operated sporadically to implement awareness-​
raising and post-​disaster relief in an ad hoc manner and in response to specific disaster events,
such as the Ebola crisis. In 2014, a new city-​wide platform emerged called the “Pull Slum
Pan Pipul” (PSPP) or “Freetown Urban Slum Initiative”. Initially funded by Comic Relief
(a UK-​based international charity organization), this platform brought together five NGOs
(Restless Development,Youth Development Movement, BRAC Sierra Leone, CODOHSAPA,
and YMCA, together with SLURC and FEDURP). This development offered a fruitful junc-
ture to invigorate the CBDRMCs, to expand their scope and articulate their role with other
collectives of the urban poor. In discussion with the PSPP platform, communities from 15
informal settlements across the western, central, and eastern districts of Freetown joined Urban
ARK as a means to understand risk accumulation and to seek new ways to respond to their
problems.
Throughout the process, the above local bodies in Karonga and Freetown acquired new cap-
acities to act and became recognized as legitimate local structures in the wider architecture of
DRM governance.The pivotal role of organizations such as SLURC and Mzuzu University was
essential to carve and sustain active interfaces between these decentralized bodies and various
government levels. In Karonga, the NDRMCs have been officially recognized and participate
in the district disaster risk management committee (DDRMC) that bring together over 30

339
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

organizations and government departments. In Freetown, the strategic action plans developed
through these structures led to their recognition by the mayor of Freetown City Council. As a
result, four of the settlements entered an unprecedented agreement to develop settlement-​wide
strategic action plans as part of the updated Freetown Structural Plan. This and other outcomes
are discussed later in this section.

Reframing What Is To Be Made Resilient

Carving political spaces to advance the scope and impact of resilience-​seeking practices requires,
however, more than DRM decentralized structures. As argued before, risk accumulation is highly
invisible, even to those who are directly caught in risk traps (Osuteye et al. 2016). Thus, acti-
vating new capacities to capture risk-​accumulation processes across time and space is essential to
break the normalization of such processes.Through the aforementioned decentralized platforms,
a bold attempt at co-​producing community-​led knowledge on risk accumulation was adopted
covering the whole of Karonga and 15 informal settlements in Freetown. Workshops led by
the Urban ARK project team brought together community residents and other stakeholders
involved in urban planning and risk governance, and fieldwork was led by the communities and
their collectives over a six-​month period. The findings were fed into collective discussions
and exchange visits across settlements and into action plans co-​designed with governmental
and non-​governmental organizations. To prioritize the community-​voice and experience, three
participatory methods were adopted to capture risk accumulation across time and space and to
identify what capacities to act and practices converge in efforts to tackle risk traps. (Allen et al.
forthcoming)
First, settlement timelines were used to plot risk events over time, outlining demographic
change and the actions adopted to improve housing and the provision of protective services and
infrastructures. These timelines revealed moments of significant change or landmark events that
shape local risk perceptions and experiences. A forensic approach to these turning points helped
to understand when and why these changes triggered different ways of acting. For example,
eviction threats were often found as junctures that activated new social contracts and actions
towards risk prevention.
Second, DRM “wheels” were used to map out whose resilience-​seeking practices con-
verge around a particular challenge and to assess the scope and impact of ongoing practices and
interventions.
Figure 25.2 shows the wheel produced from initial multiactor discussions on what is done to
deal with flooding risk across different informal settlements in Freetown. The wheel highlights
the important role of ESAs and the implicit dependency on intermittent projects and donor
funding. Attributing weight to the resources devoted to each practise showed gaps between what
is planned and done in reality. It also revealed overlapping efforts concentrated on awareness-​
raising and disaster-​relief actions. Iterated discussion of the wheel facilitated understanding of
why certain practises prevail despite implicit knowledge that little will change or that they will
not be sustained beyond the life of a project. By discussing what could be done differently, how,
and with whom, the wheel provided a relational map of practices and allowed visioning alterna-
tive options and what they would entail.
Third, community-​led mapping built upon the previous methods to produce geo-​referenced
information and a risk profile of each covered settlement in Freetown and the whole of Karonga
Town through transect walks, observation, and collective discussions. The information collected
fed automatically into “ReMapRisk”,3 an online platform created by the authors to docu-
ment and monitor how risk accumulation cycles materialise over time, where and why. Hazards,

340
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

Figure 25.2 The DRM risk wheel on flooding in Freetown

Source: Authors

vulnerabilities and capacities to act were captured using co-​designed surveys through open
source mobile phone applications such as Survey 123, which community dwellers were trained
to use (see Figures 25.3 and 25.4) (Allen et al, 2018a, 2018b).
As an opened risk assessment tool, ReMapRisk eliminates the temporal constraints of data
that only provides a snapshot of events or, at best, an archive of historical entries. The user-​
friendly interface of the web-​based tool “tells the story” of the community risk profile in different
formats and allows the visualization of multivariable enquiries through maps. For instance, users
can explore why certain areas are more vulnerable to specific hazards than others. ReMapRisk
further enables interactive assessment of the capacity to act of local residents, authorities, and

341
Figure 25.3 An online platform created to document and monitor how risk accumulation
cycles materialize over time, where, and why
Source: Authors

Figure 25.4 Community dwellers capturing hazards, vulnerabilities, and capacities to act using
open source mobile phone applications
Source: Authors
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

support organizations in relation to specific or multiple hazards and vulnerabilities and records
the type of interventions implemented to reduce risk threats and their spatial distribution.
Figure 25.5 shows the mistmatch between the location and density of disaster events and miti-
gating interventions in Karonga.This indicates that resilience-​seeking efforts tend to concentrate
on those areas where local communities have higher political capacity to attract investments
rather than on those areas where risk accumulation is higher.
The mapping process was also essential to visibilize the ongoing internalization of various
hazards that over time consolidate risk traps. As previously discussed, while shock events are
tackled through the different means available within existing DRM structures, slow-​burn risks
tend to be invisible even to local dwellers. As explained by a female dweller from Susan’s Bay, a
coastal informal settlement in Freetown: “We live with these events as part of our everyday life,
they are so common and frequent that one tends to think that they are individual problems.”The
community-​led mapping process in Susan’s Bay revealed that although fires were perceived by
local residents as a low occurrent threat, localized fire outbreaks are in fact a regular event, with
devastating consequences.Typically triggered by a combination of factors associated with energy
poverty and exacerbated by overcrowding and housing materials, fire outbreaks are associated
with common coping practices that rely on the use of inflammable fuels for cooking and pre-
carious and overcharged electricity connections.

Doing Things Differently

Strategic action-​planning was instrumental in inducing ways of “doing things differently”,
expanding the scope of existing resilience-​seeking practices. The reframed diagnosis built by
local communities fed into the design and implementation of specific projects to tackle risk
accumulation. These included five action plans prepared by the four NRMCs in Karonga,
Malawi and a fifth in the Zolozolo West Ward, in the northern city of Mzuzu. Additionally, 14
strategic action plans were produced in Freetown by local community organizations from 15
informal settlements, roughly a quarter of all informal settlements in the city. While the first
action plans tended to reproduce reactive and isolated responses in each area, an iteration of the
process evolved them into more strategic and collaborative plans. The total number of direct
beneficiaries from these projects amounts to about 120,000 people in Freetown and over 60,000
in Karonga (the entire township).
As discussed in the first section, risk accumulation in Karonga is associated with urban devel-
opment policies that condemn the poor to occupy prone-​hazard areas. Specific attention went
into including informal seetlements into the design of new initiatives to reduce risk. These
initiatives included small infrastructure interventions to improve drainage systems and tree
planting to reduce river flooding by controlling siltation, water kiosks and toilet blocks to reduce
cholera, and afforestation at household level to deal with strong winds.
In Freetown, the PSPP established governance arrangements to support the implementa-
tion of the pilot initiatives co-​design by local communities. FEDURP assumed responsibility
for managing the funds disbursed, monitoring, and reporting progress on their implementation
and challenges. This process helped to build a shared vision based on local needs and promoted
local discussions on equally shared responsibilities and benefits. A process of iterative planning
and exchange across all settlements enabled a shift from reactive interventions to more strategic
resilience-​seeking actions to tackle risk accumulation. The latter included slope stabilization and
tree planting to reduce the risk of landslides and rock falls, improved drainage infrastructure to
reduce flooding risk, and a combination of actions to improve solid waste handling, safe sanita-
tion, and water access to tackle the incidence of water borne diseases, among others.The process

343
Figure 25.5 Mistmatch between the location and density of disaster events and mitigating
interventions in Karonga
Source: Authors
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

set up valuable precedents for collective interventions across more than one settlement and
raised awareness of the wider actions required at the city level, for instance identifying hot spots
outside the settlements where poor waste disposal or infrastructural works obstruct the flow of
water into the sea.
Some initiatives focused on developing “soft” embedded collective actions to address
multiple critical challenges. The residents from many of the coastal informal settlements in
Freetown faced long-​standing threats of eviction due to the designation of these areas as
“risk prone” (mainly due to floods and disease outbreaks), but also because of the ongoing
encroachment of ecological conservation areas through the practice of land banking. The
latter is practised as a speculative strategy by those settled along the coast, but also represents
the only option for young tenants to free themselves from overcrowded housing conditions
and high rents in central locations.
Over the years, some community leaders in the coastal settlement of Cockle Bay attempted
to limit further expansion to avoid confrontation with the National Protected Area Authority
(NPAA), whose responsibility is to promote conservation and management of wetland resources.
However, this practice was conflictive and difficult to enforce by community leaders alone.
Through the strategic action planning process, the Cockle Bay community developed an
innovative mechanism to control the ongoing encroachment of the wetlands and the conse-
quent risk of flooding and eviction threat. A co-​management committee was established with
representatives from the community, FEDURP, and NPAA, and tasked with the responsibility of
enforcing community by-​laws for the protection/​wise use of the wetland ecosystem. To achieve
this, all structure owners settled along the coast were enumerated and demarcating pillars built
along the coast to keep track of any further embankment. A zero growth pact was endorsed
by those already settled along the coastline, with fines to be levied from further land banking
earmarked to implement collectively identified projects to consolidate the settlement.
The above initiative and further actions supported by SLURC opened a juncture for the
local community to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the NPAA in October
2018. The MoU actively endorsed the zero growth pact activated by the local community of
Cockle Bay and has expanded this practice to include all coastal informal settlements across the
municipality of Freetown. However, this strategy will block the land banking practices under-
taken by newcomers –​typically tenants –​to free themselves from insecure tenancy agreements
elsewhere in the city. This raises the need for wider strategies to secure access to safe land and
housing in proximity to trading areas. While not free of challenges, this is just one example in
which a juncture has been productively exploited by linking local practices and community by-​
laws with governmental bodies to articulate social and environmental objectives and ultimately
the reproduction of risk accumulation along the coast.
The action planning process has paved the way for SLURC and PSPP to play a key role in a
new city-​wide initiative led by the Office of the Mayor, dubbed Transform Freetown (Macarthy
et al. 2019). This expanded the political space for collectives of the urban poor to strategically
engage with urban resilience planning, highlighting the value and potential of participatory
processes and community generated data. The outcome of such an engagement promises to
deliver more inclusive and sensitive interventions to tackle risk accumulation at scale and marks
a significant juncture in urban governance and planning discourse in the city.
Both in Karonga and Freetown, the process examined above has enabled not only concerted
action but also the emergence of expanded political spaces to articulate informed local demands,
shifting the status of many from being passive beneficiaries to become recognized as entitled
citizens.

345
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

Expanded political spaces for bridged resilience?

Throughout the chapter we have explored how risk traps become solidified over time in specific
locations, often with disproportional impacts upon the most vulnerable groups. This reinforces
the need to re-​evaluate the actual impact of resilience-​seeking practises across time and space, as
it is through such analytical perspective that risk trajectories become visible and therefore amen-
able to more transformative approaches.
Looking at risk accumulation reveals that the question of resilience to what typically points
to a wide risk continuum, where large hazards represent only tipping points and yet attract the
bulk of governmental and ESA resources and efforts. This confronts us not only with slow-​
onset disasters but, more significantly, with slow-​onset risk cumulative trajectories. Exploring the
question of resilience by whom reveals that while typically the urban poor account for the bulk
of collective and individual resilient-​seeking efforts and investments, over time such efforts often
erode their capacity to act, particularly when assuming the form of individual coping strategies.
Furthermore, even collective resilient-​seeking efforts may unwillingly reinforce patterns of risk
consolidation, externalization, and inclusion.
The analysis reveals that the political space within which urban resilience-​seeking practises
operate in African cities might be bounded in a number of ways. The first and most obvious
one refers to the adoption of what could be defined as an “instrumental” approach to DRM
decentralization, by which local community collectives are faced with additional implementa-
tion responsibilities but often without the required recognition and resources to feed into wider
city resilience-​seeking visions and planning strategies.
A second challenge refers to the way in which power dynamics might reproduce patterns
of exclusion even within what might be externally regarded as decentralized “local community
structures”. In Karonga, this is the case for refugees and asylum-​seekers, who are not included
in the NDRMCS led by customary authorities. For more than two decades, the Government
of Malawi has hosted a sustained stream of refugees and asylum-​seekers from the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Many of them are settled
at the Karonga transit shelter, which is seen as a temporary location for refugees in transit to the
Dzaleka Camp in Dowa –​a former prison and the largest refugee camp in Malawi, located about
50 kilometers from Lilongwe. However, policy inertia and the already overcrowded conditions
at Dzaleka camp keep “transit” refugees in Karonga for years, with many of them settled there
since the 1990s. Despite their long-​term presence and the vulnerable conditions of those living
in the camp, refugees are either perceived as a temporary floating population or wealthy enough
to protect themselves.
In Freetown, a large proportion of those living in informal settlements are tenants. Contrary
to widespread perception, many tenants are not recent migrants but have lived in the city for
long.They typically live in precarious and overcrowded structures and are at the mercy of sudden
price increases due to the high demand for rental accommodation, particularly in the most cen-
tral informal settlements.This means that many often move from one settlement to another over
short periods. This in turn makes it difficult to consolidate their affiliation with local commu-
nity organizations. Thus, tenants remain the weakest link in the grounded networks working to
address risk accumulation. This is the case even for grassroots platforms such as FEDURP. While
the federation continues to make concerted efforts to include tenants in their rituals, federated
members report the difficulty of engaging tenants in self-​enumerations and collective savings.
A third challenge refers to the boundaries of decentralized bodies or, in other words, the
evolving architecture of these political spaces. In both case studies analyzed, efforts to decentralize

346
 Resilience-seeking practices in Africa

DRM rely on highly centralized bureaucratic agencies, while bypassing local government
authorities. Some of the assumptions embedded in DRM governance are that technically
well-​functioning bureaucratic arrangements need to be in place to deliver resilient outcomes.
However, such arrangements often have little relation to the lived practices of DRM adopted
on the ground by state actors, ESAs, and ordinary citizens. This points to the need to further
understand the disjuncture between Western idealizations of what states should be and do, and
take into account the multiple histories, trajectories, and practices through which state actors go
about DRM practices in relation with other actors of civil society –​particularly those deemed
to be more vulnerable to risk. It also points to the need to acknowledge that statutory and cus-
tomary systems are deeply ingrained in the running of everyday affairs in African cities –​DRM
included –​and the influence of external support agencies engaged in development aid in shaping
both the national adoption and ground implementation of DRM policy models and ideals.
To conclude, the analysis suggests that the ability of emerging decentralized DRM structures
to tackle risk accumulation is shaped by their evolving political space to enable inclusive,
abridged, and strategic resilience-​seeking practices in a relational way and across multiple scales.

Notes
1 Before the colonial era, there were 217 chiefdoms and 13 districts in Sierra Leone. Owing to the amal-
gamation process by the colonial regime, the chiefdoms were reduced to 147 and later increased to 149.
Post-​independence de-​amalgamation efforts have reinstated a total of 190 chiefdoms with 16 districts.
2 For a detailed discussion of this notion, see Chapter 33 by Wesely in this volume.
3 ReMapRisk Freetown and Karonga and accompanying demo video can be accessed at www.urbanark.
org/​remaprisk.

References
Adderley, R.M. (2006) “New Negroes from Africa” Slave Trade Abolition and Free African Settlement in
the Nineteenth-​Century Caribbean. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Allen, A., Belkow, T., de los Rios, S., Escalante Estrada, C., Lambert, R., Poblet, R., and Zilbert Zoto, L.
(2015). Urban Risk: In Search of New Perspectives. cLIMA sin Riesgo, Policy Brief No 1. www.
climasinriesgo.net/​wp-​content/​uploads/​2015/​07/​CSR_​Policy_​Doc_​August-​2015_​ENG_​WEB.pdf.
Allen, A., Koroma, B., Lambert, R., and Osuteye, E. in collaboration with Hamilton, A. (technical plat-
form assemblage) and Kamara, Macarthy, J., Sellu, S., and Stone, A. (coordination community-​led data
collection) (2018a). ReMapRisk Freetown. Online platform produced for Urban ARK. www.urbanark.
org/​tools.
Allen, A., Lambert, R., Manda, M., and Osuteye, E. in collaboration with Hamilton, A. (technical platform
assemblage) and Bwanali, B, Manda, F., Gondwe, J., and Gondwe, M. (coordination community-​led data
collection) (2018b). ReMapRisk Karonga. Online platform produced for Urban ARK. www.urbanark.
org/​tools.
Allen, A., Osuteye, E., Koroma, B., and Lambert, R. (forthcoming 2019). Unlocking urban risk trajec-
tories in Freetown’s informal settlements. In: M. Pelling (ed.): Urban Africa Risk Knowledge.
Nairobi: UN-​Habitat.
Allen, A., Zilbert Soto, L., Wesely, J., in collaboration with Belkow, T., Ferro, V., Lambert, R., Langdown,
I., and Samanamú, A. (2017). From state agencies to ordinary citizens: Reframing risk-​mitigation
investments and their impact to disrupt urban risk traps in Lima, Peru, Environment and Urbanization.
29 (2): 477–​502. http://​journals.sagepub.com/​doi/​abs/​10.1177/​0956247817706061.
Banton, M. (1969). A Western African City: A Study of Tribal Life in Freetown. London: Oxford
University Press.
Bull-​Kamanga, L., Diagne, K., Lavell, A., Leon, E., Lerise, F., MacGregor, H., Maskrey, A., Meshack, M.,
Pelling, M., Reid, H., Satterthwaite, D., Songsore, J., Westgate, K. , and Yitambe, A. (2003). From
everyday hazards to disasters: The accumulation of risk in urban areas. Environment and Urbanization.
15(1): 193–​204.

347
A. Allen, B. Koroma, M. Manda, E. Osuteye, and R. Lambert

Capoccia, G. and Kelemen, R.D. (2007).The study of critical junctures: Theory, narrative, and counterfactuals
in historical institutionalism. World Politics. 59(3): 341–​369. Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/​article/​
222749.
Coaffee, J. and Lee, P. (2016). Urban Resilience: Planning for Risk, Crisis and Uncertainty. London: Palgrave.
Cornwall, A. and Coehlo, V.S. (2006). Spaces for Change? The Politics of Citizen Participation in New
Democratic Arenas. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dodman,D.,Leck,H.,Rusca,M.,and Colenbrander,S.(2017).African urbanisation and urbanism: Implications
for risk accumulation and reduction. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 26: 7–​15.
Hayward, C.R. (2000). De-​Facing Power. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Jaglin, S. (2014). Regulating service delivery in southern cities: Rethinking urban heterogeneity. In: S. Parnell
and S. Oldfield (eds.): A Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South. New York: Routledge.
Jaglin, S., Repussard, C., and Belbéoc'h, A. (2011). Decentralisation and governance of drinking water ser-
vices in small West African towns and villages (Benin, Mali, Senegal): The arduous process of building
local governments. Canadian Journal of Development Studies /​Revue canadienne d'études du
développement. 32(2): 119–​138.
Macarthy, J.M. and Koroma, B. (2016). Towards Meeting the Knowledge and Capacity Building Gaps for
Equitable Urban Development in Freetown. Freetown: SLURC Publication.
Macarthy, J.M., Frediani, A.A., and Kamara, S.F. (2019). Report on the Role of Community Action
Area Planning in Expanding the Participatory Capabilities of the Urban Poor . Freetown: SLURC
Publication.
Manda, M., Kamlomo, D., Mphande, C., Wanda, E., Msiska, O., Kaunda, J., and Kushe, J. (2016). Karonga
town: Growth and risk profile. Urban KNOW Working paper # 9 (May).
Manda, M. and Wanda, E. (2017). Understanding the nature and scale of risks in Karonga Town, Malawi.
Environment and Urbanization. 29(1). http://​journals.sagepub. com/​home/​eau.
McGee, R. (2004). Unpacking policy: Actors, knowledge and spaces. In: K. Brock, R. McGee, and J. Gaventa
(eds.): Unpacking Policy: Actors, Knowledge and Spaces in Poverty Reduction. Kampala: Fountain
Press: 1–​26.
Myers, G. (2011). African Cities. Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice. London: Zed Books.
Osuteye, E., Johnson, C., and Brown, D. (2016). The data gap: An analysis of data availability on disaster
losses in sub-​Saharan African Cities, Urban Africa Risk Knowledge Working Paper No. 11.
Parnell, S. (2016). Defining a Global Urban Development Agenda. World Development. 78: 529–​540.
Pieterse, E., Parnell, S., and Haysom, G. (2018). African dreams: locating urban infrastructure in the 2030
sustainable developmental agenda, Area Development and Policy. 3(2): 149–​169.
Resnick, D. (2014). Urban governance and service delivery in African cities: The role of politics and pol-
icies. Development Policy Review. 32: s3–​s17.
Satterthwaite, D. (2016). Background Paper: Small and Intermediate Urban Centres in sub-​Saharan Africa.
Urban ARK Working Paper No 6. London: IIED.
Simone, A.M. and Abouhani, A. (eds.) (2005). Urban Africa: Changing Contours of Survival in the
City. London: Zed Books.
Webster, N. and Engberg-​Petersen, L. (2002). In the Name of the Poor: Contesting Political Space for
Poverty. London: Zed Books.

348
 26
Closing the urban infrastructure
gap for sustainable urban
development in Sub Saharan Africa
Moving to scale in building urban resilience

Shuaib Lwasa

Introduction
This chapter focuses on water and sanitation utilities to analyze resilience building through
heterogeneous infrastructure systems in the Global South using Kampala as a case study. Water
supply and sanitation services are two of the basic municipally provided utilities on the basis
of which public accountability is scrutinized (Buyana and Lwasa 2016; Mayanja and Mayengo
2007;Vanier and Danylo 1998). Both of these types of urban infrastructure are provided through
large-​scale installations that are centralized with a treatment plan and networks running through
the serviced areas to collect and transport water or collect sludge to and or from the treatment
plant (Angelo and Hentschel 2015; Silver 2014). These infrastructures are also often used as the
basis for urban value capture for municipalities to mobilize finances from service charges that
are reinvested in the infrastructure or other services. But these types of infrastructure have social,
economic, and environmental consequences.
Water resources are arguably considered to be the most misused and abused resource at
various levels from extraction, use, and disposal as wastewater (Porto et al. 2008). At the global
level, water is a resource that has been commercialized for decades first with centralized
systems of water distribution that involve large infrastructure installations for water purifica-
tion, pumping, and distribution (Dugard 2010; Patsiaouras 2015). The abstraction has depleted
aquifers, changed stream flow with knock-​on effects on health, biodiversity, and environment
(Porto et al. 2008). On the other hand, wastewater from point of disposal such as house or
commercial establishments often is laden with contaminants that end up in water sources with
serious environmental consequences (Songsore 2017). With the emergence of bottled drinking
water, which can be transported distances through land-​based distribution systems, a secondary
problem has been created that is linked to the indiscriminate disposal of plastic bottles, many
of which are single use, with the majority ending in water aquifers and oceans. On the supply
side, despite the advanced systems of water treatment and distribution as well as investments in
urban Africa, many people are still unable to access water due to affordability, yet many municipal

349
Shuaib Lwasa

utility companies report leakages, damage to the networks, and illegal connections leading to
commercial losses.
Coverage of networked supply systems is to a limited number of households and as a result,
alternative systems have emerged to close the gap in access and coverage of water supply in cities.
These alternative systems include a wide range of technologies of different sizes such as nat-
ural systems of springs, underground wells, and open surface water bodies but also systems that
link to the centralized, networked systems to create some form of hybridity (Kooy and Bakker
2008). In regard to sanitation, this infrastructure is considered a determinant of modern urbanism
shaping urban systems, their layout, and physical imprint. Like water systems, sanitation networks
that are centralized for treatment of sludge. These systems are characterized by large-​scale con-
struction and engineering works to separate sludge from grey water and other materials, then
sanitized through physical–​chemical–​biological treatment processes (NWSC 2002). Sanitation
networks are accessed by a limited number of urban dwellers across cities of the Global South
due to limited coverage and high costs, which is unaffordable by many of the urban dwellers
including some middle-​income groups. Coverage, affordability and access challenges notwith-
standing, the environmental, social, and economic costs of centralized sanitation systems is yet to
be fully estimated but the literature shows serious environmental damage of ecosystems, water
systems, and now increased greenhouse gases through pollution and chemical processes of the
treatment (Barles 2007).
The challenges of coverage and accessibility by modern sanitation systems have also led to a
multitude of alternative technologies, ranging from single-​user technologies, nutrient recovery
technologies, to decentralized and hybrid systems in many cities (Kooy and Bakker 2008).These
alternative systems are also heavily dependent on the involvement of people in their oper-
ation and is shaped by power relations. Both sanitation and water from the municipal point
of view are also highly commercialized utilities involving billions of dollars in the installation,
operationalization, and management of the service connections (Satterthwaite 2017).With com-
mercialization, the motivation for appropriating service products manifests in all cities, but this
has also penetrated the alternative systems that commercialization tends to obscure the basic
human requirement for proper hygiene and clean water provision by emphasizing the economic
reward associated with appropriating and commercialization of the services (De Albuquerque
and Winkler 2010; Patsiaouras 2015). This commercialization, whether for the centralized or
alternative systems, undermines the resilience of urban social systems, especially when faced with
multiple risks of economic, climate risks, and natural hazards (Parnell 2017).The knock-​on effect
of undermined resilience are trade-​offs on health, living environment, ecosystems damage, and
economic loss of the human resource. This chapter assesses these trade-​offs but also highlights
the co-​benefits of alternative systems and illustrates how enhancing the co-​benefits while min-
imizing the adverse effects can contribute to resilience building in cities.

Framing the discourse

Urban infrastructure is the backbone of urban form and its functioning. Urban infrastructure also
contributes heavily to the economic resilience of urban systems because infrastructure enables
the commercial and social functioning of cities. But in a situation where over 60 per cent of
the population live in informal areas and are under-​serviced by centralized water and sanitation
systems, the functioning of the urban economic sector is limited without the enabling infrastruc-
ture (Cook and Swyngedouw 2012). Urban resilience is defined differently by many scholars as
ecological and engineering resilience to natural hazards (Butlin 1895; Rockström et al. 2009).
The ability of the engineering infrastructure to withstand the perturbations of natural hazards

350
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

is the strict definition of engineering resilience (Powell et al. 2014). Limited literature par-
ticularly that related to climate change adaptation defines urban resilience from a social per-
spective (Chelleri et al. 2012). Social resilience is multidimensional to include economic, social
networking, functioning of critical social services during a disaster, and institutional systems
designed to respond appropriately to risks (Waters 2013).
According to Collier and Cust (2015), Africa faces a critical shortfall in public infrastructure.
An estimated 600 million people still have no electricity connection, more than 80 per cent
of the road network remains unpaved, and only 56 per cent of the population have access to
an improved water source. In view of the huge deficit in infrastructure that is critical to social
resilience, this chapter frames alternative infrastructure systems as a mechanism for sustained
and continued functioning of urban systems during times of disasters. This chapter postulates
that the informal sector is a large segment of African cities and urban resilience in the South
will be framed and shaped by the quality of this sector including the alternative infrastructure
systems (Goodfellow 2010). Over 60 per cent of urban dwellers live in informal settlements in
many African cities. This comprises over 70 per cent of the urban labor force and contributes
considerably to the housing of urban dwellers. Hence, the informal sector is the city. While
large-​scale infrastructure development is expected to continue in African cities, this is unlikely
to match the exponential growth in demand for services especially in the informal settlements.
In cities, infrastructure is provided for the return it provides on investment and so this infra-
structure is provided through commercial ventures (Oppenheimer 1942). It is also important
to understanding the role power relations play in closing the urban infrastructure gap in cities
(Swyngedouw 2009).
In urban political ecology, a commodity has two values: use-​value and exchange value
(Swyngedouw and Kaika 2014). Like all resources, whether natural or otherwise, politics
of control and management are informed by the intrinsic value of such resources and the
products therein, which are commoditized and commercialized. Political ecology theorizes
that politics in a place is shaped by the resources and how people relate in regard to the
resources to produce capital. The power structures shaped by materialism of water and sani-
tation service products in urban areas are constructed to maintain the urban metabolism
but also dominance of control over the resource. Water is an indispensable resource and
commodity for the functioning of social relations between people in urban areas. The pol-
itical economy theory of materialism, production of capital, and the structure of power
relations inform how urban sanitation and water regimes have emerged in Kampala through
a process of appropriation, alienation, and control of the water supply chain to close the
infrastructure gap.
Often described as “self-​provisioning”, the social structures involved in providing infrastruc-
ture at a scale that increases coverage is impacted by centralized infrastructure systems. Around
these innovations of diverse micro-​to meso-​scale infrastructures is an alternative system, which
is not yet recognized by mainstream urban development strategies. The persistence of these
diverse infrastructures and social systems of managing the infrastructure illustrates the signifi-
cance of the informal sector in African cities (Richmond et al. 2018). What is less understood
is the realization of the potential of the informal sector and how this potential can be leveraged
to leapfrog cities to urban sustainability for resilience building. Thus moving to scale is both a
research and policy question that has to be explored to identify pathways for increasing infra-
structure coverage in cities like Kampala. Alternative pathways are emerging in various forms
including; decentralization infrastructure, self-​organization, participation, self-​help, and public–​
private partnerships to fill the gap. Deep scaling and up scaling also require innovative models to
fill the gaps and build resilience.

351
Shuaib Lwasa

Methodology
The analysis in this chapter draws on key informant interviews, site visits, and review of secondary
literature. Interviews and site visits were conducted in Kampala in 2017 as part of a wider project
on urban transformation through water and sanitation. The research plan focused on water and
sanitation sectors through key actors, enablers of change, and the institutional governance system.
The key informants were selected purposively from critical institutional actors at public agencies
including Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the National Water and Sewerage Company
(NWSC), as well as community groups such as ACTogether and Water-​for-​People.Thus, seven indi-
viduals from these key institutions were interviewed in depth. Focus groups were also conducted
at KCCA and NWSC. Supplementary interviews were also conducted at a workshop involving 17
individuals focusing on innovations in water and sanitation.
The analysis also draws on research work on the intersection of urban development and
environmental change in Kampala that was conducted over the last 15 years to draw on previous
analysis, interviews, and data. The research was undertaken under the Urban Action Innovation
Lab at Makerere University in Kampala. This provided additional information about the actors
and technologies under implementation in the city. Site visits to KCCA, ACTogether and com-
munities documented experiences of the pre-​paid meter technologies. The analysis of the trans-
formation in the water sector also draws on secondary data from online databases about the
water markets, project documents, strategic plans and government policy. Data and documents
were collected from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics,World Bank, UN-​Habitat Observatory and
other donor websites to get insight into the sanitation systems, water market conditions and pro-
gress on improving access to water in Kampala (Calderón et al. 2011; UBOS 2017).

Centralized sanitation and water infrastructure systems

The establishment of a water supply network in Kampala was started in 1928 and has since
been expanded through phase II, and now III, due to increasing demand as well as challenges at
the water abstraction point in Lake Victoria. Phase III is different from phase II, which focused
on installing and second abstraction in the lake. Phase III is focused on development of water
network systems in periphery areas of Kampala, drawing water from other sources, but also the
expansion and upgrading of the supply network systems. The expansion of water supply systems
has been slow compared to the increasing demand leading to the emergence of alternative water
supply systems through segmented water markets in Kampala. As a consequence, coverage of the
network is estimated to directly serve up to 35 per cent of the households, which increases to 65
per cent including indirect coverage.
Indirect provision is used in reference to people accessing water through kiosks, communal
connections, and pre-​paid metering systems that were started for the poor neighborhoods. The
poorer neighborhoods almost have no direct connections to their houses, which is due to the
layout of buildings, but largely influenced by affordability of connection fees and charges for
water supply.There is high densification of low to lower middle income settlements with limited
access to water supply and human excreta disposal.According to the National Water and Sewerage
Cooperation (NWSC) (2015) only 35 per cent of the households have water connection to the
compound or dwelling units, while the majority use standpipes or communal pre-​paid metered
systems. The poorer neighborhoods often rely on alternative water supply systems that fur-
ther drives inequality in terms of water access, quality and affordability (Lawhon et al. 2018).
The alternative systems of supply are also found in middle income neighborhoods, which are
supplied with only six hours of water supply with the deficit supplied by the alternative systems.

352
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

In regard to sanitation, less than 12 pe rcent of the households in Kampala are connected to the
sewer network.
In an effort to close the water infrastructure gap in Kampala, a pro-​poor unit was established
as part of the NWSC in 2006 after internal reviews indicated that the urban poor were paying
higher rates for water and sanitation service than the non-​poor (Buyana and Lwasa 2016). The
pro-​poor unit encouraged the NWSC to re-​examine the technological mix of solutions it
was providing to citizens to both increase coverage and reduce the service charge. But this
accentuated spatial inequality by reinforcing the differential access, pricing, and distribution
systems as discussed later in this chapter (Buyana and Lwasa 2016). The NWSC developed
strategies to improve water service in informal neighborhoods that eventually expanded to sani-
tation with the introduction of decentralization of sewerage treatment plants. The NWSC also
implemented a pre-​paid water metering system in some poor neighborhoods of Kampala and is
currently in the process of rolling this out to all the poor neighborhoods in the city. This geo-
graphically and socially targeted supply particularly to the urban poor is illustrative of inequality
but also reinforces spatial differentiation of centralized water supply systems.
A number of sanitation improvement initiatives have been implemented particularly with
toilet blocks, which are also connected to the water supply system. Landlords offered land for
the toilet blocks with pre-​paid water metered token equivalent to an amount of credit on the
pre-​paid chip, which enables households to draw water from the standpipe. A consortium of
donors, including the World Bank, the Belgian Technical Cooperation, and KfW Development
Bank, provided funding and technical support. The pro-​poor unit began providing communal
water standpipes and sanitation blocks in partnership with KCCA. The combination of these
technologies is believed to provide a formal solution that is accessible to poor households. But
the alternative solutions have over time gained political momentum through support from the
national government and the international community to become a larger scale pro-​poor ser-
vice provision strategy. The pro-​poor strategy has created differentiated water and sanitation
service markets with different actors who control and manage the water markets (Buyana et al.
2014). As will be discussed in the subsequent sections, the simultaneous water markets have actu-
ally deepened the inequality with power and control at the center of these markets. There is a
seamless flow of power from the utility company to the landlords and managers of the standpipes
that is influenced by the distribution of chips for pre-​paid meters.
In the context of urban resilience and invoking the political ecology theory, Angelo and
Waschmuth (2015) provide a discussion of urban focused political ecology analysis, citing Harvey,
who argues that “urbanization must be understood not in terms of some socio-​organizational
entity called ‘the city’ (the theoretical object that so many geographers, demographers and
sociologists erroneously presume) but as the production of specific and quite heterogeneous
spatio-​temporal forms embedded within different kinds of social action” (Harvey 1996: 52).
From this understanding, social action can take different forms but the politics of materialism
and the emergence of power centers that tend to cascade through the hierarchies is a relevant
point of reference in closing the infrastructure gap through heterogeneous systems.
Looking at the utility company and the multiple actors, the power flows from different
actors in a hierarchical format, for example chip owners and end-​users on the one hand and
from NWSC to truckers and end-​users on the other. This also illustrates how social processes
and action shape a politicized commodity. Likewise, power also flows through a set of actors in
the sanitation sector who have appropriated and control the materiality of sludge through civil
organizations in conjunction with Kampala Capital City Authority (Lwasa and Owens 2018).
Urban scholars have used network-​based theory to analyze how urban infrastructure systems
are configured to enable a flow of materials, money, and power to sustain the urban metabolism

353
Shuaib Lwasa

(Arboleda 2016; Kooy and Bakker 2008; Law 2007). These infrastructures are understood as
hierarchical but a critique of the nature of urbanism that is emerging is increasingly pointing to
a splintered or heterogeneous nature of urban infrastructure (Silver 2014). The splintered nature
of urban infrastructure like the water supply chain and sanitation services is not only understood
from the physical components of the infrastructure but the social heterogeneity of actors.
In the context of the centralized systems, the physical infrastructure is used as the material
objects around which power is exercised to control the commercialized markets of water and
sanitation services. The materiality of emerging alternatives is discussed in the proceeding
section, but what is important to discern from the centralized systems is that power structures
exist to control water provision as well as sanitation services (Nilsson 2006). It is on the basis
of this analysis that this chapter argues that centralized systems undermine urban resilience in
view of the majority not being able to access the water and sanitation services in the city. By
reinforcing the highly segmented and segregated market for water and sanitation, it is incon-
ceivable that further expansion of the centralized infrastructure even with pro-​poor initiatives
will actually build urban resilience. This creates space for the alternative systems that also have
limits in regard to building resilience but can play a significant role in resilience building
(Ernstson et al. 2010).

Emergent alternative infrastructure systems

As discussed in the preceding section, the centralized systems have not achieved full coverage of
would-​be users and thus alternative systems have developed. In contemporary urban manage-
ment and planning, water and sanitation infrastructure are measures of performance of municipal
authorities that have for long controlled the management and distribution of the utilities in their
jurisdictions (Angelo and Hentschel 2015). Urban centralized systems for water supply and sani-
tation that are traditional in many cities are managed by utility companies. The institutional set
up of utility companies is often associated with control by the private sector actors who devise
all means to ensure dominance of their control over the commercialized water distribution.
Through legal processes, the utility companies have appropriated large water resources, whether
surface or underground, to maintain the supply of the raw material to the supply chain and
market (Crane and Swilling 2008). The ever-​increasing and contested hike in charges for water
has created discontent amongst the citizens who see the raw material as a public common with
no justification to charge for its use. In fact, during colonial and post-​colonial periods, the supply
of water in cities for example in Africa was for a very nominal fee and sometimes free for some
sections of the population (Nilsson 2011). Due to the high rate of urbanization and high demand
for water, the installation of supply systems has not matched this growth, creating inequality in
water access and availability.
Access and availability is also affected by affordability due to the increasing charges for water
supply. The outcome is that the existing water supply systems in many cities like Kampala have
failed to match demand, leaving many people, especially the urban poor, to devise alternative
means of provisioning for water. In the case of Kampala, it is estimated that 75 per cent of the
city’s population is provided water through hybrid systems (Fraser et al. 2017). Despite the
increasing investment by multilateral arrangements (World Bank, African Development Bank)
and bilaterals (French Development Agency, European Union), the coverage of water distri-
bution systems in Kampala is spatially low yet the charges for water are increasing. Due to this
discrepancy, operational challenges as well as technical issues couple with water charges to drive
spatial urban inequality. The result is an emergence of heterogeneous sanitation and water infra-
structure systems with segmented markets around control, access, and management of water

354
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

Table 26.1 A categorization of hybrid and heterogenous water supply systems

Type of supply Systems User relations Reliability and Remark

system classification resilience building

Water vending1 Heterogeneous Transactional ++ Risks of contamination

Water vending2 Hybrid Commercial + Characteristic of over
transactional charge
Natural spring Heterogeneous Individual use +++ -​-​ Risks associated with
contamination
Communal tap Hybrid Transactional ++ Sense of community is
strong
Truck supply Hybrid Transactional +++ Characteristic of over
commercial charge
Rainwater Heterogeneous Individual use + Treatment costs may be
harvesting incurred
Scoop wells Heterogeneous Individual use + -​-​-​ Risks associated with
contamination

1 suppliers drawing water from natural systems and selling to end-​users

2 suppliers drawing water from network system and selling to end-​users
+ moderately builds resilience, ++ strongly builds resilience, +++ very strong in resilience building, -​negatively erodes
resilience, -​-​ strongly erodes resilience, -​-​-​ cancels resilience

as shown in Table 26.1 (Lawhon et al. 2018). These can be described as hybrid, heterogeneous
systems and off-​g rid systems.
In respect to the hybrid systems, these extend the centralized systems by bringing new actors
into the water market. The source of water remains the central water supply system, but the
suppliers to users are different. The most common in Kampala are the water truckers, who stay
close to the NWSC appurtenances and or offices, and are charged a fee to draw water from the
system that they then supply to the users, often middle-​income residents. This system of supply
also takes advantage of up to eight hours of water flow in the network system, which leaves many
households without water for most of the day, particularly the houses located on hilltops where
pressure is low due to elevation. The truckers have created an association that controls who
enters the market and the entitlements to the members. During the interviews, it was established
that a sub-​market of this hybrid system involving large consumers like industrial establishments
located close to areas of high-​pressure systems, offer the truckers a higher fee to draw water from
their connections than they would have to pay to NWSC. The truckers then sell the water to
the residents.
At the end-​user, a truck of 10,000 litres is sold at UGX 400,000, an equivalent of $110 at a
rate of $1.1 per cubic meter, although the NWSC charge is UGX 2,698 or the equivalent of
$0.65 for a cubic meter. The differences at each of these market segments illustrates the eco-
nomic benefit for each actor but also explains why truckers have an association to control who
enters the business and who is kept out. We interviewed a representative of the truckers’ associ-
ation, who explained that the association’s aim is to ensure that their interests and views are heard
by the NWSC and any other government body that regulates water supply. Although not to
the same character or degree, the truckers’ sub-​market is also seen in other cities such as Dhaka,
Guayaquil, and Hargeisa (Nenova 2004; Roy 2009).
The second emergent system is the multiple supply arrangements with multiple technologies
that are operating at a micro scale to bring water to the end-​user. The multiple technologies
include the pro-​poor pre-​paid systems and public standpipes. Although the latter relates to the

355
Shuaib Lwasa

hybrid system, which speaks to its complexity, it is the scale of operation, amount of water and
nature of the end-​users that distinguishes it from the hybrid systems. A mix of technologies,
supply systems, and scale of operation provides the basis for describing these systems as hetero-
geneous systems. These are also heterogeneous because the operators and users are less linked
to the conventional centralized networked systems like that of the NWSC. The complexity of
these systems can be discerned from a number of factors. First, some of the private connections
may actually be illegal connections. According to the NWSC, about 34 per cent of the water
produced is lost, non-​metered and can hardly be traced (NWSC 2015).
With the pro-​poor pre-​paid water meters, there has emerged a sub-​market controlled largely
by the owners of chips and indirectly by NWSC, which determines the total number of chips
on the market. NWSC’s policy to distribute chips (understandably to ensure systematic manage-
ment) has created two extra layers of controllers of the sub-​market. Chip owners have report-
edly charged an extra fee to residents who may wish to use the chips to buy water, creating a
complex set of relations at the community level. NWSC’s pre-​paid meters recommended tariff
is 867 UGX per cubic meter, which is 65 per cent of the standard residential tariff, and similar
to a “social tariff ” that is applied to public standpipes. With this charge, politicization of pre-​
paid meters at local level through the water kiosks of the NWSC is by control of chips, whose
acquisition is influenced (either directly or indirectly) by the staff at the kiosks that control the
number of chips in a neighborhood. Through the set of relations, there are different charges that
depend on social relations between the chip owner and end-​user. Likewise some individuals in
the neighborhoods with pre-​paid meters have specific relations with the NWSC staff that also
ensure the periodic maintenance of the pre-​paid meters.
The third set of alternative water supply systems are the off-​g rid supply systems that rely on
the natural systems of water supply. Many households (up to 85 per cent, though statistics are
disputed), either solely rely on natural springs and surface water in the city or turn to the natural
springs when supply through the network systems falls well below the number of hours that
water flows through the network (Lwasa and Owens 2018). Scoop wells, natural springs, streams,
rain water harvesting, and the lake are all sources of this system. A sub-​market is also associated
with this system when individuals provide a service to collect water for households at a fee from
these sources. For example, in this sub-​market, 20 litres of water cost UGX 200 at standpipes and,
when delivered by an individual, it costs UGX 500, yet the price of NWSC-​provided water is
38 UGX. This is an illustration of the commercialization and social power of the water vendors.
The sub-​market is largely free entry and exit but there is some control over the customers by
the vendors, based on personal relations (AbdouMaliq 2004). In the operations of all these
systems, the official price for the same quantity of water to the end-​user differs, which illustrates
the different water markets in urban areas like Kampala (NWSC 2015; Otero et al. 2011). The
emergent water supply systems may be thought of as gap filling, but they also accentuate water
inequality if looked at from the perspective of different neighborhoods. In all these sub-​markets,
of water vendors, stand pipe kiosks, and water tankers, there is a degree of restricted access to the
supply chain either through associations or personal relations (Satterthwaite 2017).

Sanitation systems
Sanitation systems have also evolved and are influenced by affordability and costs of installation
(Satterthwaite, 2017). The pit latrine is the most common and dominant alternative sanitation
system. This technology and sanitation system has been in use even before the modern city
developed in Uganda. It is a simple technology –​a hole dug into the ground with dimensions of
3 by 6 feet and up to 40 feet deep. A concrete or metal slab is erected in the hole and walls using

356
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

locally available materials. It can have from one to six stances, all of which are usually squatting
stances. The other alternative is the improved pit latrine which is similar to the previous system,
but the depth of the hole is up to 6 feet and the walls are lined with bricks and cement to make
it easy for emptying. Households in the middle-​and high-​income range also construct septic
tanks connected to the flush toilets in their houses. This technology also involves a soakaway pit
for the sludge. Septic tanks also vary, but minimally measure 6 by 10 feet and up to 10 feet deep
with a soakaway connected to it for overflow of sludge. The soakaway pit can be as deep as 50
feet with layered aggregate stones of different sizes and sand for filtering that mimics natural
treatment systems (Revi et al. 2014).
There has also emerged communal sanitation blocks that are promoted and constructed
by civil society organizations. The blocks combine the septic tank technology and are some-
times connected to the centralized sewerage network. According to ACTogether, the block
design includes a community hall at the elevated level and toilets and bath places at the lower
level (Richmond et al. 2018). This model is used to improve sanitation in densely populated
settlements where digging a new hole is constrained by lack of space (Lwasa and Owens 2018).
Open releases in some settlements is used to make pit latrines reusable. Timing is when it rains
and the latrines are constructed strategically close to a drain with a plug that can be opened to
release the untreated sludge into the drain.This is common in densely populated settlements and

Table 26.2 A categorization of hybrid and heterogenous water supply system

Type of supply system Systems User relations Reliability Remark

classification and resilience

Pit latrine Heterogeneous Individual ++ Can also be transactional

if owner charges other
users
Septic tank Hybrid Commercial ++ Collection and disposal
transactional relates with networked
system
Open defecation/​Release Heterogeneous Individual use + -​-​-​ Risks associated with
to drains contamination
Communal sanitation Hybrid Transactional ++ Collection and disposal
block relates with networked
system. Can be
connected to sewer
Communal septic tank Heterogeneous Transactional +++ Some linked to natural
commercial ecosystems for
treatment of waste
Sludge management Heterogeneous Individual use +++ -​-​ Risks associated with
gulper operations that may not
be safe
Transfer tanks for sludge Hybrid Transactional +++ Risks associated with
management commercial operations that may not
be safe and costs
Improved pit latrine Heterogeneous Mixed ++ -​ Risks associated with
individual and contamination
commercial

+ moderately builds resilience, ++ strongly builds resilience, +++ very strong in resilience building, -​negatively erodes
resilience, -​-​ strongly erodes resilience, -​-​-​ cancels resilience

357
Shuaib Lwasa

in areas that are low lying where the water table is high. The newest of options is the combin-
ation of sludge management technology and mobile transfer systems of the sludge (Semiyaga
et al. 2015). This is used in relation to other technologies, but the sludge is moved not through
an underground network but sludge containers after being removed by gulper vacuum pumps
(Radford et al. 2015). These different systems illustrate the multitude of options that have
emerged to close the infrastructure gap and are helping to build resilience in Kampala as shown
in Table 26.2.

The urban water and sanitation coverage challenge

Three possible outcomes are described here of the failures of the public utility in supplying
water or increasing coverage of sanitation in the city. The first is privatization of water at various
levels of the supply chain. As the failures of public enterprises in management of urban services
become clear, one of the outcomes of this failure has been privatization. This process is seen in
the public contracting of private companies to manage certain aspects of the service provision
while they do monitoring and quality control.This approach is now widely implemented and in
Uganda has taken root in many urban local governments. For example, in Kampala, the NWSC
has installed pre-​paid meter systems in the communities where this model is in operation.
The second outcome is for provision of urban water services that have been commercialized.
Commercialization is in respect to traditionally provided nominal fee services. However, with
the increasing costs of infrastructure expansion and management, payment of predetermined
charges have gone up. The third outcome scenario is marketization where, like commercial-
ization, marketization has encouraged the users to pay a fee as and when they need the utility.
The difference between the two is that with marketization, charges and or any fees are left to be
determined by the market conditions.
In respect to sanitation, commercialization is evident with sludge management involving small
enterprises using Gulper technology, while marketization is related to all the other that involve
transactional relations between the providers and users. The sanitation scenario also illustrates
the emergence of power, as some organizations are already showing signs of desire to control the
market with limiting entry into the business. Going into agreement with the municipal author-
ities to link service demand through a toll-​free call center is illustrative of the appropriation and
control of the sanitation market. The demand for the sludge removal and management service
is increasing but has not reduced the costs. Rather it has split the costs so that they are not felt
by the user. Analysis of the charges indicates that the gulper removal of 10 m3 of sludge is the
same or higher than formal cesspool emptiers, which are operated by the NWSC and KCCA
with a few players entering that market as well such as CIDI. Power is latent in these systems of
sanitation just like the water supply systems. But coverage is only minimally improving and this
in the long run may undermine urban resilience despite the potential to build resilience. The
synthesis reveals new governance approaches and business models aimed at increasing coverage
of water supply in Kampala with a potential to contribute to resilience. Institutionalization is
key to increasing coverage. Therefore support for increased coverage and opportunities for the
majority of people in the city of Kampala is key in resilience building.

Affordability and access to alternative infrastructure systems

The issues of affordability for water and sanitation is very intricate, highly politicized, and person
dependent. Studies of affordability in Kampala have shown that almost all socio-​economic
income groups are unable to sustainably pay for the cost of utilities. Economic analysis and

358
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

studies that consider how much income a household can reasonably spend on utilities have
reached varying conclusions on affordability (Davis 2005; Surridge 2013). What emerges is that
the alternative systems have had two effects on affordability. The first is that splitting utility costs
into smaller payments that are made over time enables low income and middle income groups
to access these services. For example, a pit latrine with a capacity of 10 m3 of sludge would be
emptied at UGX 180,000, while a gulper company would charge UGX 20,000 for every 1 m3
of sludge-​emptying container.This implies that the gulper user ends up paying 20,000 more than
the cesspool emptier, which they may not afford at one payment but may be able to afford it if
they are making smaller payments over time. In a similar vein, water vended to a user in small
quantities of 20-​litre jerrycans costs 200 UGX, but would cost UGX 10,000 per 1 m3, which,
if one has a connection, would cost UGX 1,200 in direct costs. But due to connection fees and
installation, the low-​income users find it affordable through a split service than with a one-​time
connection service (NWSC 2015).Thus, affordability needs further integration into the existing
systems and one way to create resilience is to consider economic proportionality of equitable
charges. The pro-​poor pre-​paid meter service for water uses such as concept but a simple esti-
mate also shows that the pre-​paid water costs 110 per cent of the cost for a direct service per 1
m3. Social resilience is undermined but it can be enhanced if proportional charges are considered.
This may be achieved if radical change in commercialization and marketization of water and
sanitation is implemented at a city-​wide level.

Interdependencies, scalability, and resilience of alternative systems

There is interdependence between the centralized and alternative systems such as the utility
company, pre-​paid metering, and commercialization of chips. These interdependencies illustrate
the actors, their interests, commodification, and appropriation of the resource along the supply
chain. To understand these interdependences, it is necessary to unpack the types of actors and
their roles. The first and major actor in the supply chain is the NWSC, which is the utility com-
pany in charge of abstracting, treating, and distributing water in Kampala. This utility company
has expanded services from Kampala to over 200 towns around the country, creating depend-
encies between the actors with which it relates. The second type of actor is the administrative
jurisdictions that work in partnership with the NWSC. These are municipalities or sometimes
committees created in small towns to oversee the services in a locality. In Kampala it is the
KCCA with which the NWSC relates and in partnership have coupled to drive different sub-​
markets in the city. The third set of actors are the water truckers, whose role is to fill in when
supply through the network fails. Although their role is meant to be temporary, these actors have
become integral to the water supply chain that a permanent water sub-​market with restriction
on entry and exit has been created in the city.
The fourth set of actors are individuals and or committees at the local level that oversee the
operations of the NWSC’s pre-​paid metering system and or standpipes. Their role is to interface
with the end-​users indirectly on behalf of the NWSC to maintain relations with end-​users and
have influence on the service charges and supply system. They also help in identifying locations
and willing landlords to offer land for standpipes and or sanitation blocks.
The last set of actors are the end-​users who, by definition, are diverse due to issues of afford-
ability, systems used, and distant relations with the major actor of the NWSC. These range
from individuals in settlements to commercial entities of different sizes. All these actors are
involved in a web of relations that have shaped the technologies, supply systems, and multiple
networks in the urban water supply chain. Scalability of the alternatives would have to leverage

359
Shuaib Lwasa

the split service model and ease of technology use, which is associated with minimal investment
requirements but is of most importance in a relational model that enhance the interactions of
these actors. Institutional and regulatory support is also necessary for scalability, which would
require transformation of the urban governance systems and adopt a multisystems approach,
involving as many of these actors in a strategic manner to increase coverage. Building social
resilience through infrastructure hinges on continuity of services and functioning of the utilities
during and after disasters, including during times of economic hardship.

Heterogeneous infrastructure systems and urban resilience in Kampala

There are several lessons that can be drawn from the diverse and heterogeneous sanitation and
water systems in Kampala. Firstly the systems are people dependent, which makes them inte-
gral to the urban fabric. Being people dependent implies working on the governance system
to respond in non-​conventional ways to the demand for services. Options exist to embrace
these systems and enable the functioning of urban infrastructure systems (Lawhon et al. 2018).
Transformation of sanitation, urban water systems to increase coverage, affordability, and enabling
productivity of all city dwellers will depend on the lessons learned from the emergence of and
operation of these alternative systems of water supply. Although the scaling up may be challen-
ging, several considerations are requisites for transformation. Support for innovation, community
engagement, and using the business model with open entry and exit are some of the enablers.
Rapid urban growth should be the basis for rethinking of how cities like Kampala should
grow and provide the necessary utilities to the population in an equitable way. This will depend
on new modes of engagement to include community business models that enable individuals
to participate in the urban water and sanitation markets in an equitable way. Leveraging private
investments, which have a cumulative effect on expanding the sanitation and water systems, is
key to building resilience in cities. There are strategic nodes of synergetic linkages between the
systems discussed in this chapter that offer options for improved and transformative change that
is needed in the city. It might be useful to piggyback these sub-​markets so that the improve-
ment increases coverage. For example, linkages between centralized systems and hybrid systems
seem to offer a way for expansion and transformation, while care must be taken to not create
an environment that will lead to the emergence of new power structures like the end-​users and
chip owners. Linkages between the centralized systems and the more eco-​friendly systems of
rainwater harvesting to reduce the carbon footprint of water production through supplementa-
tion is also worth considering.

Conclusion
From the discussion, it is evident that the urban water sanitation systems are complex, with
diverse actors and set of relations. Beyond the emergent systems that are triggered by failure of
the centralized system, urban water and sanitation systems exhibit challenges but also opportun-
ities for improving water access in cities like Kampala. The mix of different technologies and
approaches has created inequities, but the solution for infrastructure delivery also lies in these
diverse systems. There is inadequate mobilization, private finance, and inadequate understanding
of water and sanitation access dynamics, and how to deal with differentiated communities. The
polycentric nature of power structures in urban water and now sanitation is an illustration of
capital-​formation processes and the politicization of water resources in the city. Coupled with
the traditional models of project-​based or agency-​based provision, urban infrastructure remains
inadequate for many communities due the hegemonies over water. A combination of approaches

360
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

is required to build resilient urban communities. A transformation of both the emergent and
public agencies is necessary for urban infrastructure provision. Among the many alternative
models for urban service and infrastructure delivery, some have shown spin-​offs, which could
be improved for everyone including the poor and provide the potential for resilience building.

References
AbdouMaliq, S. (2004). People as infrastructure: Public Culture. 16(3): 407–​429. https://​doi.org/​10.1215/​
08992363-​16-​3-​407.
Angelo, H. and Hentschel, C. (2015). Interactions with infrastructure as windows into social worlds: A
method for critical urban studies: Introduction. City. 19(2–​3): 306–​312. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​
13604813.2015.1015275.
Angelo, H., and Wachsmuth, D. (2015). Urbanizing urban political ecology: A critique of methodological
cityism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 39(1): 16–​27. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​
1468–​2427.12105.
Arboleda, M. (2016). In the nature of the non-​city: Expanded infrastructural networks and the political
ecology of planetary urbanisation. Antipode. 48(2): 233–​251. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​anti.12175.
Barles, S. (2007). Urban metabolism and river systems: an historical perspective –​Paris and the Seine,
1790–​1970. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 11: 1757–​1769. www.hydrol-​earth-​syst-​sci.net/​11/​1757/​2007/​
hess-​11-​1757-​2007.pdf.
Butlin, F. (1895). Das Kapital. Progress in Human Geography. 5(18): 249. https://​doi.org/​10.2307/​2955771.
Buyana, K. and Lwasa, S. (2016). Infrastructure governance at sub-​national level: The case of Kampala City
in Uganda. Handbook of Research on Sub-​National Governance and Development, 324. https://​doi.
org/​10.4018/​978-​1-​5225-​1645-​3.ch015.
Buyana, K., Lwasa, S., and Schiebinger, L. (2014). Closing Africa’s infrastructure deficit: The role of gender
responsiveness in urban planning. International Journal of Social, Management, Economics and Business
Engineering. 8(3): 882–​890.
Calderón, C., Moral-​Benito, E., and Servén, L. (2011). Is infrastructure capital productive? A dynamic heter-
ogenous approach. Journal of Applied Econometrics. http://​papers.ssrn.com/​sol3/​papers.cfm?abstract_​
id=1871578.
Chelleri, L., Kunath, A., Minucci, G., Olazabal, M., Waters, J.J., and Yumalogava, L. (2012). Multidisciplinary
Perspectives on Urban Resilience. https://​doi.org/​ISBN 978-​84-​695-​6025-​9.
Collier, P. and Cust, J. (2015). Investing in Africa’s infrastructure: Financing and policy options. SSRN (Vol.
7). Annual Reviews. https://​doi.org/​10.1146/​annurev-​resource-​100814–​124926.
Cook, I.R. and Swyngedouw, E. (2012). Cities, social cohesion and the environment: Towards a future
research agenda. Urban Studies. 49(9): 1959–​1979. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0042098012444887.
Crane, W. and Swilling, M. (2008). Environment, sustainable resource use and the Cape Town Functional
Region –​ An overview. Urban Forum. 19(3): 263–​287. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s12132-​008-​9032-​y.
Davis, J. (2005). Private-​ sector participation in the water and sanitation sector. Annual Review of
Environment and Resources. https://​doi.org/​10.1146/​annurev.energy.30.050504.144635.
De Albuquerque, C. and Winkler, I.T. (2010). Neither friend nor foe: Why the commercialization of water
and sanitation services is not the main issue in the realization on human rights. Brown Journal of
World Affairs. 17: 167–​179. https://​heinonline.org/​hol-​cgi-​bin/​get_​pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/​
brownjwa17&section=16.
Dugard, J. (2010). Can human rights transcend the commercialization of water in South Africa? Soweto’s
legal fight for an equitable water policy. Review of Radical Political Economics. 42(2): 175–​194. https://​
doi.org/​10.1177/​0486613410368495.
Ernstson, H., Leeuw, S.E., Redman, C.L., Meffert, D.J., Davis, G., Alfsen, C., and Elmqvist, T. (2010). Urban
transitions: On urban resilience and human-​dominated ecosystems. AMBIO. 39(8): 531–​545. www.
springerlink.com/​index/​10.1007/​s13280-​010-​0081-​9.
Fraser, A., Leck, H., Parnell, S., Pelling, M., Brown, D., and Lwasa, S. (2017). Meeting the challenge of risk-​
sensitive and resilient urban development in sub-​Saharan Africa: Directions for future research and prac-
tice. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ijdrr.2017.10.001.
Goodfellow, T. (2010, February). “The bastard child of nobody”?: Anti-​planning and the institutional
crisis in contemporary Kampala. www2.lse.ac.uk/​ internationalDevelopment/​ research/​crisisStates/​
Publications/​publications.aspx.

361
Shuaib Lwasa

Harvey, D. (1996).Cities or urbanization?. City. 1(2): 38–​61.

Kooy, M. and Bakker, K. (2008). Splintered networks: The colonial and contemporary waters of Jakarta.
Geoforum. 39(6): 1843–​1858. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.geoforum.2008.07.012.
Law, J. (2007). Actor network theory and material semiotics. April: 1–​ 21. www.heterogeneities.net/​
publications/​Law-​ANTandMaterialSemiotics.pdf.
Lawhon, M., Nilsson, D., Silver, J., Ernstson, H., and Lwasa, S. (2018). Thinking through heterogeneous
infrastructure configurations. Urban Studies. 55(4). https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0042098017720149.
Lwasa, S. and Owens, K. (2018). Kampala: Rebuilding public sector legitimacy with a new approach to
sanitation services. World Resources Report Case Study. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
www. citiesforall.org.
Mayanja, A. and Mayengo, I. (2007). Municipal bonds for financing development of infrastructure: A way
forward for KCC and local governments in Uganda. MPRA Paper 4585. University Library of Munich,
Germany.
Nenova, T. (2013). Private sector response to the absence of government institutions in Somalia.
Washington DC: World Bank. http://​documents.worldbank.org/​curated/​en/​248811468302977154/​
Private-​sector-​response-​to-​the-​absence-​of-​government-​institutions-​in-​Somalia.
Nilsson, D. (2006). A heritage of unsustainability? Reviewing the origin of the large-​scale water and sani-
tation system in Kampala, Uganda. Environment and Urbanization. 18(2). 369–​385. https://​doi.org/​
10.1177/​0956247806069618.
Nilsson, D. (2011). Pipes, Progress, and Poverty: Social and Technological Change in Urban Water
Provision in Kenya and Uganda 1895–​2010. Doctoral Thesis. Stockholm: KTH Royal Institute of
Technology.
NWSC (2002). Identification of Management Options for Improved Water and Sanitation Service in
Informal Settlements in Kampala. Kampala: NWSC.
NWSC (2015). NWSC Corporate Strategic Plan 2015–​2018. Kampala: NWSC.
Oppenheimer, F. (1942). A critique of political economy. American Journal of Economics and Sociology.
1(3): 265–​282. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1536–​7150.1942.tb00474.x.
Otero, I., Kallis, G., Aguilar, R., and Ruiz, V. (2011). Water scarcity, social power and the production of an
elite suburb: the political ecology of water in Matadepera, Catalonia. Ecological Economics. www.
sciencedirect.com/​science/​article/​pii/​S0921800909004030.
Parnell, S. (2017). Africa’s urban risk and resilience. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ijdrr.2017.09.050.
Patsiaouras, G. (2015). The marketplace of life? An exploratory study on the commercialization of water
resources through the lens of University of Leicester, School of Management. Journals.Sagepub.Com: 1–​
45. http://​journals.sagepub.com/​doi/​abs/​10.1177/​0276146714538454.
Porto, M., Khatri, K., and Vairavamoorthy, K. (2008). Challenges for urban water supply and sanitation in
developing countries. In: Water for a Changing World –​Developing Local Knowledge and Capacity.
Delft: CRC Press. https://​doi.org/​10.1201/​9780203878057.ch7.
Powell, N.S., Larsen, R.K., and van Bommel, S. (2014). Meeting the ‘Anthropocene’ in the context of
intractability and complexity: infusing resilience narratives with intersubjectivity. Resilience. 2(3): 135–​
150. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​21693293.2014.948324.
Radford, J., Malinga, S., Drummond, G., Atayo, H., Whitesell, A., and Sugden, S. (2015). Latrine desludging
pump development using a simple test for simulant strength: A case study from Uganda. Journal of Water
Sanitation and Hygiene for Development. 5(4): 620–​624.
Revi,A., Satterthwaite, D.E.,Aragón-​Durand, F., Corfee-​Morlot, J., Kiunsi, R.B.R., Pelling, M., Roberts, D.C.,
and Solecki, W. (2014). Urban Areas. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.
Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK and New York, USA: Cambridge
University Press.
Richmond, A., Myers, I., and Namuli, H. (2018). Urban informality and vulnerability: A case study in
Kampala, Uganda. Urban Science. 2(1): 22. https://​doi.org/​10.3390/​urbansci2010022.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F.S., Lambin, E., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M.,
Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H., Nykvist, B., De Wit, C.A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H.,
Sörlin, S., Snyder, P.K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R.W., Fabry,V.J.,
Hansen, J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P., and Foley, J. (2009). Planetary bound-
aries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society. Retrieved from https://​
badger.uvm.edu/​jspui/​handle/​2051/​7221.

362
 Sustainable urban development in Sub Sahara

Roy, M. (2009). Planning for sustainable urbanisation in fast growing cities: Mitigation and adaptation
issues addressed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Habitat International. 33(3): 276–​286. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.habitatint.2008.10.022.
Satterthwaite, D. (2017). The impact of urban development on risk in sub-​Saharan Africa’s cities with
a focus on small and intermediate urban centres. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
26: 16–​23. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ijdrr.2017.09.025.
Semiyaga, S., Okure, M.A. E., Niwagaba, C.B., Katukiza, A.Y., and Kansiime, F. (2015). Decentralized
options for faecal sludge management in urban slum areas of Sub-​Saharan Africa: A review of tech-
nologies, practices and end-​uses. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.resconrec.2015.09.001.
Silver, J. (2014). Incremental infrastructures: material improvisation and social collaboration across post-​
colonial Accra. Urban Geography, 3638 (November 2015). http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1080/​. https://​doi.
org/​10.1080/​02723638.2014.933605.
Songsore, J. (2017). The complex interplay between everyday risks and disaster risks: The case of the
2014 cholera pandemic and 2015 flood disaster in Accra, Ghana. International Journal of Disaster Risk
Reduction. 26: 43–​50. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ijdrr.2017.09.043.
Surridge, T. (2013). Sustainable sanitation. Appropriate Technology. https://​doi.org/​WAS-​05.
Swyngedouw, E. (2009). The political economy and political ecology of the hydro-​ social cycle.
Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education. 142(1): 56–​ 60. https://​
doi.org/​
10.1111/​
j.1936-​704X.2009.00054.x.
Swyngedouw, E. and Kaika, M. (2014). Urban political ecology. Great promises, deadlock… and new
beginnings? Documents d’Analisi Geografica. 60(3): 459–​481. https://​doi.org/​10.5565/​rev/​dag.155.
UBOS (2017). The National Population and Housing Census 2014 –​Area Specific Profile Series.
Kampala: UBOS, 1–​37.
Vanier, D.J. and Danylo, N.H. (1998). Municipal infrastructure investment planning: asset management
(p. 39). Las Vegas. http://​archive.nrc-​cnrc.gc.ca/​obj/​irc/​doc/​pubs/​nrcc42665.pdf.
Waters, J.J.J. (2013). The Role of Ecosystem Services and Adaptive Capacity in the Resilience of Poor
Urban Areas. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Environmental
Sciences. Norwich: University of East Anglia.

363
 27
Municipal resilience in Chile
From willingness to implementation
Claudia González-​Muzzio and Claudia Cárdenas Becerra

Recent disasters as catalysts of change

Probably all of the 346 communes in Chile are exposed to one or more hazard. Chilean geog-
raphy and climate are very diverse but, at the same time, show that its territory is exposed to
earthquakes, tsunami, floods, droughts, landslides, volcanic hazards, and forest fires, among other
hazards.
Chile is 11th in the list of places with the greatest exposure to natural hazards among 171
countries, with a “very high” level of risk according to the WorldRiskReport Analysis and
Prospects 2017 (Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft 2017), although indicators regarding lack of capaci-
ties and vulnerability of Chile are evaluated as “low”.
The earthquake that occurred in Chile in 2010 (Mw 8.8) affected more than 2.5 million
people in 239 communes, five cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, 45 towns over 5,000
inhabitants and more than 900 towns and villages in rural and coastal areas, with damages that
reached $30 billion (Gobierno de Chile 2010). After that, a series of other events has affected
different regions of the country. Some examples are the eruption of Puyehue –​Cordon Caulle
volcanic complex, which disrupted the livelihoods of rural population and towns, damaging
agriculture and livestock, tourism and ecosystems in communes located in Los Ríos and Los
Lagos regions in southern Chile, together with provinces of Chubut and Río Negro in Argentina
(Rovira et al. 2013). The mega fire of Valparaíso in 2014 destroyed 2,656 houses and hundreds
of hectares of monocultures in an interface area (Ilustre Municipalidad de Valparaíso 2014). The
earthquake of Pisagua in 2014 (Mw 8.2) affected the three northern regions of the country and
south Peru, triggering a minor tsunami. The mudslides and floods of Atacama in 2015 severely
damaged cities and towns in three regions located in the Atacama desert. And the massive forest
fires that occurred in the summer of 2017, with 467,537 hectares of agricultural and forestry
land affected in seven regions; during which some rural villages were destroyed and several cities
were put at risk (CONAF 2017).
As Table 27.1 shows, disasters triggered by the occurrence of natural events generate the
greatest impact and level of damage in Chile –​the 2010 earthquake being the costliest event and
also the deadliest between 2010 and 2018, followed by the flash floods that occurred in Atacama
in 2015.

364
 Municipal resilience in Chile

Table 27.1 Main disasters in Chile between 2010 and 2018

Disaster type (natural event) Disaster subtype Events Total Total affected Total
count deaths damage
($000)

Earthquake Ground movement 2 7 537,684 200,000

Earthquake Tsunami 2 581 3,353,055 30,800,000
Extreme temperature Cold wave 1 0 150 0
Extreme temperature Severe winter 3 0 50,950 1,000,000
conditions
Flood –​ 2 3 1,316 2,000
Flood Flash flood 2 180 196,881 1,500,000
Flood Riverine flood 4 16 19,979 103,100
Landslide Landslide 1 22 142 0
Storm Convective storm 1 6 938 0
Volcanic activity Ash fall 3 0 11,100 600,000
Wildfire –​ 1 7 0 200,000
Wildfire Forest fire 3 13 8,737 750,000
Wildfire Land fire (brush, 2 12 11,400 34,000
bush, psture)
Disaster type (anthopogenic
cause)
Industrial accident Oil spill 1 1 120 0
Miscellaneous accident Fire 1 83 21 0
Transport accident Air 1 21 0 0
Transport accident Road 2 35 41 0
Transport accident Water 1 10 0 0

Source: EM-​DAT: The Emergency Events Database –​Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL) –​CRED, D. Guha-​Sapir –​
www.emdat.be, Brussels, Belgium. Retrieved online on July 8, 2018.

Recent disasters have shown that most municipalities are not able to respond effectively
during emergencies. Furthermore, in many cases lack of technical capacities or financial resources
makes it difficult for municipalities to respond even to minor events, such as structural fires and
local floods, so they must appeal to higher administrative levels for assistance (provincial, regional,
or national), all of which greatly affect their development possibilities.
According to the report “Towards a resilient Chile in the face of disasters: an opportunity”
(CNID 2016), between 1980 and 2011 Chile registered annual losses close to 1.2 per cent of its
GDP on average due to disasters triggered by natural events, which is why it is necessary to take
action to manage risks at different territorial and administrative levels to reduce said expenses
and the vulnerability of the population, their livelihoods, and infrastructures.

Responsibilities of municipalities regarding disaster risk reduction

and emergency response
According to Chilean legislation, municipalities represent the local administration of each
commune, which are defined as autonomous public law corporations with legal status and their
own assets. Their objective is to satisfy the needs of the local community and ensure their partici-
pation in economic, cultural, and social development. Each municipality is constituted by a mayor
as the highest authority and a council (Law 18,695, Constitutional Organic Law of Municipalities).

365
González-Muzzio and Cárdenas Becerra

Regarding the regulatory framework in relation to disaster risk management (DRM), at

the national level the Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile (1980) declares that “It
is the duty of the State to provide protection to the population and the family” (Article 1,
subsection 51).
Chilean regulations establish responsibilities for each level of government (national, regional,
provincial, and communal). The response to emergencies must occur in a scalar manner and
resources are allocated in the same way.Thus, in the face of a disaster or catastrophe of a regional
nature, and notwithstanding that a “national committee” is established, a regional committee of
emergency operations is constituted, and “regarding those disasters or catastrophes that affect a
specific province or commune, the Civil Protection Committees, as permanent working bodies,
will be constituted in Provincial or Communal Committees of Emergency Operations, as appro-
priate” (Decree 38, 2011 Modifies Decree No.156, of 2002).
At the communal level, the aforementioned Law No. 18,695 (2007) states in Article 4 that
among the functions and powers that can be carried out by municipalities, directly or with other
bodies of the state administration, are “the prevention of risks and the provision of assistance in
emergency situations or catastrophe”. Article 5 indicates that for the fulfilment of its functions
the municipalities will have, among others, the following roles: (1) to execute the communal plan
of development (PLADECO) and the programs needed for its implementation, (2) to approve
or pronounce on instruments of territorial planning at the communal scale, and (3) to elaborate,
approve, execute, and evaluate the communal plan of public security.
In addition, Law No. 16,282 of 1965 of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security
regarding earthquakes and catastrophes provides for the creation of a communal emergency
committee in each municipality, made up of the mayor, the carabineros (police), the health ser-
vice, the Red Cross, the fire department of the commune, and other local authorities. Among its
functions are: to arrange immediate measures to address the emergency (not ordered by other
authority); propose to the authorities urgent measures that must be applied to safeguard the
interests of the community; participate in the distribution of aid to the victims and monitor its
proper allocation; and issue instructions to neighbors on security measures and shelter.
Finally, Supreme Decree No. 156 (of 2002) specifies that the national civil protection and
emergencies system “starts at the local level and under the leadership of the Municipality, as
the administrative body closest to people”, assigning to that institution functions such as the
collection of information (before, during, and after the emergency), the promotion of commu-
nity participation in disaster risk reduction and preparedness initiatives, and to deploy efforts in
their territory to safeguard people in case of risks and emergencies, in coordination with the
National Office of Emergencies (ONEMI).
Although matters related to DRM are embedded in the Chilean legal framework, from
national to local levels, this inclusion is still not robust and explicit in terms of the responsibilities
and roles of municipalities, their authorities, officials, and instruments for reducing and managing
risks that could trigger disasters in the territory of their jurisprudence. Instead, they still focus
mainly on emergency response. Furthermore, the provision of resources to municipalities for this
specific issue is not necessarily contemplated.

Concepts and methods employed to discuss municipal resilience

Although the concept of resilience in the field of DRM has been widely discussed and has grad-
ually evolved over time, in this case the one agreed at the United Nations in February 2017
is employed, where resilience is defined as the “the ability of a system, community or society
exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects

366
 Municipal resilience in Chile

of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration
of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management” (United Nations 2016).
Municipal resilience will be approached in two ways: one related to the territorial scope
(the commune) and the other to the institutional and administrative scope (municipality), both
associated with the local level of government and territorial administration.
In relation to resilience of the commune as a territory, initiatives developed after the earth-
quake occurred in February 2010 are reviewed, specifically those oriented to produce a sustain-
able reconstruction or to improve municipal capacities regarding DRM. Most of the initiatives
do not arise from the municipalities but from other levels of the public administration or are
promoted by international organizations. It will be acknowledged here that efforts developed
have had mixed results, mainly due to the lack of capacity and resources of municipalities as
institutions for influencing proposals, to manage risks, and to take charge of local development,
in addition to the lack of internalization of the objectives and potential effects of such initiatives.
Regarding resilience of the municipality as an institution, governance and institutional cap-
abilities are examined. The institutional structure of the municipality is considered as well as
technical and financial capacities existing within said institution, and its associative capacity with
other institutions or actors in order to improve risk management at the communal level.
To address the situation of municipal resilience in Chile, various sources were considered: for
the initiatives, available documents and institutional websites were reviewed together with semi-​
structured interviews conducted with representatives of ONEMI, the Sub-​secretariat of Regional
and Administrative Development (SUBDERE), UNDP and the Association of Municipalities of
Chile (AMUCH). In addition, interviews were carried out with emergency or risk management
officials of municipalities in different sectors of the country, including rural, urban, and metro-
politan districts, aimed to identify the specific structure of those municipalities regarding DRM
and their current capacities.
An important input was the Survey of Underlying Risk Conditions,1 an instrument developed
by ONEMI based on the work of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Management that began
to be applied in 2017, with full results available of a sample of 60 communes (FULCRUM Ingeniería
Ltda. 2018; González Correa 2017), and preliminary results of 56 more by mid-​2018, representing
all the provinces of the country. This instrument addresses four dimensions: governance, territorial
planning and human settlements, socio-​economic and demographic conditions, and climate change
and natural resources, considering ten underlying factors that are disaggregated into 36 variables and
five sub-​variables belonging to governance dimension, each one with a specific weight to define a
Communal Index of Underlying Risk Factors (ICFSR) (ONEMI, 2017) (Figure 27.1).
Similarly, it was important to consider a study developed in 2017 by AMUCH from a survey
answered by 182 municipalities (out of 3452), which consulted on technical and financial cap-
acities regarding risk management and emergencies, although not all the municipalities partici-
pating in the study provided the information requested.
Both studies evaluated the communes considering a typological classification established
by SUBDERE from demographic, social and economic variables, as indicated in Table 27.2
(SUBDERE 2017).

Main initiatives to increase resilience at communal level after the

2010 earthquake
Reconstruction processes after recent disasters have highlighted the need to integrate risks
into urban planning and the development of urban areas. For doing so, several municipal-​level
initiatives led by regional governments, ministries, and other state agencies as well as international

367
 Territorial planning
1.1.1. Territorial planning instruments
tools

1.2.1. Location of human settlements

1.2.2. Type of human settlement
1.2.3. Isolated localities
Land planning and 1.2.4. Coexistence of productive
Exposure
human settlements economic activities
1.2.5. Critical infrastructure location
(sanitation, transport, energy and
telecommunications)

1.3.1. Compliance with regulations

according building construction date
1.3.2. Investment plan for mitigation
Built environment works
1.3.3. Regularization of building
permits granted by DOM (office of
municipal works)

2.1.1. Pattern of behaviour of climate

extreme events
Climate variability
2.1.2. Access to information on impacts
of climate change
Climate change and
natural resources 2.2.1. Soil degradation
2.2.2. Deforestation
2.2.3. Water scarcity
Environmental
2.2.4. Soil erosion
degradation
2.2.5. Waste disposal
2.2.6. Existance of environmental
pathogens and/or vectors

3.1.1. Multidimensional poverty

Poverty and inequity 3.1.2. Income poverty
3.1.3. Socio-economic rating
Socioeconomic and
demographic 3.2.1. Index of demographic
conditions dependency
Demographic 3.2.2. People with disabilities
characteristics 3.2.3. Homeless population
3.2.4. International immigrant
population

4.1.1. Inclusive approach in municipal

management
4.1.4.1. Communal structure
4.1.2. Local management and
4.1.4.2. Communal training
adaptation to climate change
Institutional 4.1.4.3. Financial autonomy
4.1.3. Status of citizen participation
and decision making
framework 4.1.4. Communal capacities on DRM
4.1.4.4. Local instruments
4.1.5. Public safety and protection of
4.1.4.5. Civil protection
people in emergency situations
committee
4.1.6. Accountability mechanisms
4.1.7. Coverage of social programs

4.2.1. Construction of official

information
Governance Social cohesion 4.2.2. Citizen representativeness
4.2.3. Social belonging
4.2.4. Civil society organizations

4.3.1. Responsibility of private

Sectoral commitment investment
4.3.2. Risk transfer

Figure 27.1 Underlying factors, variables, and sub-​variables proposed by ONEMI to define the
Communal Index of Underlying Risk Factors (ICFSR)
Source: Authors based on ONEMI (2017, pp. 15–​18)
 Municipal resilience in Chile

Table 27.2 Classification of Chilean communes by SUBDERE

Group 1 Large metropolitan communes with high and/​or medium development

Group 2 Major communes with medium development
Group 3 Medium urban communes with medium development
Group 4 Semi-​urban and rural communes with medium development
Group 5 Semi-​urban and rural communes with low development

Source: authors based on SUBDERE (2017, pp. 2–​3)

organizations have been promoted. The main initiatives aimed to foster disaster resilience at
communal level are: reconstruction and regeneration plans for urban areas affected by the 2010
earthquake; Making Cities Resilient campaign by UNISDR, 100 Resilient Cities (Rockefeller
Foundation), and PREMIR (Programme for Prevention and Mitigation of Risks) developed by
SUBDERE and UNDP, which are briefly discussed here.
After the 2010 earthquake, several strategic planning initiatives (recognized as master plans)
were carried out, the main ones being the sustainable reconstruction plans (PRES) and the urban
regeneration plans (PRU). These plans drew upon specific project proposals for reconstruction,
although PRES also aimed to guide decisions regarding allocation of housing subsidies (Imilán
et al. 2015). A total of six PRESs were developed by public–​private partnerships as well as 18
recovery plans for the coastal area of Biobío Region (PRBC18) led by the regional govern-
ment (also considered PRES), and 112 PRU for smaller localities were funded by the Ministry
of Housing and Urbanism (Gobierno de Chile 2014). Moris (2014) points out that “a door was
opened to strategic planning” but these plans were not transformed into multisectoral portfolios
of programmed investments, stating also that it has not been possible to comprehensively follow-​
up the reconstruction of areas with PRES, emphasising that these plans were developed by stra-
tegic actors who wanted to contribute where they decided to do it (focusing on places where
they have interests). Likewise, Cuadros and Serra (2015) indicate that the way to link these PRES
to binding territorial planning instruments would be to update current plans. However, in many
cases territorial planning instruments have not been updated yet, hindering the implementation
of projects in areas where modification of regulations is required for their completion.
Those PRES funded by private companies had a board of directors that included them as
well as several public institutions (ministries in charge of reconstruction), universities, and muni-
cipalities. The latter had different degrees of involvement, although they were not leading actors
in the reconstruction plans of their territories, as they had little power and minimal management
capacity (Imilán et al. 2015). Furthermore, reconstruction through these initiatives –​both private
and public funded –​focused on the communal capitals and localities of the coastal area, leaving
behind rural areas with high levels of vulnerabilities.
Making Cities Resilient was launched in May 2010. “The Campaign is led by the UNISDR
but is self-​motivating, partnership and city-​driven with an aim to raise the profile of resili-
ence and disaster risk reduction among local governments and urban communities worldwide”
(UNISDR n.d.). It is based on “10 essentials” that local governments should consider, including
to raise awareness and to know more about risks at local level, allocate resources for DRM, and
implement measures to reduce disaster risk. By July 2018, 3,883 local governments around the
world had participated in the program, 34 of them Chilean. Of these, only six have uploaded
documents and only Lampa maintains updated information on the campaign website; its mayor
has been an active promoter of the campaign. However, lack of active engagement of local
governments seems not to be an exception at the global level, thus currently the campaign is
focused on implementation rather than inclusion of new members.

369
González-Muzzio and Cárdenas Becerra

Another international initiative is the 100 Resilient Cities Programme promoted by the
Rockefeller Foundation with the aim of making cities more resilient to the “physical, social
and economic challenges of the 21st century” (100 Resilient Cities n.d.). The program also
considers a vision of resilience to the impacts of dangerous natural events and other factors that
weaken the structure of the city. It highlights the need for collaborative work of society, including
public and private sectors, academia, social organizations and unions, among others. The Santiago
Metropolitan Area joined the programme in 2014. During 2017, the “Resilience Strategy for the
Metropolitan Region of Santiago” was drawn up, which includes the following aspects: urban
mobility, the environment, human security, risk management, economic development, and com-
petitiveness and social equity (Intendencia Región Metropolitana 2017). Funding sources are now
being explored to implement proposals. However, as this initiative is coordinated by the regional
government, the process has involved little participation of the municipalities that make up the
metropolitan area of Santiago (37 in total), especially those from more peripheral communes.
Through the collaboration between UNDP and SUBDERE, the creation of a budget item
(approximately $800,000 per year) called the Risk Prevention and Mitigation Programme
(PREMIR) was added to the annual national budget on a permanent basis. Its purpose is to
“strengthen the municipality to fulfill its civil protection role at the communal level, delivering
tools that allow it to reduce risk, prepare for response and support the process of recovery from
an emergency and/​or catastrophe” (SUBDERE n.d.), by means of the incorporation of DRM
in municipalities through planning, strengthening local capacities for prevention and disaster
response, and the production of local risk studies, among others. The aim is to change the
prevailing reactive attitude towards emergencies to one where prevention, mitigation, prepar-
ation, and recovery from emergencies and disasters are priority actions of work over time.
UNDP and SUBDERE have worked together in DRM at the municipal level since 2014,
following the identification of a gap existing in the municipalities of the country regarding this
matter. Between 2014 and 2016, 154 municipalities were invited to participate in the devel-
opment of communal investment plans for disaster risk reduction, of which 90 successfully
completed the entire process in nine regions. In 2018, the developed plans are being followed up,
in order to measure their degree of implementation and updating needs due to the occurrence
of disasters in some of the communes after the plans were prepared.
In parallel, UNDP and SUBDERE opened an information and collaboration platform on the
internet called Municipal GRD (UNDP and SUBDERE 2018), related to the PREMIR pro-
gramme, where webinars and other capacity-​development initiatives are carried out at a regular
basis. UNDP developed a methodology for preparing the investment plans on disaster risk reduc-
tion and has also produced several guidelines for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction at the local
level. Municipalities can apply for financing initiatives throughout the year and, recently, in August
2018, SUBDERE published an operational guide to assist municipalities in requesting such funds.
Regarding the PREMIR initiative, a sample of nine investment plans for disaster risk reduc-
tion of communes located in six regions were reviewed (Table 27.3). These plans were produced
by municipal officials from different areas of each municipality supported by UNDP consultants.
Communes of the sample are exposed to more than one hazard and also most of them were
affected by an event from 2010 onwards. However, not all of them selected the same hazard to
define the risk scenario(s) for proposing initiatives. In a few cases, more than one scenario was
analyzed, and most of the reviewed plans do not consider cascading events or multihazard scenarios.
Initiatives vary from dissemination of hazards information, hazards and risks studies (local and inter-​
communal), and specific mitigation actions. Similarly, there is a wide range of costs from around
$10,000, for cleaning a local river basin to remove debris, to $1 million for a study of a sub-​regional
river basin. Most initiatives will require consultancy services because municipalities recognized

370
Table 27.3 Main contents of communal plans of investments in disaster risk reduction for nine communes in Chile

Commune Region Hazards Vulnerabilities Risk scenario Initiatives Estimated cost Estimated cost Who should Comments
(physic, economic, selected CLP USD do it?
environmental,
socio-​cultural,
administrative

Cobquecura Biobío Riverine flood; Ancient buildings, Earthquake Risk assessment of 45,000,000 69,230.77 Consultancy Affected
earthquake, low economic and earthquake and office by 2010
tsunami capacity, wetland tsunami tsunami earthquake
destruction, low and
risk awareness tsunami
(tourists), lack
of resources for
DRM
Quellón Los Lagos Nocive algae Populated areas Tsunami; Cleaning of the river 7,000,000 10,769.23 Municipality Affected by
(“red tide”); exposed, low landslide basin (rivers Flojo “red tide”
riverine recovery capacity, in urban and Matadero) in 2016
flood, inadequated land area (Flojo
tsunami; use of hazardous river); Red
landslides in areas, chaotic tide
urban areas behavior of
people if landslide
occurrs, low DRM
capacity
Ránquil Biobío Forest fires, Rural areas with Forest fires DRM plan regarding 20,000,000 30,769.23 Consultancy Affected by
floods, low standard forest fires office earthquake
landslides of habitability, 2010 and
(mass precariousness forest
movements) of agriculture, fires in
conditions December
favorable to fire, 2011
(continued)
Table 27.3 (Cont.)

Commune Region Hazards Vulnerabilities Risk scenario Initiatives Estimated cost Estimated cost Who should Comments
(physic, economic, selected CLP USD do it?
environmental,
socio-​cultural,
administrative

Caldera Atacama Earthquake, Buildings in Earthquake Study of the structural 90,000,000 138,461.54 Consultancy Affected by
tsunami hazardous and condition of housing office earthquake
areas, road tsunami of the commune of and
infrastructure Caldera considering tsunami in
exposed to flood, zoning approach 2015,
unsafe behavior regarding different
of people if types of soil in the
tsunami hits face of seismic
hazard; study for the
construction of a
system of evacuation
corridors for tsunami
and meeting areas
Iquique Tarapaca Earthquake, South sector of Landslide Dissemination of 16,600,000 25,538.46 Municipality Affected by
landslide, Iquique exposed triggered hydrometerologic earthquake
tsunami to landslides, by extreme risks in the and minor
conectivity not rain event commune of tsunami
robust Iquique in 2012,
and local
landslide
triggered by
the breakage
of a drinking
water
pipeline.
Located in.
Very dry
area
 Risk scenario Initiatives Estimated cost Estimated cost Who should Comments
selected CLP USD do it?

cultural,
administrative

La Serena Coquimbo Earthquake, Rural population, Extreme rain Study on the streams 693,000,000 1,066,153.85 Regional Affected by
tsunami, Diego de Almagro (ravines) of the funding. Three earthquake
extreme rain, street and pampa commune of La municipalities and minor
desertification exposed; tourism Serena, the basin involved. tsunami in
and droughts, loses due to of the Elqui river Consultancy 2015
collapse bad weather and its tributaries, office
of mining conditions, due to the risk
landfill, schools still used generated by
structural fires as shelters during hydrometeorological
disasters, polution hazard related to
when dust gets extraordinary rains
dry
Loncoche Araucanía Riverine flood, Low conectivity Drought Study of efficient 90,000,000 138,461.54 Consultancy
droughts in to some rural solutions for office
rural areas sectors, lack of collection /​
drinking water accumulation of
networks to serve drinking water in
people in isolated rural sectors of
areas, unstable difficult access.
flow of streams,
population highly
dependant from
public assistance.
Paihuano Coquimbo Earthquake, Urban area exposed Flash floods Study on the streams 693,000,000 1,066,153.85 Regional
extreme inadequate and (ravines) of the funding. Three
rain, intervention of landslides commune of La municipalities
doughts ravines, Serena, the basin involved.
of the Elqui river Consultancy
and its tributaries, office
due to the risk
generated by
hydrometeorological
hazard related to
extraordinary rains
(continued)
Table 27.3 (Cont.)

Commune Region Hazards Vulnerabilities Risk scenario Initiatives Estimated cost Estimated cost Who should Comments
(physic, economic, selected CLP USD do it?
environmental,
socio-​cultural,
administrative

Villarrica Araucanía Earthquake, Housing and vital Volcanic Early warning system 109,080,000 167,815.39 External Villarrica
volcanic infrastructure eruption to prevent casualties contractors volcano
hazard, exposed, in case of volcanic is one of
flood, tourism and eruption (Villarrica the most
forest fires, agriculture are volcano) active
droughts main economic in the
activities, lack country,
of equipment last
for bad weather eruption in
conditions in 2015
evacuation zones,
low capacity to
respond

Source: Authors, from the analysis of nine communal investment plans for disaster risk reduction supported by UNDP
 Municipal resilience in Chile

they do not have the technical competences required for formulating the studies nor for reviewing
them. It is worth noting that by mid 2018 none of the initiatives reviewed had been implemented.

Current situation regarding municipal (institutional) resilience

The Survey of Underlying Risk Conditions carried out by OMEMI to assess risk drivers
in Chilean communes has reached more than 100 municipalities so far. Sixty surveys were
conducted in 2017 and the results shown in two reports. According to them, 54 of the 60
communes surveyed that year have an Index of Underlying Risk Factors (ICFSR) above the
level of permissible risk defined by 0.2 (measured from 0 to 1), and 24 communes have a high or
very high ICFSR (above 0.43). The best ranked commune in 2017 was San Bernardo (ICFSR=
0.12), belonging to Group 1 (large metropolitan communes with high and/​or medium devel-
opment) according SUBDERE (2017), and the worst evaluated was Empedrado (ICFSR=0.68),
classified in Group 5 (semi-​urban and rural communes with low development). Almost half of
the municipalities evaluated do not have a territorial planning instrument that considers hazards
and a similar number lack investment plans for risk mitigation. These are the variables with the
highest weight that have the worst evaluation, both belonging to the “Land use” dimension
(FULCRUM Ingeniería Ltda. 2018; González Correa 2017).
For the purpose of this document, the governance dimension is analyzed, considering the total
of communes surveyed by mid 2018 (116 communes) from raw data provided by ONEMI, every
variable and sub-​variable provided with the same weight to discuss their results independently.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%

4.1.1. ¨Indusiveness in municipal management

4.1.2. Social management and adaptation to climate change

4.1.3. Character of citizen participation

4.1.4.1. Communal structure (on DRM)

4.1.4.2. Communal training (for municipal officials)

4.1.4.3. Financial autonomy and decision making (on DRM)

4.1.4.4. Local instruments (regarding DRM)

4.1.4.5. Civil protection committee

4.1.5. Public safety and protection of people in emergency
situations
4.1.6. Accountability mechanisms

4.1.7. Coverage of social programs

4.2.1. Construction of official information

4.2.2. Citizen representativity

4.2.3. Social belonging

4.2.4 Civil society organizations

4.3.1. Private investment responsibility

4.3.2. Risk transfer

Null Low Medium High

Figure 27.2 Governance dimension of Index of Underlying Risk Factors

Source: Authors based on raw data collected by ONEMI, from a sample of 116 communes

375
González-Muzzio and Cárdenas Becerra

The factor 4.1 “Institutional framework” is directly related to municipal DRM, although
4.2 “Social cohesion” and 4.3. “Sectoral commitment” are also relevant since they consider the
involvement of the community and the private sector in risk management (Figure 27.2).
Regarding “Institutional framework” (see Figure 27.2, variables 4.1.1–​4.1.7), the variable of
Governance Dimension with the best evaluation is “Coverage of social programmes” focalized
on the most vulnerable local population, with 66 per cent of the sample evaluated with no risk
and only 5 per cent of municipalities assessed with medium or high level of risk. “Accountability
mechanisms” also has a good performance. It refers to the existence of transparency mechanisms
and that neighbors are informed regularly, which is done by 66 per cent of the communes
while 14 per cent inform sometimes and with no regular mechanism or do not count with
accountability mechanisms. With respect to the sub-​variables regarding Communal Capacities
for DRM (4.1.4.1–​4.1.4.5 in Figure 27.2), the worst evaluated in the sample of 116 communes
was “Financial autonomy and decision making” due to the absence of funds oriented to risk
management or municipal dependence on other levels of public administration. Almost 20 per
cent of the municipalities do not have instruments oriented to disaster risk reduction and in
47 per cent of the sample there is no specifically defined area for DRM, and emergency man-
agement depends on other sectors of the municipality such as “operations” or “environment”.
The best evaluated sub-​variables are “Communal training” according to which 64 per cent of
the municipalities offer their employees access to training on DRM or related topics, and “Civil
protection committee”, although 22 per cent of the sample has not constituted that committee,
which is mandatory for every municipality in the country. However, in most cases, emergency
officials have a secondary role at the municipality during normal times, with a low degree of
influence to promote DRM actions, while in emergencies they have an operative role, being the
mayor and their closest team –​those who make decisions together with the operative committee
of emergencies (composed by the same members than the civil protection committee). In add-
ition, especially in the rural and/​or poorest municipalities, there is a high level of rotation among
professionals in all areas, who stay a couple of years, get trained, and then move to other munici-
palities or the private sector seeking better job opportunities and income.
Concerning “Social cohesion” (variables 4.2.1–​4.2.3 in Figure 27.2), it has a low evaluation in
general as the three variables composing this factor present high or very high risk levels.Thus, in 64
per cent of the communes in the sample there are no projects associated with DRM promoted by
civil society organizations or there are very few, with little or no articulation with the municipality
(variable 4.2.4); 59 per cent of the communes have not formed a council of civil society aimed to
represent the local community at the municipality or its sessions in a non-​regular manner (variable
4.2.2). Half of assessed municipalities do not have information about risk or their methodologies
are excessively technical and do not consider public participation (variable 4.2.1). Although “Social
belonging” is the one with the best evaluation, only 7 per cent of the sample considers inclusive
and multicultural policies or strategies. The disaffection of the community by politics and partici-
pation in social organizations has been relevant since the 1970s, recovering slowly during the pre-
sent century.This could explain the low degree of involvement of civil society in actions related to
DRM, although after the earthquake of 2010 several NGOs emerged with the aim of promoting
community resilience, in most cases without a specific territorial framework.
Finally, with respect to “Sectoral commitment”, variable 4.3.1 “Private investment respon-
sibility” considers the existence of public–​private partnerships that result in corporate social
responsibility initiatives or actions of collaboration of private companies in different stages of the
risk cycle. This occurs in only 14 per cent of the municipalities while in 77 municipalities no
initiatives have been reported so far. With regard to risk transfer, only 9 per cent of the sample
has mechanisms to transfer risk or has been able to find funding to help the local population

376
 Municipal resilience in Chile

in case of disaster. Private sector participation in the reconstruction process was crucial in some
communes such as Constitución and Santa Cruz after 2010, and the same has happened after
the floods that occurred in 2015 in Atacama where Codelco and other mining companies have
contributed by funding plans and projects for sustainable reconstruction of affected areas. The
involvement of municipalities in these initiatives has been increasing over time, although they
sometimes lack technical and management capacities for negotiation with private companies.
Although the survey applied by ONEMI could be improved in terms of its contents and
description of variables, it is the first systematic attempt to assess underlying factors of risk in Chile.
In addition, the results are consistent among the first sample of 60 communes evaluated in 2017 and
the ones added up to mid 2018, representing together 33 per cent of Chilean municipalities, thus
being very valuable to focalize public policies to promote DRM at communal level. In this sense,
ONEMI is proposing recommendations to each assessed municipality to improve its performance.
In relation to specific disaster risk reduction instruments, the minimum currently required
is the communal plan of civil protection and emergencies. According to a study carried out by
AMUCH (2017), on a sample of 128 municipalities regarding DRM capacities at the muni-
cipal level, 60.4 per cent of municipalities have plans prepared in 2016 or 2017 and 8.6 per cent
indicated that they do not have a plan. This instrument is usually focused on emergencies over
risk management. Although it should be updated annually, it is not mandatory in the current
legal framework.
With respect to financial and technical capacities related to DRM, the same study found that
those with the lowest capacities are communes belonging to Group 4 or Group 5 (semi-​urban
or rural communes with medium or low development) (AMUCH 2017). This is consistent
with the ONEMI survey, where those communes with greatest financial dependence on the
Municipal Common Fund (a redistributive mechanism of resources among all Chilean munici-
palities) have the highest ICFSR.
According to AMUCH (2017), the budget for emergency response and/​or DRM in 2016
varied from $0 in ten communes to $207,700 in Maipú, from a sample of 107 communes, with
an average close to $32,000 (Figure 27.3). Again, the communes with the lowest budget assigned
to these items belong to Group 4 and Group 5.
As previously stated, the same conclusion emerges from the study of ONEMI (González
Correa 2017), where the communes worst evaluated in relation to community training,

3%
Municipalities with budget for risks and emergencies
8% lower than US$ 15,000

Municipalities with budget for risks and emergencies

between US$15,000 and US$ 77,000

Municipalities with budget for risks and emergencies

51% between US$ 77,000 and US$ 154,000
38%
Municipalities with budget for risks and emergencies
higher than US$ 154,000

Figure 27.3 Budget intended for risk and emergencies at the municipal level (2016)
Source: Authors translation from AMUCH (2017)

377
González-Muzzio and Cárdenas Becerra

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Low Moderate High Very high

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5

Figure 27.4 ICFSR and communal category according SUBDERE (2017)

Source: González Correa (2017)

instruments oriented to DRM, and financial capacities are also from Group 4 and Group 5.
These variables contribute to a large extent to the fact that communes belonging to Group 4
and 5 have a higher Index of Underlying Factors of Risk (ICFSR) (Figure 27.4).
With respect to technical capacities of emergency or DRM officials, of 104 municipalities
that responded to the AMUCH study, 59 per cent are professionals, 28 per cent are technicians,
9 per cent reached secondary education, and 4 per cent had a career in Carabineros or in the
Army (institutions highly related to “security and safety”). Although most of the communes
have more professionals than technicians in those positions, in municipalities of Group 5 educa-
tional qualification is lower, which is probably related to less availability of resources for salaries.
Training received by officials also decreases in Groups 4 and 5 as well as the number of people
who participate in them.
Although more than 80 per cent of the municipalities that answered the AMUCH survey
indicated they had an instrument that accounts for the risks in the municipality, this does
not translate into the updating of territorial planning instruments nor in the generation of
instruments directly associated with DRM, with a few exceptions.
Furthermore, the interviews carried out for this study represent two types of municipalities,
those that have initiated a process to consider DRM in a more integrated manner and those
where the focus remains on emergency prevention and response.The latter have one emergency
official, normally in charge of other activities also, who implements seasonal activities only (a
“winter plan” for flood prevention and response and a plan regarding forest fires every summer).
Officials from San Pedro de la Paz and Talcahuano (both belonging to Group 1 according
to the SUBDERE typology) highlighted that it is not only a matter of resources but also of
administrative proficiency. Both of them have managed to get support from private companies
to produce educational material and to increase their capacity to reach the community, for
example by training employees of large companies. Similarly, the “multiplier effect” of children
in their homes has been taken advantage of by integrating information on hazards, disaster

378
 Municipal resilience in Chile

preparedness, first response, etc. inside schools, with educational resources focused on children
of different ages.
In the case of Lampa (Group 2), work has focused on improving institutional management
in the face of hazards, increasing technical capacities of municipal teams, promoting interdepart-
mental coordination and enhancing integration between risk management and environmental
topics, although community participation in DRM is almost non-​existent there. A significant
portion of the resources has been allocated to the prevention of and first response to forest fires,
creating a municipal brigade. In addition, a process of exchange and collaboration with other
municipalities with less development regarding these topics has been initiated.
It was observed that those successful cases have been personally led by the municipal authority
(mayor) who has empowered professionals with specific training and whose interest in DRM has
been triggered by events such as the 2010 earthquake.
With few exceptions, community participation in municipal risk management activities is
only informative. In the commune of Til Til (Group 4) a more active participation of citizens and
organizations was observed, triggered by a greater risk perception regarding environmental contam-
ination and water scarcity as well as the potential dangers derived from mining activities (presence
of tailings) and landfills. The mayor recently created the office of DRM at the municipality, having
realized the annual increase in emergency expenditure and the effects that the aforementioned
hazards and others related to climate change could mean for the Til Til population and territory.

Future challenges for municipal resilience in Chile

Although awareness regarding the importance of disaster risk reduction and emergency man-
agement has increased at the municipal level both among communities and local officials, the
focus, resources provided, and the importance given to these activities vary from one commune
to another. Furthermore, in many municipalities to be designated the “person in charge of emer-
gencies” is almost a penalty, an unwanted burden.
It becomes evident that those in charge of emergencies in semi-​urban and rural communes
with low development have less professional training and financial resources to deal with emergen-
cies as well as minimal or no power and capacity to actively manage risks.When a hazardous event
surpasses municipal capacities, the emergency is faced by regional or even the national emergency
officials, and this occurs in most cases, hindering local development rather than promoting it.
For that reason, it becomes urgent to develop the capacities of municipal officials to manage
risks and respond to emergencies as well as to increase financial resources assigned to DRM,
bearing in mind the different phases of risk cycle, and to stop focusing solely on emergency
response and attention. However, management competences resulting in a more efficient use of
available resources is also important as well as the possibility of achieving private sector collab-
oration. This is particularly relevant in semi-​urban and rural communes with medium or low
development (Groups 4 and 5), given that they have a greater degree of vulnerability and lower
capacities than the rest of the municipalities.
Aspects that have seen the greatest degree of progress are the response to minor emergencies
and risk knowledge derived from studies developed in a large number of communes after the
2010 earthquake. Nonetheless, there are few advances in mainstreaming risks into instruments
of territorial planning and others referring to communal management such as PLADECO.
Furthermore, many instruments are still not up to date or have a low degree of application and
implementation.
The modernization of existing planning instruments and the “official” inclusion of others
such as master plans are required for these initiatives to be effectively implemented and for

379
González-Muzzio and Cárdenas Becerra

public–​private collaboration to be carried out within an equitable framework, with a more

gravitating participation of the municipalities as crucial territorial actors.
There are some interesting initiatives at the municipal level that could be replicated by other
communes and, likewise, advances in collaboration between municipalities beyond frontiers
of municipal associations –​for example, the Chilean Network of Municipalities in the face
of Climate Change, dissemination activities carried out by the Talcahuano DRM team in the
commune and other parts of the country, and Lampa mentoring to other municipalities regarding
DRM at the institutional level, among others.
As a result of consistent initiatives developed since 2010 in Lampa, Talcahuano, and San
Pedro de la Paz, most of the emergencies faced by them in recent years have been resolved at
the local level, without the need of support from regional or national authorities, although there
is awareness among DRM professionals from these communes that they would require support
for larger disasters.
Though there are initiatives aimed at integrating DRM and climate change, there is still little
integration of these topics among different municipal departments, even in those communes
where DRM has a greater degree of development. There are also few signs of integration of
these initiatives with the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals, except Santiago
Resiliente, although no results have been observed yet.
Efforts have also been made in some municipalities in terms of the local population getting
involved as first-​line responders and self-​care promoters, generating training instances supported
by ONEMI and other institutions. In addition, there is awareness of the need that DRM activ-
ities reach a larger population, and interviewees agree that, for doing so, both schools and private
companies are key.
However, the political will and commitment of the mayor to prioritize risk management
within the commune and mainstreaming it in the institutional sphere of the municipality are
crucial for the effectiveness of DRM measures. The empowerment and technical capacities of
those in charge of risk and emergency management offices are also crucial, as is the collaboration
between different departments of the municipality and their involvement in activities related
to DRM. These elements are key for municipalities to respond better to emergencies, allocate
municipal resources in a more efficient manner, and recover more quickly from disasters.

Notes
1 Encuesta de Factores Subyacentes del Riesgo de Desastres in Spanish.
2 Municipality of Cabo de Hornos has to administer two communes: Cabo de Hornos and Antártica.

References
100 Resilient Cities. (n.d.). About us. www.100resilientcities.org.
AMUCH (Asociación Chilena de Municipalidades) (2017). Municipios en la gestión de riesgo y
emergencias. Santiago: Dirección de Estudios Asociación de Municipalidades de Chile.
Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft (2017). WorldRiskIndex Analysis and Prospects 2017. Berlin: Bündnis
Entwicklung Hilft.
CNID (Consejo Nacional de Innovación para el Desarrollo) (2016). Hacia un Chile resiliente frente a
desastres: una oportunidad. Santiago: Consejo Nacional de Innovación para el Desarrollo.
CONAF (Corporación Nacional Forestal) (2017). Descripción y efectos “Tormenta de fuego” 18 de enero
al 5 de febrero de 2017, regiones de O’Higgins, el Maule y Biobío, Santiago. www.conaf.cl/​tormenta_​
de_​fuego-​2017/​DESCRIPCION-​Y-​EFECTOS-​TORMENTA-​DE-​FUEGO-​18-​ENERO-​AL-​5-​
FEBRERO-​2017.pdf. (Accessed July 13, 2018).

380
 Municipal resilience in Chile

Cuadros, G. and Serra, I. (2015). Curicó [case study], in C. Irazabal and M. Marchant (eds.), Learning From
27F: A Comparative Assessment of Urban Reconstruction Processes After the 2010 Earthquake in
Chile. Santiago: Santiago Research Cell, pp. 23–​58.
FULCRUM Ingeniería Ltda. (2018). Análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo de los resultados obtenidos
de la aplicación de encuesta de factores subyacentes del riesgo de desastres en el nivel communal.
Santiago: ONEMI, Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública.
Gobierno de Chile (2010). Plan de Reconstrucción Terremoto y Maremoto del 27 de febrero de 2010.
Santiago: Gobierno de Chile.
Gobierno de Chile (2014). Diagnóstico estado de la reconstrucción.Terremoto y Tsunami 27 de febrero de
2010. Santiago: Delegación presidencial para la reconstrucción.
González Correa, R. (2017). Análisis de los resultados preliminares de la encuesta “Identificación Factores
Subyacentes del Riesgo de Desastres” 2017, muestra de 60 municipios a nivel país, Report of proffesional
internship. Santiago: ONEMI, Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública.
Ilustre Municipalidad de Valparaíso (2014). Diagnóstico municipal para la reconstrucción.Valparaíso: Ilustre
Municipalidad de Valparaíso.
Imilán,W., Pino, F., Fuster, X., González, L.E., and Larenas, J. (2015). Constitución [case study]. In: C. Irazabal
and M. Marchant (eds): Learning From 27F: A Comparative Assessment of Urban Reconstruction
Processes After the 2010 Earthquake in Chile. Santiago: Santiago Research Cell, 59–​80.
Intendencia Región Metropolitana (2017). Santiago humano y resiliente. Estrategia de resiliencia Región
Metropolitana de Santiago, C. Robertson, (ed.). Santiago: Feiser impresores.
Moris (2014). Notas respecto a los aprendizajes del proceso de reconstrucción en Chile después del 27 de
febrero de 2010. CIGIDEN report.
ONEMI (Oficina Nacional de Emergencias) (2017). Identificación Factores Subyacentes del Riesgo de
Desastres: instructivo equipo communal. Santiago: Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública.
Rovira, A., Rojas, C., and Díez, S (2013). Efectos de una erupción volcánica Andina. El caso del Cordón
Caulle, Sur de Chile (2011). In: A. Borsdorf (ed.): Forschen im Gebirge. Investigating the Mountains,
IGF-​Forschungsberichte, Band 5. Vienna: Verlag der Ôsterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
288–​304.
SUBDERE. (n.d.). Programa Prevención y Mitigación de Riesgos (PREMIR). www.subdere.gov.cl/​
programas/​división-​municipalidades/​programa-​prevención-​y-​mitigación-​de-​r iesgos-​premir.
SUBDERE (Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Regional y Administrativo) (2017). Resolución n°125, 2017.
Determina grupos de municipalidades de acuerdo a su tipología y recursos correspondientes a las
municipalidades beneficiadas por el Fondo de Incentivo al Mejoramiento de la gestión Municipal, en
cumplimiento de la ley de presupuestos del sector público para el año 2017. SUBDERE: Ministerio del
Interior y Seguridad Pública, July 29, 2017, Diario Oficial de la República de Chile, Santiago.
UNDP and SUBDERE. (2018). www.grdmunicipal.cl.
UNISDR. (n.d.). www.unisdr.org/​campaign/​resilientcities/​home/​about.
United Nations (2016) A/​71/​644, Report of the Open-​Ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group
on Indicators and Terminology Relating to Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva: General Assembly.

Legislation
Constitución Política de la República de Chile (1980). Ministerio de Justicia.
Decreto 38 (2011). Modifica Decreto N° 156, de 2002, y determina constitución de los Comités de
Operaciones de Emergencia, Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública.
Decreto Nº 156 (2002). aprueba Plan Nacional de Proteccion civil, y deroga Decreto Nº 155, de 1977, que
aprobó el Plan Nacional de Emergencia, Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública.
Ley Nº 16,282 (1965). Fija disposiciones para casos de sismos o catastrofes, establece normas para la
reconstrucción de la zona afectada por el sismo de 28 de marzo de 1965 y modifica la Ley N° 16.250.
Law 18.695 (2007). Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Municipalidades, Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad
Pública.

381
 28
Understanding the fabric of
large urban areas to improve
disaster planning and recovery
Charles John Kelly

Introduction
This chapter considers the linkages between the urban fabric of social and physical infrastructure
and disasters in large urban areas. The purpose of the chapter is to help guide disaster and urban
planners, at-​r isk populations, and other stakeholders in planning for and addressing the impact of
disaster on large urban areas after the initial lifesaving response.
The focus on the period after immediate lifesaving assistance recognizes that life-​sustaining
support (e.g. adequate water, shelter, protection, etc.) and concurrent recovery take consider-
ably more time and effort, are more complex, and cost more, than lifesaving efforts immediately
after a disaster. As most relief and recovery is done by disaster survivors, an extended period of
recovery poses significant demands on individual disaster survivors, disaster-​affected families, and
society.
Anticipating where and what post-​disaster aid is needed is important to the overall recovery
process as capacities to deliver aid following a major disaster in a large urban area will be
constrained by damage to the physical infrastructure and commercial systems. Yet, with a few
exceptions, these life-​sustaining and recovery1 requirements are not planned through before
a disaster and can be subject to haphazard and poorly coordinated efforts following a disaster.
The result is that disaster survivors face additional, avoidable, hardship following a disaster and a
slower than possible recovery process.
Large urban areas have more human and physical resources than smaller urban or rural areas
simply because of their size. This leads to an inherent complexity of urban areas that challenges
the management of recovery when the urban fabric of social and physical infrastructure is
damaged or disrupted by a disaster.
This said, it is also true that large urban areas have an inherent resiliency. This resilience may
not be uniform across the area affected by a disaster and may be more demonstrated by one
segment of the urban society than another (Kelly 1995). Improved planning for recovery in large
urban areas needs to identify how and where the urban fabric is resilient, or not, and which
segments of society may need more, or less, support following a disaster.
Further, the inherent resilience of large urban areas means that, for practical purposes, some
elements of the fabric can be expected to self-​heal from damage. Understanding this potential

382
 Understanding fabric of large urban areas

for self-​healing (and what support may be needed for self-​healing) allows knowing where to
direct external assistance to the best effect.
The following section of this chapter discusses the nature of the terrain in large urban areas.
The discussion covers the sizing of a large urban area, urban, and social resilience, and the
overarching concept of resilient social and physical infrastructure.
This is followed by a section that considers the nature of damage to social and physical
infrastructure in large urban areas. The final section provides recommendations on how to
improve disaster planning and preparedness to reduce the time and resources needed for recovery
following a disaster in large urban areas.

Defining the terrain

Large Urban Areas

Interest in disasters in large urban areas is a re-​emergent theme within disaster risk manage-
ment research and practice. Research into disasters in large urban areas intensified in the 1990s
and early 2000s and included work by Kelly (1994, 1995, 1996), Kreimer et al. (1999), Mitchell
(1995a, 1995b, 1998, 1999), among others.
This earlier research defined disasters affecting cities with over one million inhabitants as
megacity disasters (Mitchell 1994). Kelly (1996: no page) identified the following reasons disasters
in these large urban areas different from other disasters:

• “A disaster event with a small area of physical impact can directly affect a significant number
of people” because of its cascading effects.
• “Economic and social system damage can have an immediate ‘knock-​on’ effect on large
numbers of people beyond the site of the physical event.”
• “The impacts of a disaster are quickly evident to those who are not affected.”
• “The level of assistance immediately available for response is significant.”
• “Part of an urban area can suffer major damage while other parts of the same urban area con-
tinue normal activities.”

More recent interest, reflecting the response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake and identification of
significant risks in places like Dhaka and other very large cities, contributed to the establishment
of the Urban Response Community of Practice,2 and the Urban Crises Learning Partnership.3
These efforts have resulted in a range of research, including Boano and Martén (2017), English
et al. (2017), Haque et al. (2017), Maynard et al. (2007), Meaux and Osofisan (2016), Mohiddin
et al. (2017), and Smith et al. (2017). Additional research on large urban area disasters can be
found in Fenton et al. (2018). The Urban Crises Learning Partnership also sponsored a large
earthquake urban disaster simulation in Dhaka in 2017, an event that contributed to the devel-
opment of this chapter.4
The use of the term “large urban area” as the focus of disaster research addresses two defin-
itional challenges. The first is what constitutes the lower population number of the urban entity
that is the focus of attention.
Earlier work had focused on cities with more than one million inhabitants (Mitchel 1994).
Megacities are clearly large urban areas, but the use of one million residents as a cut-​off is arbi-
trary and presumes that managing disasters in a city of one million is significantly different than
in a city of 900,000 residents, a position for which limited evidence exists.

383
Charles John Kelly

A second reason to use the term large urban area is that the population of an urban area may
change quickly, particularly, but not only, after conflict-​induced displacement. Thus, while a city
may have a legally bounded census population of 500,000 persons, an influx of displaced per-
sons may add 50 per cent to this population, with another 200,000 persons residing in legally
unincorporated settlements surrounding the city but socially and economically linked to the
city. The resulting combination of the legally bounded city holding an additional resident popu-
lation and neighboring unincorporated settlements constitute a large urban area created by the
displacement.
An analysis of the impacts of the displacement, and planning to address these impacts, needs
to consider the affected population as a whole, and not the one based on official census data or
legal boundaries. Thus, the author’s use of the term large urban areas allows for pragmatic inclu-
sion, or exclusion, of urban areas that may not meet a specific population figure, where disaster
management capacities may differ considerably, or where realistic population numbers are not
available but visible conditions indicate a large number of people residing in one place.

Urban Resilience
Resilience to disaster comes from the social and economic fabric of those affected. However,
this fabric is complex, multifaceted, and not consistent across locations or social strata. As a result,
resilience can vary from place to place and between residents of the same place. Knowing the
nature of the resilience fabric is critical to identifying where and by whom disaster damage may
be felt most severely, where extended life-​sustaining and recovery support will be needed, and
where resilience building is most critical.
Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013) identify three approaches to social resilience:

• Coping, a reactive process to the impact of an event after the event has occurred.
• Adaptive, an anticipation of the impacts of an event, and taking measures to reduce these
impacts.
• Transformative, taking measures so that the anticipated impacts do not occur.

Coping is generally short term, although it can be based on longer-​term experience –​for
example, the reuse of past coping strategies.The transformative approach is generally a long-​term
process but may occur quickly following a shock. The adaptive approach fits between, keeping
ahead of impacts if possible, but not avoiding them totally.
Meerow et al. (2016) take up the question of defining urban resilience. Their definition
of urban resilience is “the ability of an urban system-​and all its constituent socio-​ecological
and socio-​technical networks across temporal and spatial scales-​to maintain or rapidly return
to desired functions in the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to quickly transform
systems that limit current or future adaptive capacity” (Meerow et al. 2016:45).
This definition overlaps with the characteristic set out by Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013).
However, in the context of understanding disaster risks and recovery options in large urban
systems, the Meerow et al. (2016) definition calls attention to the social and physical systems and
networks that operate in urban areas and on which urban areas rely to survive.
The complexity and integration of these systems in large urban areas can make these areas
resilient. That is, damage to one part of a system is compensated by capacities of other parts of a
system, or by a separate system taking on unanticipated tasks.
But the resiliency of a complex and integrated system only exists up to a point. Where a dis-
aster causes significant disruption to these interconnected systems, the ability of the large urban

384
 Understanding fabric of large urban areas

area to operate and provide for even the basic needs of the dependent urban population can be
compromised, particularly because urban residents are totally reliant on the urban systems for
basic and other needs. Re-​establishing or replacing these urban systems after a disaster, and when
system services need to continue to meet basic needs, is complicated, time consuming and may
involve actions far outside the experience of governments and humanitarian assistance providers.

Social and physical infrastructure resilience

The concept of resilient infrastructure has been enshrined in Sustainable Development Goal
9: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster
innovation”.5 Bruneau et al. (2003:no page) state that “Resilience for both physical and social
systems can be further defined as consisting of the following properties:”

• “Robustness –​building infrastructure that can withstand prescribed levels of stress and demand
in the event of an adverse natural event.”
• “Redundancy –​requiring the inclusion of a measure of in-​built sustainability that can with-
stand repeated adverse events and keep infrastructure functional during an event.”
• “Resourcefulness (innovation) –​developing institutional capacity to mobilize recovery and
mitigation resources in the event of a major adverse weather event.”
• “Rapidity –​introducing measures that enhance the capacity to contain losses or prevent fur-
ther degradation of infrastructure in a timely and efficient manner before, during, and after an
adverse natural event.”

This definition includes the social systems that use the physical infrastructure leading to a single
system of resilience in a large urban area.
The presence of hazards, whether natural, political, or technological, are necessary but not
sufficient for a disaster. While large-​scale (e.g. massive flooding) or intense (e.g. earthquakes)
hazard events may occur, the robustness and resilience of the social and physical infrastructure (as
defined by Bruneau et al. 2003) are key in determining the level of damage done and thus the
scale of a disaster. Basically, the key consideration is not the level of damage done, but the resili-
ence of the overall social and physical infrastructure to absorb this damage.
Resilience in physical systems can come from

• Strength –​is not damaged by an event,

• Redundancy –​is damaged but still functioning, or
• Alternatives –​alternative systems which can assume functions of a damaged system.

Resilience of social infrastructure to a hazard event is more complicated but is largely based on
the ability to cope and adapt, often in a decentralized and distributed way.
At times, the resilience of elements of the overall social and physical infrastructure can occur
in a single combined system, based on pre-​disaster systems that are adapted to the needs created
by the hazard event or disaster. Kendra and Wachtendorf ’s (2016) description of the response of
ferries and other ships to a need to evacuate people from lower Manhattan during the events of
9/​11 is an example of this adaptation of social and physical systems during a disaster.
In this case, rules were stretched (e.g. more people were carried than officially authorized),
non-​passenger vessels were used to transport passengers, ad hoc loading areas were established,
and other non-​authorized actions taken to move as many people from lower Manhattan as
quickly as possible. These actions were not taken on the orders of the authorities overseeing the

385
Charles John Kelly

evacuation but on the initiative of vessel operators, at times in coordination with other operators
or by simply following the lead of other vessels. The normal social and physical infrastructure
used to transport passengers was adapted by vessel operators, and those wanting passage, to
respond to the disaster.
Disasters are generally rated based on the number of people affected, lives lost, and
the physical damage done. A better understanding of a disaster’s impact can be gained
by understanding how well or poorly the social and physical infrastructure functions in
delivering goods, services and other benefits to the disaster-​affected. Considering the social
and physical infrastructure as a whole helps identify ways the system is or can be used to
address the impacts of the disaster. The ability to continue to provide needed services and
supplies despite the impact of a disaster is at the heart of understanding how social and phys-
ical infrastructure can be resilient to disasters.

The people in the urban fabric

It is important to understand the social and physical infrastructure as a people-​centric fabric. It is
the disaster survivors who are the primary users, repairers, and modifiers of the social and phys-
ical system to meet immediate needs and achieve recovery. External organization, even locally
based, fill a significantly less important role in the recovery process when compared to the dis-
aster survivors themselves.
Getting a clear understanding of who the disaster survivors are, and how they use the social
and physical infrastructure before or after a disaster, is complicated by the fact that part or most of
these survivors exist informally in the urban fabric.Twigg and Mosel (2018) provide an overview
of the nature and challenges of informality in a post-​disaster situation. The review highlights
the challenges that can be faced in accurately identifying who is affected by a disaster as well as
informal ways in which survivors are using or modifying the urban social and physical infrastruc-
ture to meet immediate needs and move through recovery.
The nature of formal and informal groups –​what they do and how they do it –​can
change after a disaster. Quarantelli (1995), drawing on research by the Disaster Research
Center, identified seven types of groups that play important roles after a disaster.6 These
include:

(1) “Established groups carrying out old tasks”

(2) “Established groups carrying out old tasks but with some degree of minor behavioral emer-
gence, either structurally or functionally, in their activities”
(3) “Established groups carrying out new tasks and showing behavioral task emergence”
(4) “Established groups carrying out old tasks but showing behavior structural emergence”
(5) “Extending groups carrying out old tasks but with new structures”
(6) “Expanding groups carrying out new tasks but with old structures.
(7) “Emergent groups carrying out new tasks with new structures”.

Twigg and Mosel (2017) discuss in more detail the nature of informal emergency groups, which
can be most difficult to identify and understand given that they did not exist before a disaster.
However, Quatantelli’s groups 2 to 7 are also doing things differently than before a disaster.They
need to be considered in understanding how the post-​disaster social and physical infrastructure
is used, adapted, or altered after a disaster.

386
 Understanding fabric of large urban areas

Urban disasters and social and physical infrastructure

Framing Damage to the Urban Social and Physical Infrastructure

The complex fabric of the urban social and physical infrastructure includes formal components
(e.g. roads) and informal components (e.g. mobile vendors), which often can operate on the edge
of or outside normative legal systems. Disentangling the urban fabric, identifying and defining
linkages between elements of the infrastructure, and identifying how a hazard event can damage
the infrastructure is a significant challenge.
Table 28.1 provides a basic framing of the formal and informal elements of the urban social
and physical infrastructure. The table is based on the five capitals of the Sustainable Livelihoods
Framework (Department for International Development7 2001), plus the addition of political
capital.
Incorporating political capital8 recognizes that the effectiveness of life-​saving response and
recovery is significantly influenced by the laws and regulations of an affected location and how
well or poorly the government in a location functions. The inclusion of political capital also
allows for consideration of what role civil society plays when the government system is not able
adequately to deliver support to the disaster survivors.
Table 28.1 is composed of the following elements:

• Capitals, drawing from DFID (2001) and covering human, social, financial, natural, physical
capitals, and with the addition of political capital. These capitals are used to break down the
elements of the urban fabric.
• Significance to large urban places, summarizing the broad roles each capital plays in a large
urban area.
• Links to other capitals, summarizing how each capital is linked to others in a disaster context.
• Formal and informal systems, summarizing the degree to which the capital is defined by formal
and informal systems.
• Nature of damage from a large event, summarizing the general type of damage which could be
expected from a natural hazard, particularly flood, earthquake, storm or other natural hazard.9

While not comprehensive, Table 28.1 provides a broadly useful identification of the social and
physical infrastructure fabric of large urban areas as it relates to possible disasters. This informa-
tion can be used to better understand expected disaster impacts and thus identify possible man-
agement options that support recovery by disaster survivors, as discussed further below.

From framing to mapping disaster impacts in large urban areas

While Table 28.1 is useful in understanding the range of possible impacts of disasters in large
urban areas, and how these impacts are part of the urban fabric, the information is not sufficient
to define specific actions to support recovery from these impacts. Given the complexity of the
urban fabric, the most effective approach is to develop a mapping of impacts from the informa-
tion framed in Table 28.1, based on the characteristics of the specific large urban area of interest,
the social and physical infrastructure involved, and the impacts of the disaster.
The advantage of damage mapping using a livelihoods capitals approach based on Table 28.1
is in looking at the elements of the fabric of large urban areas both linearly and laterally. The
mapping should consider formal and informal systems and linkages between the capitals as well
as the roles of formal and informal groups and formally and informally present populations.

387
Table 28.1 Livelihood capitals and disaster impacts in large urban areas

Capital Significance to a large urban area Links to other capitals Formal and informal components Nature of damage from a large
event

Human: “skills, knowledge, Significant competencies and a Human capacities are core Most human capital is formal, as Loss of skilled personnel due
ability to labor and diverse range of human skills are to effectively managing all in degree-​level engineers, but to fatalities, injuries or out-​
good health” (DFID needed to effectively manage other capitals and hazards. some may be experience-​based. migration, offset by human
2001:Section 2.3.1) large urban areas. However, most complicated capital being redeployed to fix
physical infrastructure requires damage or develop alternative
high levels of formal education physical infrastructure options.
and experience.
Social: “the social resources Higher levels of social capita may be Social capital can be used Most social capital is likely to be Dislocation during and following
upon which people limited for many urban residents to access other forms of informal in large urban areas, a disaster may reduce social
draw in due to a lack of time and space capital, e.g. knowing an but social structures such as connections and make them
pursuit of their” livelihoods to develop person-​to-​person engineer who can aid clubs, teams, and neighborhood harder to maintain and use.
(DFID 2001:Section contacts. Social capital may be getting a building permit. organizations may be formal or
2.3.2) more extensive at a lower level, semi-​formal.
e.g., knowing more people, but
not that well.
Natural: “the natural Most access to natural resources Physical (e.g. roads) and Most access is likely through A cut-​off or severe reduction of
resource stocks from in a large urban area is through financial (e.g. purchasing formal (markets) or semi-​formal access to natural capital will
which resource flows and physical infrastructure or socio-​ power) capital are (trader) networks, while informal likely increase informal and
services economic systems, with a number important to access to access may be illegal (although illegal access to local sources of
(e.g. nutrient cycling, of intermediaries involved. natural capital. tolerated) and subject to formal natural capital (e.g. parks, lakes,
erosion protection) restrictions. rivers, etc.), and include water,
useful for livelihoods heating and electrical supplies.
are derived” (DFID
2001:Section 2.3.3).
 “basic The physical backbone of the large
infrastructure and urban area: all lifeline systems
producer goods needed and physical production and
to support livelihoods” processing systems of a large
(DFID 2001:Section urban area are part of the physical
2.3.4). capital of the area. This includes
roads, rails, rivers and ports,
energy deliver systems, factories,
processing and distribution
centers, communications systems,
and housing and other facilities.
Financial: “the financial Financial transactions, as opposed
resources that people to barter, are a significant part
use to achieve their of livelihood systems in large
livelihood objectives” urban areas. Most residents
(DFID 2001:Section of large urban areas can be
2.3.5). expected to have cash-​in-​the-​
pocket, and access to some
additional financial capital,
through bank accounts or phone
credit transfers or social capital
(e.g. loans and gifts). Financial
capital systems are particularly
reliant on communications and
energy (electricity, generator fuel)
physical capital systems.
Political: the legal and Formal political capital may not
regulatory systems be effective in large urban areas
needed to assure where officials have limited time
adequate livelihoods. and opportunity to engage with
(Kelly et al. 2010:14). residents. Access to formal political
capital may also be limited by
complex bureaucratic procedures
and regulations spread across
several offices or locations.
Physical capital is the
means by which natural
and financial capital are
delivered, where most
human capital operates,
how social capital is
maintained and provides
the physical presence
and basis for intervention
for most political
capital activities (e.g.
taxation, infrastructure
construction).
Access to most other capitals
in a large urban area
require some form of
financial capital.
The political capital system
regulates, to a lesser or
greater degree, the other
capitals and defines what
is permissible and what
is not from a governance
(but not necessarily social)
perspective.
Most physical capital is formal (e.g. Strong, severe hazard events
toll roads), but some may be
informal (e.g. unlicensed ferry
operators crossing a river).
Large urban areas likely have
distinct formal and informal
financial systems available to
residents, with both having a
process to transfer funds within
and to or from outside (e.g.
remittances) the area.
Formal political capital may have Apart from damage causing
limited effectiveness in large
urban areas where parallel
informal systems have been
developed to address gaps in the
delivery of government services.
can cause significant damage
to physical capital, although
the damage may be uneven
(e.g. some roads damage,
others not), or affect only part
of a large urban area (e.g.,
liquefaction in only one part of
the large urban area).
Damage to physical capital,
particularly communications
and electricity, may limit
function of financial capital
systems. Limitations to financial
capital transactions can
inhibit trade, access to natural
resources, the availability of
funds to pay for goods and
services and overall limitations
to reestablishing the physical
capital (e.g. no funds to pay
wages or purchase services).
losses of human, physical and
financial capital, an inability
of the formal political capital
system to deliver aid may lead
to discontent on the part of
disaster survivors and (further)
development of parallel
informal systems.
Charles John Kelly

The nature of this mapping can vary. An obvious approach is a spatial map of the affected area
on which annotations about impacts on the social and physical fabric are made, supplemented
by additional explanatory text where necessary. The mapping process should clearly identify the
objective of the mapping, develop a common terminology and standard procedures for the initial
map development, and reviews and updating.
This type of mapping can be an effective way to record and confirm information from diverse
sources and formulate consensus-​based results over short periods of time, for instance during a
field consultation or working group meetings.The map can be shared for comments and as a way
to collect additional input into the mapping process.
While the map itself provides usable information, it should also be continually updated to
document new information and track how the information collected has changed over time.
Given the increasing ubiquity of geographic information systems (GIS) in disaster response, the
initial map and updates could be integrated into a GIS and provide inputs into other aspects of
the disaster response.
As an example, the spatial mapping process could focus on emergent groups and their role in
providing shelter assistance after a disaster. An initial map would identify shelter needs on a street-​
level grid, with the formal organizations identified for each part of the disaster affected area.
The map would then be shared with people on the ground and questions asked about how
the disaster-​affected were rebuilding and where they were getting support for this process. This
process could be done on a house-​by-​house basis. But this level of effort would likely be too
demanding of time and resources post-​disaster, making a focus group or key informant approach
more appropriate.
Several iterations of this process would identify emergent and other groups as identified by
Quarantelli involved in the rehousing process.This information in turn would help guide formal
organizations involved in rehousing to adjust what assistance they provide and how they provide
it to better match the disaster survivors’ own efforts and those of informal and emergent groups.
A second approach to mapping uses flow-​charts and explanatory text to identify and present
the link between the parties involved in a specific sector or process. An example would be to
begin to understand food security in a large urban area after a major earthquake by mapping
out the normal (pre-​disaster) system for delivering rice to a consumer and how this system was
affected by the disaster. A typical tool used in the market mapping process is the Emergency
Market Mapping and Analysis Toolkit (EMMA).10
Mapping using EMMA would follow the supply process of commercial production, produc-
tion purchasers, processors, wholesale, semi-​wholesale, and retail sales, and include the transport
infrastructure, the financial capital systems needed to sustain the flow of funds though purchases,
and to what extent social, political, or human capacity influence operation of the delivery system.
This mapping can then be adjusted by attributing damage to specific elements of the mapped
system to specific results from an earthquake. This would lead to a mapping of disaster damage
to the rice supply system.
The damage identified in the mapping then becomes the focus of planning on how to avoid
or manage the damage, including developing alternate options to supply rice to the consumer.
These alternatives can be timeframed, as in delivering rice free of charge for one month, rice at
discounted process from government shops for the following five months under the assumption
that the commercial supply system would be operational in six months, based on the damage
done and recovery capacities.
Mapping the whole social and physical infrastructure of a large urban area is likely imprac-
tical, at least over the short term. A disaster-​mapping process for large urban areas can develop a
plan to work through different systems within the urban fabric to progressively, using different

390
 Understanding fabric of large urban areas

mapping approaches where appropriate, define impacts, linkages, and measures to address these
impacts. This process is different from the current general practice of disaster planning, where
plans are developed separately for specific physical sectors (e.g. water, energy, shelter) with min-
imal if any cross-​links and rare consideration of the social infrastructure, and yield a broader
understanding of disasters and the urban fabric.
The quality, timeliness, and utility of mapping urban social and physical infrastructure after
a disaster can be significantly improved if the infrastructure, or critical parts, are mapped before
a disaster. This pre-​disaster mapping provides a baseline for the post-​disaster effort, including
details on the infrastructure system that may not be easily available after a disaster.
The pre-​disaster mapping can also be used in scenarios to anticipate damage from specific
types and intensities of events. This scenario-​based analysis of actual conditions can use the
information in Table 28.1 to delve into the deeper nature of disaster impacts, including the
role of informal groups and systems and how an urban social and infrastructure system could
be impacted in unanticipated ways by a disaster. The mapping results are not critical to the
scenario-​based projection of results but could be expected to improve the detail and breadth
of the results.

From mapping possible damage to building resilience

This chapter has focused on how to define the impacts of significant large-​scale hazard events on
large urban areas as a step in improving pre-​disaster planning and building capacities to provide
life-​supporting and recovery assistance to disaster survivors. The discussion also recognized that
large urban areas are generally more resilient to large hazard events than smaller areas due to the
size and complexity of their social and infrastructure fabric. Otherwise put, the larger an urban
system, the more energy needed to inflict significant damage.
Yet, resilience-​from-​size does not mean that groups living in the urban fabric are immune
from disaster damage. It may be that one segment of the population in the fabric suffers deeper
and more extensive damage than other segments due to their location, social status, or other
factors. This segment-​specific vulnerability is important to consider in the mapping process
described above.
The damage mapping process can yield options for risk reduction interventions pre-​disaster.
These interventions, which can improve resilience, are likely to be complex, and need to be
defined and implemented based on the interlinked nature of the social and physical infrastruc-
ture of a large urban area.
In this context, the mapping process can be used as input into a modeling of changes in
resilience, including collateral impacts on the social and physical infrastructure, and impacts
on specific at-​r isk groups, to assess the feasibility of resilience-​building measures. This need for
modeling is based on the nature of the complex urban fabric in large urban areas, the poten-
tial for unanticipated consequences from efforts to improve resilience, and the potential for
improvements in resilience in one part of the urban fabric to have positive impacts in other
segments of the fabric.

Conclusions
This chapter discussed how planning for post-​disaster life-​supporting and recovery in large urban
areas can be improved by considering the nature of the urban social and physical infrastructure
fabric. The chapter provided a summary of the nature of large urban areas and the social and
physical infrastructure found in these areas.

391
Charles John Kelly

The chapter proposed that the human, social, natural, financial, and physical capital, identified
in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, together with political capital, be used to define key
characteristics of disaster impacts in large urban areas. This process would identify the nature of
the impact on each type of capital, the links between these capitals, and how formal or informal
elements of these capitals may interact after a disaster.
The results of identifying disaster impacts provide the basis for mapping these impacts along
systems embedded in each type of capital and mapping the links between these impacts and other
types of capital. The process proposed can be used to progressively build an understanding of
disaster impact on the urban fabric and its residents and identify measures to improve recovery as
well as define risk reduction and resilience-​building measures for the locations and populations
at risk.
The mapping process to better understand impacts of disasters on the fabric of large urban
areas differs from the classical disaster planning approach, which focuses on the assessment of
risk or vulnerability. While the classical approaches remain viable for disaster planning, their use
in the more complex large urban areas may not yield information on the scope, scale, and inter-
connectedness that would result from the approach outlined in this chapter.The most significant
limitation to the approach described in this chapter is the lack of actual field use. It is hoped that
readers will consider the approach in planning for disaster risk management in large urban areas.

Notes
1 Hereafter, jointly referred to as “recovery” requirements as both are linked where the greater the
recovery the less need for direct life-​supporting support.
2 See www.urban-​response.org/​. The Urban Response Community of Practice is managed with the
support of ALNAP, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance.
3 www.iied.org/​stronger-​cities-​initiative.
4 See Kelly (2017) and (2018) for more details.
5 From Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, https://​sustainabledevelopment.un.org/​sdg9.
6 Stallings and Quarantelli (1985) discuss emergent groups before and after a disaster.
7 Hereafter DFID.
8 See Kelly et al. 2010.
9 Experience suggests that the natural hazards that can result in significant damage to large urban areas
are floods (e.g. Bangkok 2011), earthquakes (e.g. Port au Prince 2010), winter storms (e.g. New York
2018) or cyclonic events, including hurricanes and typhoons (e.g. New York 2012).
10 Kamara (2013) compares EMMA and two other market-​mapping approaches.

References
Boano, C. and Martén, R. (2017). Think Urban and Learn from the City: Exploring Urban Dimensions of
Humanitarianism. Summary Report. Urban Crises Learning Partnership. https://​pubs.iied.org/​pdfs/​
G04286.pdf. (Accessed September 8, 2019).
Bruneau, M., Chang, S., Eguchi, R., Lee, G., O’Rourke, T., Reinhorn, A., Shinozuka, M., Tierney, K.,
Wallace, W., and Winterfeldt, D. (2003). A framework to quantitatively assess and enhance the seismic
resilience of communities. Earthquake Spectra. 19.
Department for International Development (2001). Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets.
London: Department for International Development.
English, G., Campos, L.C., and Parkinson, J. (2017).Water Market Actors in Dhaka: Strengthening Earthquake
Resilience and Preparedness. Summary Report. Urban Crises Learning Partnership. https://​pubs.iied.
org/​G04287/​. (Accessed September 8, 2019).
Fenton, W., Foley, M., Twigg, J., and Mose, I. (2018). Special Feature: Humanitarian Response in Urban
Areas. Humanitarian Exchange, Humanitarian Practice Network. Overseas Development Institute.
Number 71.

392
 Understanding fabric of large urban areas

Haque, A, Maksud Kamal, A., and Kamrul Hassan, S. (2017). Partnership, Coordination, and Accountability
in Urban Disaster Management: A Review of Policies in Bangladesh. Summary Report. Urban Crises
Learning Partnership. https://​pubs.iied.org/​pdfs/​G04286.pdf. (Accessed September 8, 2019)..
Kamara N. (2013). Comparative Review of Market Assessments Methods, Tools, Approaches and Findings.
World Food Program. https://​documents.wfp.org/​stellent/​groups/​public/​documents/​manual_​guide_​
proced/​wfp259756.pdf. (Accessed September 8, 2019).
Keck, M. and Sakdapolrak, P. (2013). What is social resilience? Lessons learned and ways forward. Erdkunde.
67: 5–​18.
Kelly, C. (1994). Assessing Disaster Needs in Megacities: Perspectives from Work in Megacities. Developing
Countries, Changing Context of Megacity Disasters,Thematic Session D42, International Geographical
Union, Regional Conference, Prague, August 22–​26, 1994.
Kelly, C. (1995). Assessing disaster needs in megacities: Perspectives from developing countries. GeoJournal.
37(3): 381–​385.
Kelly, C. (1996). Megacities and disasters: Research concepts and practical actions, Proceedings, International
Conference on Natural Disaster Management, October 11–​14, 1996, Merida,Venezuela.
Kelly, C. (2017). Dhaka City Earthquake Simulation. Working Paper. Urban Crises Learning Partnership.
International Institute for Environment and Development.
Kelly, C. (2018). The Dhaka earthquake simulation: Lessons for planning for large-​scale urban disasters.
In: W. Fenton, M. Foley, J. Twigg, and I. Mose (eds.): Special Feature: Humanitarian Response in Urban
Areas. Humanitarian Exchange, Humanitarian Practice Network. Overseas Development Institute.
Number 71.
Kelly, C., Biyalieva, C., Dolgikh, S., Erokhin S., Fedorenko, A., Gareeva, A., Garcin,Y., Ibraimova, A., Iliasov,
I., Mastre, M., Podrezov, A.,Volovik,Y., Uzakbaeva,Y., and Sidorin, A. (2010). Climate Risk Assessment
Guide –​Central Asia. Bishkek: CAMP Alatoo, UNDP and Climate and Development Knowledge
Network.
Kendra, J. and Wachtendorf,T. (2016). American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/​
11. Philadelphia, PN: Temple University Press.
Kreimer, A., Arnold, M., and Carlin A. (eds.) (1999). Building Safer Cities: The Future of Disaster Risk.
Disaster Risk Management Series No. 3. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development /​The World Bank.
Maynard, M., Parker, E.,Yoseph-​Paulus, R., and Garcia, D. (2017). Thinking Bigger: Area-​Based and Urban
Planning Approaches to Humanitarian Crises. London: International Institute for Environment and
Development.
Meaux, A. and Osofisan, W. (2016). Review of Context Analysis: Tools for Urban Humanitarian Response.
IIED Working Paper. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Meerow, S., Newell, J., and Stults, M. (2016). Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban
Planning. 147: 38–​49.
Mitchell, J.K. (1994). Personal communication.
Mitchell, J.K. (1995a). Coping with natural hazards and disasters in US megacities: Perspectives on the
Twenty-​first century. GeoJournal. 37(3): 303–​312.
Mitchell, J.K. (ed.) (1995b). Megacities and Natural Disasters. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
Mitchell, J.K. (1998). Hazards in changing cities. Applied Geography. 18(1): 1–​6.
Mitchell, J.K. (ed.) (1999). Crucibles of Hazard: Mega-​Cities and Disasters in Transition. New York: United
Nations Press.
Mohiddin, L., Smith, G., and Phelps, L. (2017). Urban Response Analysis Framework (URAF). Guidance
Note for Humanitarian Practitioners. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Quarantelli, E. (1995). Emergent Behaviors and Groups in the Crisis Time of Disasters. Preliminary Paper
226. Disaster Research Center. Newark: University of Delaware.
Smith, G., Mohiddin, L., and Phelps, L. (2017).Targeting in Urban Displacement Contexts. Guidance Note
for Humanitarian Practitioners. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Stallings, R. and Quarantelli, E. (1985). Emergent citizen groups and emergency management. Public
Administration Review. Special Issue 1985: 93–​100.
Twigg, J. and Mosel, I. (2017). Emergent groups and spontaneous volunteers in urban disaster response.
Environment & Urbanization. 29(2): 443–​458.
Twigg, J. and Model, I. (2018). Informality in Urban Crisis Response. Working paper 532. Overseas
Development Institute.

393
 29
The helping hand in increasing
Nepal’s urban seismic resilience
Amod Mani Dixit, Ranjan Dhungel, Manish Raj Gouli,
Ramesh Guragain, Surya Narayan Shrestha, Suman Pradhan,
Surya Bhakta Sangachhe, Sujan Raj Adhikari, Nisha Shrestha,
Kapil Bhattarai, Pramod Khatiwada, Bishnu Hadkhale,
Ayush Baskota, Rita Thakuri, and Hanna Ruszczyk

Introduction
Nepal’s efforts towards enhancing urban seismic resilience began over two decades ago. Startled
by the devastation of the M6.6 Udaypur earthquake of 1988, Nepal developed a systematic
strategy based on understanding of earthquake hazard and risk, formulating a national building
code, raising awareness amongst stakeholders, and gradually building the capacity of personnel
involved directly with building construction. The policy and legal environment also improved
gradually. The international strategies and frameworks for disaster risk management and also
international development assistance helped Nepal to contextualize global knowledge and
experience as well as learn lessons by piloting and scaling up disaster risk reduction efforts.
The 2015 M7.8 Gorkha earthquake served as a litmus test for the empirical methodologies
used to address the dynamic dichotomy of urban vulnerability and resilience; the community
of practitioners and policymakers in disaster risk reduction have been impressed with the posi-
tive outcome and are enthusiastic about incorporating the lessons learned for enhancing seismic
resilience in the rapidly urbanizing settlements in Nepal. This chapter presents a story of the
difficult path that Nepal, a low-​income country marred with a series of socio-​economic and
political upheavals, undertook to successfully create opportunities for enhancing urban resilience.

Nepal faces high level of seismic hazard risks

Located astride the boundary between Indian and Eurasian plates, Nepal faces a high level of
seismic hazard risks. Historical records reveal more than ten episodes of devastating earthquakes
that have impacted Kathmandu Valley since the earliest recorded earthquake of 1255 in which
then ruling King Abhay Malla died (Sapkota et al. 2012). The earthquake of 1934 destroyed 20
per cent and damaged 40 per cent of total buildings in Kathmandu Valley (NSET 1998; Rana

394
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

1935). The M7.8 Gorkha earthquake of 2015 killed over 9,000 people and damaged nearly a
million buildings, leaving several million homeless (Dixit et al. 2018; MOHA 2016; NPC 2015;
NRA 2016; Ruszczyk and Robinson 2018; Sharma 2016). Earlier, the M6.6 Udaypur earth-
quake of 1988 shook 22 eastern districts of Nepal, seriously damaged several urban centers, and
was the turning point for Nepal’s disaster mitigation programs (Thapa 1989).
Nepal started seismic monitoring in the late 1970s (Dixit 1993). The national seismology
center records, analyzes, and researches seismic parameters to define an earthquake model (Dixit
and Maksey 1992; Pandey et al. 2002). Studies revealed that the whole country faces high risk
levels of tremors (Adhikari 2013; Bhattarai et al. 2011). Nepal’s mountainous parts are highly
susceptible to co-​seismic hazards such as earthquake-​induced landslides (Williams et al. 2017),
landslide dams, earthquake breeching of glacier-​dammed lakes, and earthquake-​induced debris
flow. The southern plains of the country are susceptible to liquefaction and lateral spread (Dixit
and Maskey 1992). High levels of seismic hazard combined with other natural hazards such as
floods, debris flows, landslides, cloud bursts make Nepal, a least developed country, one of the
most disaster-​prone countries in the world (MOHA 2018).

Urbanization in Nepal
Nepal has one of the highest rates of urbanization in Asia since 1970 (Manandhar and Parajuli
2015), mainly due to population migration from rural areas, especially during the leftist insur-
gency between 1996 and 2006 (see Table 29.1).
Nepal has 293 urban municipalities and 460 rural municipalities as units of governance (GoN
2017).The urban municipalities include four metropolitan cities (population more than 200,000),
13 sub-​metropolitan cities (population between 150,000 and 200,000) and 246 municipalities
(population between 10,000 and 200,000). The rural municipalities are the clusters of erstwhile
village development committees. The metropolitan, sub-​metropolitan cities, and the municipal-
ities that host administrative centers have the highest urbanization pressure and are commonly
considered as urban, although parts of their territory may still bear rural characteristics.
Extrapolation of the 2011 census data using the reported growth rate of 1.35 per cent per
annum (CBS 2012), and considering the recent administrative division, the total population of

Table 29.1 Urbanization rates in Nepal, 1961–​2018

Census year Urban centers, Urban population Rural population Total population,
Number Number
Number % Number %

1961 16 336,222 3.6 9,076,774 96.4 9,412,996

1971 16 461,938 4.0 11,094,054 96.0 11,555,983
1981 23 956,721 6.4 14,066,118 93.6 15,022,839
1991 33 1,701,181 9.2 16,795,378 90.8 18,491,097
2001 58 3,227,897 13.9 19,923,544 86.1 23,151,423
2011 58 4,523,820 17.1 21,970,684 82.9 26,494,504
2017 293 17,228,583 60.0 11,485,722 40.0 28,714,305
2018 (projected 293 17,461,169 60.0 11,640,779 40.0 29,101,948
population)

Source: (CBS 2014; NPC 2017), Population figures for 2017 derived using 1.35 per cent population growth per annum
urban and rural population percentage derived from actual counting of rural and urban population (CBS 2017; 2018),
and designation of municipalities by the government (GoN 2017).

395
A. Dixit et al.

Nepal is estimated currently at 29,101,948 with more than 17 million (60 per cent) residing
in urban and almost 12 million living in rural settlements. Kathmandu valley is urbanizing the
fastest (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013). The following pair of satellite images of the same area,
15 years apart, show high density dwelling units cropping up, rapidly replacing paddy fields (see
Figure 29.1a–b). Figure 29.1b shows fast growth of urban built-​up areas.

Urbanization exacerbates vulnerabilities and risks to natural hazards

Urbanization is very rapid in Nepal (Deng et al. 2009; Ishtiaque et al. 2017; Muzzini and Aparicio
2013) due to natural growth, migration from villages to the cities, and also the recent declaration
of an additional number of urban municipalities (transformation of erstwhile rural settlements
into urban municipalities). Increasingly, urbanization is seen in the earthquake reconstruction
areas where new market places are emerging for supplying construction materials for building
reconstruction uphill in the hinterlands. The erstwhile villages, namely Singati of Dolakha dis-
trict and Thansing of Nuwakot district, are examples of such emerging towns.
Even before the earthquake, the rapid growth in urban population within a context of limited
capacity of critical facilities, combined with haphazard land use management, had exacerbated
the physical as well as the social vulnerabilities manyfold (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013). A deficit
in intervention in risk reduction has also led to further accumulation of vulnerabilities over time.
This has increased the risk to low frequency high impact events such as earthquakes, glacier lakes
outburst floods (GLOF), and cloud bursts. This added risk dynamics was conspicuously seen
during extreme natural hazards events among the population that is already exposed to everyday
extensive risk disasters (UNDP 2010), and was further aggravated after the 2015 earthquake
(Shrestha et al. 2016; Zhu et al. 2017).
A global comparative study of 21 cities in high seismic zones revealed conspicuously high
seismic risk in Kathmandu Valley and in Nepalese schools (GESI 2001). The study concluded
that the existence of poorly constructed buildings was the main factor for high earthquake mor-
tality, and that significant risk reduction could be achieved by gradually improving the seismic
performance of buildings by adhering to better construction practices, for example by increasing
compliance to the national building code. Enhancing emergency medical response capacities and
improving the national emergency response system were also identified as priorities to address
seismic risk in the Kathmandu Valley.

The national building code of Nepal

The national building code (NBC) of Nepal was developed in the aftermath of the 1988
Udaypur earthquake that affected 21 eastern districts of Nepal, resulting in a death toll of 721,
and with 52,542 buildings damaged, 478 schools destroyed, and 1,981 infrastructure (develop-
ment projects) damaged (Thapa 1989). It envisioned improving building construction practice so
that all new buildings, in rural or urban contexts, engineered or non-​engineered, comply to the
earthquake-​centric code. It was developed in 1994 (GoN 1994) and enacted through the Nepal
Building Act in 1998. The code targets life safety in rare earthquakes and repairable damage in
moderate earthquakes (Parajuli et al. 2000).
The NBC covered all predominant building typologies and building construction practice
by prescribing different standards to four different categories of buildings, including the most
prevalent non-​engineered buildings:

396
Figure 29.1a–b Satellite images of Kathmandu Valley show the rice fields being replaced by
urban houses

a (top). 2003 b (bottom). 2018

Source: Google Earth, Image © Maxar Technologies
A. Dixit et al.

(1) State of the art buildings: Modern, large, commercial or corporate buildings that use modern
construction techniques and materials. The code allows use of any international code of a
standard higher than the NBC demands;
(2) Professionally designed and contractor-​ executed engineered constructions mainly in
urban areas;
(3) Owner-​built two to three storey high non-​engineered buildings with a limited footprint
area. Pre-​engineered “rules-​of-​thumb (MRT)” were developed and made mandatory; and
(4) NBC addressed the traditional, rural buildings, in timber, bricks and adobe, by prescribing, in
a self-​explanatory way, possible improvements in the construction materials and qualities.

Such a differential approach made the code easy to understand for different stakeholders and
home-​owners. However, implementation of the code was difficult initially due to two hindering
factors, notably, (1) NBC education is not mandatory in engineering institutes, and (2) the
central and municipal governments did not have policies or mechanisms for its effective imple-
mentation. This resulted in a lack of understanding of the code in society, including municipal
governments that issue the building permits. Some municipalities, for example Lalitpur, tried to
enforce the NBC, but found it extremely difficult because of lack of awareness and inadequate
municipal capacity including the absence of appropriate policies (Dixit 2004). For example,
the existing building permit system was geared towards generating more revenues but did not
incorporate any incentives for building code compliance. Incentives were in place for enhan-
cing the historic character of the building facades but not for making the buildings earthquake
resistant.

Establishment of the National Society for Earthquake Technology –​Nepal

(NSET) to assist in NBC implementation
With ever-​ increasing seismic vulnerabilities, especially in new constructions in urbanizing
settlements, professionals and related government officials saw the need for establishing an insti-
tution outside the formal bureaucratic process but strong enough to reap the opportunities
offered by global initiatives such as the UN-​declared International Decade for Natural Disaster
Reduction (IDNDR) and the World Seismic Safety Initiatives (WSSI) of the International
Association of Earthquake Engineering (IAEE).
A series of meetings of such professionals in 1992–​1993 led to the founding of the National
Society for Earthquake Technology –​Nepal (NSET) as a civil society organization (www.nset.
org.np). The main aim was to help the government and populace to reduce earthquake risk by
implementing the NBC. This demanded bringing in global modern scientific and engineering
knowledge, contextualizing the technology and knowledge to Nepalese conditions, building
local capacities, and also to help implement earthquake risk reduction measures. NSET adopted
the mission “assist all communities to become earthquake safer by developing and implementing
an organized approach to manage and minimize earthquake risks”. By learning and aligning
global knowledge to national policies, building construction practices and socio-​economic real-
ities, NSET has been serving to implement the best disaster reduction practices in Nepal (NSET
2014; 2017b; 2018d).
The impacts of the 1988 earthquake and the 1993 floods (UNOHA 1993), the enthusiasm
generated by a unique building code, and the emergence of a very encouraging global environ-
ment in the 1990s motivated Nepal to start implementing several disaster risk reduction programs
in the country. Many of these programs turned out to be epoch-​making initiatives. NSET was
involved, together with other institutions, in the conceptualization and implementation of most

398
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

of the programs related to earthquake risk management in the country. Between 2000 and 2011,
NSET continued collaboration with several leading municipalities that were interested in NBC
implementation (NSET 2009a; 2009b; 2010). While the ultimate goal was improving seismic
performance of new building construction, the initial work was to help enhance understanding
of earthquake hazards, risks, vulnerabilities, and collectively explore and implement possible dis-
aster risk reduction solutions for risk reduction.
Hindrances to the implementation of NSET included a prevailing fatalistic mindset, low
disaster awareness, and the lack of suitable policy and legislations. With a well-​defined mission,
vision, and strategic objectives, NSET became strong enough to continue earthquake risk man-
agement activities and provide technical assistance to other institutions in Nepal. Over time,
NSET was invited internationally to share knowledge and experiences with others, for example
in Gujarat and Pakistan after the earthquakes, and in Banda Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami (NSET
2009c).

Change-​making programs and approaches

With a supportive international and regional environment, Nepal implemented several initiatives
in disaster risk reduction, and set in motion a process of national policy change. Earthquake risk
reduction became a national priority, and most earthquake risk reduction initiatives included
NSET directly or indirectly. Nepal Geological Society (NGS) also played an important role –​the
United Nations recognized the contributions of NGS and NSET by awarding them the presti-
gious Sasakawa Award (Letter of Merit) in 1998 and 2001 respectively. Some of the important
initiatives with far-​reaching impacts, implemented in this initial phase of disaster risk reduction
in Nepal are detailed below:

(1) First National Conference and an Action Plan for Disaster Management, 1993, (Dixit
1993). This was the first systematic and comprehensive national discourse on disaster risk
management in Nepal. Accompanied by a training program followed by a planning of pri-
orities, the conference formulated a disaster risk management (DRM) national program,
which, unfortunately, was never implemented. But it did create an opportunity for good
brainstorming, which resulted in a meeting of the minds.
(2) Nepal Action Plan for Disaster Management (NAP). The national report to the UN
Yokohama Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 1994 (IDNDR 1994) was based on
the deliberations of four national workshops devoted each to emergency response, recovery,
reconstruction, and mitigation and preparedness respectively. A final workshop consolidated
the national understanding of hazards and risk and the consensus goal and priorities of
actions for a national action plan. In 1996, the Government of Nepal modified this docu-
ment as the National Action Plan (NAP) for Disaster Management (HMG 1996). NAP
guided all disaster-​related initiatives in Nepal during 1994–​2005.
(3) Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management Project. The seismic hazard
evaluation that was undertaken during the formulation of NBC made it clear that a large
earthquake near Kathmandu Valley could cause significantly greater human casualty, phys-
ical damage, and economic loss than caused by past earthquakes. The Kathmandu Valley
Earthquake Risk Management Project (KVERMP) aimed to start a process towards man-
aging earthquake risk in Kathmandu Valley (NSET 1998; Shrestha and Dixit 2004). NSET
implemented KVERMP as part of the Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program (AUDMP)
from September 1997 to December 1999 in collaboration with GeoHazards International
(GHI) and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) under a core funding support

399
A. Dixit et al.

from the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/​OFDA), KVERMP included

development of a simplified earthquake damage scenario and an earthquake risk management
action plan. KVERMP also included a school earthquake safety program (SESP) for assessing
and retrofitting vulnerable schools, and a unique approach of earthquake awareness in an
easily understandable form which aided in disseminating information to the grassroot level.
The project impacts and lessons from this uniquely successful program are described below.

(a) KVERMP created a breakthrough in earthquake awareness in Nepal helping people to

understand and to get out of the state of deep fatalism and helplessness towards solving
earthquake problems. The simplified earthquake damage scenario (Basnet et al. 2004)
was very effective in encouraging engagement of the entire society in observing the
annual earthquake Safety Day on January 15 in memory of the devastating 1934 earth-
quake. The program was instrumental in convincing people regarding the usefulness of
simple and low-​tech risk reduction methods, many even practised by their fore-​fathers.
This helped to create a gradual increase in societal demand for enhanced earthquake
safety.
(b) Recognition that earthquake awareness and involvement of communities at risk is a
must for any success in disaster risk reduction.
(c) Building safer community requires sustained efforts, cooperation and collaboration
among all stakeholders, including central and local government agencies, civil society
organizations, private sector businesses and academic institutions.

The KVERMP methodology and SESP (NSET 2011) were replicated in nine cities in the
world by the RADIUS project (Okazaki et al. 2000) of UN IDNDR. Thus the innovative
approaches employed by NSET were recognized beyond Nepal’s border.

(4) Follow-​up programs implemented for enhancing urban earthquake resilience in

Nepal from 1999–​2012. After the success of KVERMP, NSET adopted a two-​pronged
approach: firstly it took upon the responsibility of gradually implementing or assisting other
institutions to implement the priority tasks spelt out in the Kathmandu Valley Earthquake
Risk Management Action Plan and, secondly, it strived to replicate the success of KVERMP
in other municipalities of Nepal by continuing to implement earthquake risk management
programs, working closely with government agencies and development partners. USAID/​
OFDA supported NSET in the execution of Action Plan Implementation Project (APIP),
during 2000–​2006, and the Nepal Earthquake Risk Management Project (NERMP) during
2006–​2015.This allowed NSET to continue the momentum generated and replicate innova-
tive and successful initiatives in more than 50 municipalities and urbanizing rural settlements
in the following decade in Nepal (Adhikari 2013; Dixit 2004; Guragain et al. 2004; NSET
2011; 2014; Petal et al. 2008; Pradhanang et al. 2009; Tandingan amd Dixit 2012) and also to
assist other agencies to implement their own disaster risk reduction programs. Most of these
programs comprised of (a) earthquake awareness, (b) hazard and risk assessment, (c) capacity
enhancement, and (d) policy advocacy for wider enforcement of NBC.

Very valuable lessons learnt during this period include:

(1) Community involvement is a must for effective disaster risk reduction. It became obvious
that the approach of implementing disaster risk reduction should include the postulation

400
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

that what is accepted as doable by the community is more important than what is normally
considered as necessary to do by the planners or the academicians.
(2) Mason training programs are the basis for earthquake vulnerability reduction in a built envir-
onment with a dominance of non-​engineered construction.
(3) Earthquake awareness and policy advocacy are the key initial activities for bringing about
improvements in DRM policy and legislation.

The APIP and NERMP projects, implemented during 1999–​2012, brought about significant
changes in social understanding and internalization of earthquake hazard and risk, helped reduce
fatalistic approaches and developed confidence in the feasibility of earthquake risk reduction and
the long-​term benefits of disaster preparedness (Shrestha et al. 2017; Upreti et al. 2012). This led
gradually towards ever-​increasing demand for earthquake safety that was evidenced by steady
and smooth implementation of the building code by the early-​adopter municipalities –​Dharan,
Vyas, and Lalitpur –​and a wave of enthusiasm that influenced municipalities to make NBC man-
datory in their annual programs during 2010–​2011.
The experience gathered during the process helped in continuous modification and refine-
ment of postulations, approaches, and methodologies as well as the corresponding training strat-
egies and curricula. This helped further in the process of contextualizing global scientific and
technological advancements into the Nepalese conditions.These works also helped to dispel sev-
eral myths such as the unaffordability of seismic resistance vis-​à-​vis poor economic conditions in
Nepal, the lack of Nepalese capacity to lead earthquake risk reduction efforts, and the prevailing
notion in the larger public that considered earthquakes as punishment inflicted by God for
wrongdoings.
Slowly, the demand for and the desire to implement the NBC grew in all quarters. Several
government agencies continually worked to improve the pertinent policy and strategies for
DRM: NSDRM, Act, NDRF and other policies (GoN 2009; 2011a; 2011b), especially after
being influenced by the global movements for disaster risk management such as the International
Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), the International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction (ISDR), and Nepal’s commitments to such frameworks. Major development partners
of Nepal incorporated disaster risk reduction into their development assistance strategies (MoFA
2017; USAID 2011). There was an increase in the number of agencies and critical facilities that
became interested in improving seismic performance of structural as well as non-​structural elem-
ents in their facilities (NRRC 2015; UNDP 2018). Demand grew for mandatory enforcement
of the NBC by the municipalities by incorporating it into the building permits process. Trust
towards NSET was increased and confidence in national capability in implementing urban dis-
aster resiliency efforts was significantly enhanced.

Building code enforcement in Nepal

The experience of assisting individual municipalities in DRM was successful and NSET decided
in 2012 to expand its efforts with other remaining municipalities in building code implemen-
tation in a significant and intensive manner. With approval from the national government
and by the donor USAID/​OFDA, NSET implemented the Building Code Implementation
Project (BCIPN) in 30 municipalities during 2012–​2016 (NSET 2017a; 2017b). Because of its
success, this program was extended to September 2019 under a new name, Technical Support
for Building Code Implementation in Nepal (TSBCIN) (NSET 2017c). The program has the
specific objectives to (1) help raise awareness on the importance of building safety regulations to
reduce the risk of potential losses due to earthquakes, (2) help develop the capacity of municipal

401
A. Dixit et al.

professionals and other stakeholders to promote earthquake safe design and construction, and
(3) help develop policy recommendations to improve enforcement of and compliance with
the building code. The program has a three-​pronged strategy of (1) earthquake awareness using
different media and methods for raising public demand and commitments for earthquake safety,
(2) a system of training and capacity enhancement of all stakeholders involved in the building
production process, and (3) evidence-​based suggestions for improvements in policies, organiza-
tional structure, and the building permit process.
The program has exercised flexibility in responding to specific emerging needs and requests.
For example, it helped prepare a local disaster risk management plan (LDRMP) for Vyas
Municipality (Dharan 2012; Vyas 2016); an urban regeneration plan for Dwalkha Bhimeshwor
Area, Dolakha (NSET 2016b); developed building by-​laws for Karyabinayak and Bhimeshwor
municipalities, and model designs of residential houses for Bharatpur Municipality. Likewise,
building permit system (BPS) software and supporting forms were developed targeting all
municipalities of Nepal. Furthermore, BCIPN was also involved in assisting the government
and the people in the aftermath of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake sequence –​based on identi-
fied demand, NSET conducted rapid visual damage assessment (RVDA) (NSET 2015a; 2015b)
including orientation, training, assessment, and update of training curricula in the immediate
aftermath of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake.Thus, the program was dynamic and introduced mid-​
course corrections as experiences were gathered, lessons learned, and challenges overcome. It
also emphasized fostering dialog and communication among stakeholders and local champions,
respecting and use of local capacity, and a continued focus on elements of institutionalization
and scaling up. This made the program very successful and accepted by the government as well
as the people.

Success of building code implementation

The success of NBC implementation in Nepal so far is largely due to the enhanced level of risk
perception and earthquake awareness and the resulting ownership of the program by the people
and the municipalities. Many BCIPN program target indicators have been surpassed (NSET
2017a; 2018a; 2018b; 2018c; Shrestha et al. 2017). As of December 2017, the BCIPN program
provided training on aspects of earthquake-​resistant construction to 1,171 building engineers,
more than 5,000 masons, and provided orientation on NBC to more than 95,000 prospective
home-​owners. A significant part of the country’s territory was covered by public awareness
information disseminated using networks of TV, radio, and print media.
Figure 29.2 shows an average progression in improving seismic performance of new buildings
in the 50 municipalities NSET worked with through BCIPN. The graph was plotted based on
analysis of building data collected from 4,205 building drawings submitted and 3,231 buildings
surveyed as constructed on site, jointly by NSET and municipal engineers. It is worth noting that
about 75 per cent of the new buildings belong to NBC’s MRT category and are owner-​built
construction led by head masons. The remainder, about 25 per cent, of the new buildings are
professionally designed and supervised public or corporate buildings.
Figure 29.2a pertains to the results of a compliance check conducted in the building
drawings submitted by home-​owners to the municipality as a part of the building permit process.
Figure 29.2b shows the results of the analysis on the building as constructed on site. The graphs
show remarkable progress, from a meagre 8 per cent compliance in drawings to 57 per cent com-
pliance indicating the success of internalization of the knowledge by the building designers. If the
17 per cent “close to compliance” buildings are added, then one can conclude that almost 74 per
cent of the new buildings have tried to make the buildings safe against earthquakes. Figure 29.2b

402
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

Figure 29.2a Progression of building code compliance in BCI municipalities during 2012–​2016
(compliance checked at site)
Source: NSET 2018b

shows that 42 per cent of the new buildings are actually built safe to withstand future earthquake
to life-​safety standards. If one adds another 20 per cent “close to compliance” buildings, one can
conclude that 62 out of 100 new buildings constructed in the municipalities have seriously tried
to avoid unaccepted death due to future earthquakes. In several municipalities, the building code
compliance rates are much higher than the above average figures. However, several problems still
remain to be solved for the compliance to be 100 per cent.
The following summarizes the technical problems needing to be addressed in the future:

• Improve symmetry in column layout, avoid beam discontinuity, limit cantilever projections,
avoid short columns and torsional susceptibility etc.
• Enhance ductility by appropriate detailing to improve column bar splices, column stirrups
spacing, beam splices, beam stirrups, joint reinforcement, etc.
• Enhance strength of the building by paying attention to the concrete quality.

More details on this ongoing program can be obtained from the NSET website www.nset.
org.np.
Although there has been significant progress in risk reduction through the development of
improved policy and legislation at the central, provincial, and municipality levels, there are still
problem areas that demand attention and efforts to make the process sustainable and irreversible.
There is a need to link building code compliance with urban planning by-​laws, risk-​sensitive
land use planning, disaster risk reduction, and emergency response planning and implementation.

403
A. Dixit et al.

Figure 29.2b Progression of building code compliance in BCI municipalities during 2012–​2016
(compliance checked in building plans submitted for building permits)

Note: The category “close to compliance” means that non-​compliant elements of construction
were of “non-​lethal” nature such as minor mistakes in dimensions or spacings or amount of
steel etc.
Source: NSET 2018b

Similarly, the social aspects of urban risk reduction and risk spread through incentives and
disincentives are yet to be appropriately incorporated into pertinent policies. For example, there
is an urgent need to utilize the potential of improving insurance and bank loans for housing
development. This calls for yet more intensified collaboration and coordination among different
stakeholders, traditional as well as non-​traditional, such as the insurance and reinsurance com-
panies and the banks disbursing housing loans. One of the ways of achieving collaboration and
synergy among various stakeholders and influencing institutions could be through enunciation
of a national earthquake resilience program, which would spell out priority actions and assign
roles and responsibilities to national, provincial, and local governments and also to the private
sector businesses, academic institutions, and the civil society organizations.

Enhancing urban resilience utilizing the experience of Gorkha

earthquake reconstruction
During the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, larger intensities of shaking were felt to the north of
Kathmandu Valley, along the axis between the epicenters of the main shock and that of the after-​
shock. The damage, consequently, was much more intense in the rural areas located along this
axis. Although the earthquake did destroy several district headquarters located in the earthquake-​
devastated areas, these hilly municipalities bear rural characteristics in terms of building con-
struction especially outside of their city core. Kathmandu and other urban settlements suffered

404
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

much less than what could have been anticipated for a M7.8 earthquake in Gorkha. Hence
the reconstruction efforts, including the policy development and modus operandi, were geared
mainly to address apparently “the more urgent” rural reconstruction issues, and urban recon-
struction appears to have been pushed into the shadow (MoHA 2016; NPC 2015).
In practice, urban reconstruction is actually slow compared to rural reconstruction, which
currently stands at 70 per cent “either started or completed” according to the website of Nepal
National Recponstruction Authority (NRA) (NRA 2018). As reported in the recent meeting
on “Progress and Challenges of Urban Reconstruction” in Kathmandu, organized by the gov-
ernment on August 6, 2018, the current progress of reconstruction of damaged private houses
stand at 18 per cent of houses receiving third tranche (certified compliance to code for recon-
struction up to second storey) and 29 per cent have received second tranche of the earthquake
grant (second tranche is granted at certified compliance of construction of foundation). Figures
for Bhaktapur district stand at 24 per cent for second tranche and 20 per cent of third tranche
respectively. The meeting, aimed at identifying issues and challenges of urban reconstruction for
“scaling up the pace of urban reconstruction”, concluded the following as the adverse factors
and conditions for slower pace of urban earthquake reconstruction:

(1) Slow process of building permits due the lack of capacity in newly promulgated municipalities
(2) Related engineers, especially the freshly recruited by the government for compliance
monitoring and building permits checking, are not trained in low-​strength MRT type
of buildings because engineering curricula teaches only modern building design and
construction.
(3) Urban areas have a variety of complex issues on land entitlement including (a) errors in past
surveys, (b) conflict in land ownership, (c) high occupancy in small buildings resulting in a
pressure to increase building height beyond the prescribed norm, illegally, (d) issuance of
valid building permits for non-​code-​compliant buildings prior to the earthquake, (e) tech-
nical –​issues of design and mismatch between design and actual construction, (f) conflicting
and multiple usage of the buildings, (g) historical character of several buildings that require
clearance from the archaeological department for reconstruction, adding more complexity
to the process, (h) undue political pressure from newly elected local representatives to pro-
vide reconstruction loans expeditiously, even by relaxing the prerequisites for such loans,
and so on.

Many of these problems demand political and policy-​level decisions, resulting in delay in the
reconstruction process.There are still many unaddressed problems related to recovery and recon-
struction of historical buildings and cultural heritage structures: use of modern construction
materials and styles versus those used prior to the earthquake, the conflict between the formal
procurement of construction services versus the traditional process by local “guthi”1 using local
craftspersons. Capacity gap in terms of masons, contractors, and even supervising personnel
trained in earthquake-​resistant technology is another problem. Many damaged settlements are of
cultural, archaeologic, and heritage importance. There is a trend and desire to opt for rebuilding
in modern materials, which would inflict irreparable loss to the heritage. Several historical
settlements with traditional adobe constructions are yet to develop a consensus on the correct
model for reconstruction and how to build back better.The buildings in the historical core areas
of Kathmandu Valley cities are fast losing the traditional architectiural facades and also becoming
more vulnerable due to many different social and economic factors, including, among others, the
vertical division of buildings by inheriting brothers, lack of maintenance due to absentee land-
lordism, and the disruption of the traditional social and family bonds as new landowners come

405
A. Dixit et al.

from all over Nepal. Urban regeneration by cooperatives of owners with assistance from the
government, by pooling the land and reconstructing the buildings as multiapartment structures
with the preservation of traditional facades, cultural and religious monuments and temples and
the traditions, and mixed commercial and residential usage with the aim of exploiting the tour-
istic importance of the settlements has found wide support in the country. The government has
already accepted this method and has developed the required policy. However, efforts are still
ongoing for implementing urban regeneration by this method in the very first case –​there is
obvious reluctance due to the lack of previous experience.
There is a trend of vertical growth in urban areas using concrete frame structures. Nepal’s
experience and capacity to supervise and construct earthquake-​resistant high-​rise buildings is
still limited. Another trend is the growing demand for clustered settlements in urbanizing rural
areas or in areas surrounding urban settlements in the hilly regions. In addition, lack of effective
policies and frequent changes in organizational responsibilities for reconstruction are additional
problems hampering the reconstruction process. Handing over authority of DRM to the local
government level, as warranted by the 2015 Constitution, should be done smoothly.The process
is ongoing but not yet settled in every aspect –​the lack of local capacity at local levels is one of
the visible problems.
There is a conspicuous gap in scientific technical research that could assist in reconstruction
decision-​making and also to document and learn lessons from this great earthquake, which
should have been considered as “nature’s experimental laboratory” offering the possibility
for undertaking scientific research to evidence and validate empirical methods in the non-​
engineered buildings. The 2015 earthquake has challenged Nepal to develop a comprehensive
strategy that could address the above-​mentioned questions and concerns, and to develop sound
capacity to tackle the fundamental issue of enhancing urban resilience. The Gorkha earthquake
should be considered an opportunity to learn to enhance urban resiliency to natural hazards.The
lessons of the Gorkha earthquake are tremendously important for the entire country and also for
the entire Himalayan region, which is highly seismic.

Conclusions
Seismic resilience building in Nepal between the two earthquakes of 1988 and 2015 has been
successful, considering Nepal witnessed political upheavals and economic stagnation in the same
period. Development of a unique building code that envisioned enhancing seismic performance
of even non-​engineered buildings, successful piloting of building code implementation in a
few municipalities, and incorporating lessons on the need for understanding risk by raising risk
awareness, educating the stakeholders including masons and small-​scale contractors, installation
of building code or earthquake safety sections in municipal organizational structures, incorpor-
ation of code compliance into the building permit system, and helping policy development at
municipal and central levels, are some of the major steps that have positively helped to enhance
building code compliance from the estimated 9 per cent in 2012 to over 62 per cent in 30 muni-
cipalities and urbanizing areas of Nepal.
A success in building code enforcement is an indication of urban seismic resilience as poorly
constructed buildings are the main source of earthquake risk in Nepal. Achievement of this
remarkable progress was due to the comprehensiveness of the building code implementation
strategy, and the appropriateness of the municipal earthquake risk reduction approaches, including
the engagement of communities and home-​owners, local authorities and champions including
women’s groups. Development and use of awareness materials targeting various stakeholders,
use of innovative awareness tools such as the observance of the annual earthquake safety day on

406
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

January 15, the use of specially developed training strategy, and a set of more than 20 training
curricula for masons, technicians, social mobilizers, local municipal officials, and the use of
innovative methodologies for assisting the municipalities in building code implementation were
the main reasons behind such success. Rich lessons have been learned and challenges have been
identified in this process. These lessons are in the process of being incorporated into pertinent
national development strategies, such as the national urban development strategy (GoN 2015).
Most importantly, the main players responsible for enhancing urban resilience have developed
a level of confidence to improve upon the efforts and to proliferate the success by scaling up
building code implementation in other urban, urbanizing and even rural municipalities of Nepal.
The 2015 Gorkha earthquake has proven the benefits of earthquake risk reduction efforts and
the appropriateness of risk reduction initiatives and methodologies.
Nepal’s very rapid urbanization and its unique dynamics are now better understood in terms
of its relation to physical and social vulnerabilities. The experiences gathered in the past are
instrumental to understand the opportunity of enhancing urban resilience, especially after the
recent promulgation of 753 municipalities, in which the urban population rose to 60 per cent.
This transformation of rural areas into urban ones, especially those in the areas affected by the
Gorkha earthquake of 2015, demands development of knowledge, capacity, and new policies to
comprehensively handle challenges of reconstruction, seismic retrofitting, repair and mainten-
ance of heritage structures, historical settlements, and urban regeneration. The experience of the
past two decades has made Nepal confident about making its cities resilient.

Note
1 “Guthi” is a social organization that historically has maintained the socio-​economic and religious order
in Kathmandu Valley.

References
Adhikari, S.R. (2013). Earthquake risk assessment for the municipalities of Nepal. Paper presented at
the Regional cooperation in Seismology and Earthquake Engineering in South and Central Asia,
Nagarkot, Nepal.
Basnet, S.S., Dixit, A.M., Samant, L.D., Nakarmi, M., Pradhanang, S.B., and Tucker, B. (2004). Earthquake
scenario of Kathmandu Valley: National Society for Earthquake Technology Nepal (NSET).
Bhattarai, G.K., Chamlagain, D., and Rajaure, S. (2011). Seismic hazard assessment for eastern Nepal using
1934 and 1988 earthquakes. Journal of Nepal Geological Society. 42: 11.
CBS (2012). National Population and Housing Census 2011: National Report. Kathmandu: Government
of Nepal, National Planning Commission Secretariat, Central Bureau of Statistics. https://​unstats.
un.org/​unsd/​demographic-​social/​census/​documents/​Nepal/​Nepal-​Census-​2011-​Vol1.pdf.
CBS (2014). Population Atlas of Nepal. Ramshah Path, Kathmandu, Nepal: National Planning Commission
Secretariat.
CBS (2017). Population of 753 Local Units. Government of Nepal. http://​cbs.gov.np/​sectoral_​statistics/​
population/​Population%20of%20753%20Local%20Units.
CBS (2018). Nepal In Figures 2018. http://​cbs.gov.np/​image/​data/​2018/​Nepal%20in%20Figures%20
2018.pdf.
Deng, J.S., Wang, K., Hong, Y., and Qi, J.G. (2009). Spatio-​temporal dynamics and evolution of land use
change and landscape pattern in response to rapid urbanization. Landscape and Urban Planning.
92(3): 187–​198. doi:https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2009.05.001.
Dharan (2012). Local Disaster Risk Management Planning (LDRMP)-​Dharan: Dharan Municipality. www.
nset.org.np.
Dixit, A.M. (1993). Nepal –​Status of seismic hazard and risk management in Nepal. Paper presented at the
WSSI Bangkok Workshop on Seismic Risk Management. Bangkok.

407
A. Dixit et al.

Dixit, A.M. (2004, August 1–​6). Promoting safer building construction in Nepal. Paper presented at the
Thirteen World Conference on Earthquake Engineering,Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Dixit, A.M. and Maskey, N. (1992). Landslide studies in Nepal. Paper presented at the First South Asia
Geological Congress (GEOSAS-​I), Islamabad, Pakistan
Dixit, A.M., Shrestha, S.N., Guragain, R., Jimee, G.K., Dhungel, R., Pradhan, S., Shrestha, N., Acharya, S.P.,
Adhikari, S.A., Bhattarai, and Ruszczyk, H.A. (2018). Earthquake risk reduction efforts in Nepal: NSET’s
Experience. In: L. Bracken, Hanna A. Ruszczyk, and T. Robinson (eds.): Evolving Narratives of Hazard
and Risk: The Gorkha Earthquake, Nepal 2015. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
GESI (2001). Global Earthquake Safety Initiative (GESI) Pilot Project. www.preventionweb.net/​
publications/​view/​5573.
GoN (1994). Nepal National Building Code (NBC) 105: 1994. Government of Nepal, Department of
Urban Development and Building Construction. Kathmandu. www.dudbc.gov.np/​uploads/​default/​
files/​c25f315ba97fe50b056e7803296704b5.pdf.
GoN (2009). National Strategy for Disaster Risk Management, 2009. Government of Nepal, Ministry of
Home Affairs.
GoN (2011a). Disaster Preparedness and Response Plan Framework Guideline 2067. Government of
Nepal, Ministry of Home Affairs.
GoN (2011b). Local Disaster Risk Management Planning (LDRMP) Guideline. Government of Nepal,
Ministry of Local Development.
GoN (2015). National Urban Development Strategy 2015. Government of Nepal, Ministry of Urban
Development.
GoN (2017). Nepal Gazette: Notice of Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development.
Kathmandu: Government of Nepal. http://​mofaga.gov.np/​en.
Guragain, R., Parajuli, Y.K., and Dixit, A.M. (2004). Promoting safer building construction in
Nepal: Experiences of NSET. In: A.M. Dixit (ed.): Proceedings of the Symposium on Seismology,
Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Risk Management held in conjunction with the Fourth
General Assembly of the Asian Seismological Commission, 24 –​26 November 2002, Kathmandu.
Kathmandu: National Society for Earthquake Technology, Nepal (NSET), 123–​128.
HMG (1996). National Action Plan on Disaster Management in Nepal. Kathmandu: His Majesty’s
Government, Ministry of Home. www.preventionweb.net/​files/​30532_​nepalnationalactionplandisaste
rmana.pdf.
IDNDR (1994).Yokohama strategy and plan of action for a safer world: Guidelines for natural disaster pre-
vention, preparedness and mitigation-​UNISDR, International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.
UNISDR. www.preventionweb.net/​go/​8241.
Ishtiaque, A., Shrestha, M., and Chhetri, N. (2017). Rapid urban growth in the Kathmandu Valley,
Nepal: Monitoring land use land cover dynamics of a Himalayan city with Landsat imageries.
Environments. 4(4): 72.
Manandhar, H. and Parajuli,Y.K. (2015). Urban safety through the eyes of cultural heritage. Paper presented
at the 14th International Symposium on Urban Safety of Mega Cities in Asia Kathmandu.
MoFA. (2017). Country Strategy for Development Cooperation Nepal 2016–​ 2019. https://​ um.fi/​
documents/ ​ 3 5732/​ 4 8132/​ c ountry_​ s trategy_​ f or_​ d evelopment_​ c ooperation_​ n epal_​ 2 016_​ 2 019/​
bb247b65-​4ecc-​df47-​006d-​363567ed0faa?t=1528711373905.
MOHA (2016). Nepal Gorkha 2015 Earthquake Lessons Learnings (in Nepali Language). Government of
Nepal, Ministry of Home Affairs. Kathmandu.
MOHA (2018). Nepal Disaster Report, 2017: The Road to Sendai, Kathmandu: Government of Nepal.
http://​drrportal.gov.np/​uploads/​document/​1321.pdf.
Muzzini, E. and Aparicio, G. (2013). Urban Growth and Spatial Transition in Nepal: An Initial Assessment.
Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/​The World Bank.
NPC (2015). Nepal Earthquake 2015: Post Disaster Needs Assessment (Key Findings) (Vol. A). Singha
Durbar, Kathmandu: National Planning Commission, GoN.
NRA (2016). Reconstruction Policy 2072 (in Nepali Language). Government of Nepal, National
Reconstruction Authority. Kahtmandu. www.nepalhousingreconstruction.org/​sites/​nuh/​files/​2017-​
03/​wVafwe9j5J160412073708.pdf.
NPC (2017). Demographic Changes of Nepal: Trends and Policy Implications. In: National Planning
Commission (Ed.).
NRA (2018). Reconstruction Update. Government of Nepal, National Reconstruction Authority. www.
nra.gov.np/​np/​mapdistrict/​datavisualization

408
 Nepal’s urban seismic resilience

NRRC (2015). Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium. United Nations. Kathmandu. www.un.org.np/​
coordinationmechanism/​nrrc.
NSET (1998). The Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Management Action Plan. Nepal: National Society for
Earthquake Technology –​Nepal (NSET). Kathmandu.
NSET (2009a). Final Project Report on Pilot Implementation of Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction
Program (MDRIP) in Ilam and Panauti Municipalities of Nepal. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2009b). Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Program in Nepal (MDRIP). www.nset.org.np.
NSET (2009c). Safer Society NSET Report 2009. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal.
Kathmandu. www.nset.org.np.
NSET (2010). Project Completion Report on Nepal Earthquake Risk Management Program (NERMP).
(Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2011). School Earthquake Safety Program (SESP) Books, Guidelines and Reports. National Society
for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal. Kathmandu. www.nset.org.np/​nset2012/​images/​publicationfile/​
20111220133242.pdf.
NSET (2014). Safer Society NSET Report 2014. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal.
Kathmandu. www.nset.org.np.
NSET (2015a). NSET Efforts on Post Earthquake Situation. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​
Nepal. Kathmandu. www.nset.org.np/​eq2015/​nset_​effort.php#damage.
NSET (2015b). Rapid Visual Damage Assessment. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal.
Kathmandu. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2016a). The Building Compliance Survey Report. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​
Nepal. Kathmandu. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2016b). Urban Regeneration Plan for Dwalkha: Building Code Implementation Program in
Municipalitites of Nepal (BCIPN). National Society for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal. Kathmandu.
www.nset.org.np.
NSET (2017a). Program Performance Final Report: Building Code Implementation Program in
Municipalities of Nepal (BCIPN). Program Report. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​
Nepal. Kathmandu. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2017b). Safer Society Annual Report 2017 (Vol. NSET-​116–​2017): National Society for Earthquake
Technology-​Nepal (NSET). Kathmandu.
NSET (2017c). Technical Support for Building Code Implementation in Nepal (TSBCIN). National
Society for Earthquake Technology-​ Nepal. Kathmandu. www.nset.org.np/​ nset2012/​index.php/​
programs/​programdetail/​programid-​97.
NSET (2018a). BCIPN Success Stories: Building Code Implementation Program in Municipalitites of
Nepal (BCIPN). National Society for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal, Kathmandu. Unpublished in-​
house Report.
NSET (2018b). Building Code Compliance Survey: Building Code Implementation Program in
Municipalitites of Nepal (BCIPN). Report. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​ Nepal.
Kathmandu. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2018c). Municipality Status on Building Code Implementation. National Society for Earthquake
Technology-​Nepal. Kathmandu. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
NSET (2018d). Safer Society Annual Report 2018. National Society for Earthquake Technology-​Nepal.
Kathmandu. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
Okazaki, K., Villacis, C., Cardona, C., Kaneko, F., Shaw, R., Sun, J., Davidson, R. (2000). RADIUS –​Risk
assessment tools for diagnosis of urban areas against seismic disasters. UN. International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (ISDR).
Pandey, M.R., Chitrakar, G.R., Kafle, B., Sapkota, S., Rajaure, S., and Gautam, U.P. (2002). Seismic Hazard
Map of Nepal. Kathmandu: Government of Nepal, Department of Mines and Geology.
Parajuli, Y.K., Bothara, J.K., Dixit, A.M., Pradhan, J.P., and Sharpe, R.D. (2000, January). Nepal Building
Code-​Need, Development Philosophy and Means of Implementation. Paper presented at the 12th
World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Auckland, New Zealand.
Petal, M., Green, R., Kelman, I., Shaw, R., and Dixit, A. (2008). Community-​based construction for disaster
risk reduction. In: Hazards and the Built Environment: Attaining Built-​in Resilience, 191–​217.
Pradhanang, S.B., Dixit, A.M., Parajuli, Y.K., Pradhan, M., Basnet, S.S., Shrestha, V.P., and Sharma, T.
(2009). Safer Society NSET’s decade-​long efforts to make communities earthquake-​safe And Annual
Report 2008 (B. Bhattarai and N. Shrestha (eds.)): National Society for Earthquake Technology-​
Nepal (NSET).

409
A. Dixit et al.

Rana, B.S.J.B. (1935). The Great Earthquake in Nepal 1934 A.D. (K. Lal, Trans.). Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak
Bhandar.
Ruszczyk, H.A. and Robinson, T. (2018). Introduction to the Gorkha Earthquake. In: L. Bracken, H.A.
Ruszczyk, and T. Robinson (eds.): Evolving Narratives of Hazard and Risk: The Gorkha Earthquake,
Nepal 2015. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 3–​43.
Sapkota, S.N., Bollinger, L., Klinger, Y., Tapponnier, P., Gaudemer, Y., and Tiwari, D. (2012). Primary sur-
face ruptures of the great Himalayan earthquakes in 1934 and 1255. Nature Geoscience. 6(1): 71–​76.
doi:10.1038/​ngeo1669.
Sharma, R.K. (2016). Bhukampa 2072 ko Brihangam Dristi (in Nepali Language). Kathmandu: Bina
Sharma.
Shrestha, A.B., Bajracharya, S.R., Kargel, J.S., and Khanal, N.R. (2016).The Impact of Nepal’s 2015 Gorkha
Earthquake-​Induced Geohazards. Kathmandu, ICIMOD: International Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development.
Shrestha, S.N. and Dixit, A.M. (2004). Earthquake risk management in rapidly urbanizing areas of Nepal.
Paper presented at the 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering,Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Shrestha, N., Dixit, A.M., Shrestha, S.N., and Pradhan, S. (2017). Changing risk perception of people: A key
for enhancing building code compliance. Paper presented at the 16th World Conference on Earthquake,
Santiago Chile.
Tandingan, M.R. and Dixit, A.M. (2012). Experiences on Implementing Program for Enhancement of
Emergency Response (PEER) in Six Countries of South East Asia. Paper presented at the 15th World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal.
Thapa, N. (1989). Bhadau Pachko Bhukampa (Earthquake of Bhadra 5) 2045. Kathmandu: Central Natural
Calamity Response Committee.
UNDP (2010). Urban Risk Management. www.undp.org/​content/​dam/​undp/​library/​crisis%20preven-
tion/​disaster/​6Disaster%20Risk%20Reduction%20-​%20Urban%20Risk%20Management.pdf.
UNDP (2018). Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Programme. www.np.undp.org/​ content/​
nepal/​en/​home/​projects/​cdrmp.html.
UNOHA (1993). Nepal Floods/​Landslides Jul 1993 UN DHA Situation Reports. https://​reliefweb.int/​
report/​nepal/​nepal-​floodslandslides-​jul-​1993-​un-​dha-​situation-​reports-​1–​8
Upreti, N., Dixit, A.M., and Shrestha, S.N. (2012). Raising Earthquake Awareness in Kathmandu Valley: A
Comparative Analysis of Achievements during 1999–​ 2009. Paper presented at the 15th World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal.
USAID (2011). US Disaster Risk Reduction Strategic Framework –​Nepal, FY2012-​2016. http://​usaid.
gov/​sites/​default/​files/​documents/​1861/​DRR%20Strategic%20Framework.pdf.
Vyas (2016). Vyas Municipal Disaster Risk Management Plan. Local Disaster Risk Management Planning.
Vyas Municipality. (Unpublished in-​house Report).
Williams, J.G., Rosser, N.J., Kincey, M.E., Benjamin, J., Oven, K.J., Densmore, A.L., Robinson, T.R. (2017).
Satellite-​
based emergency mapping: Landslides triggered by the 2015 Nepal earthquake. Natural
Hazards and Earth System Sciences. https://​doi.org/​10.5194/​nhess-​18-​185-​2018.
Zhu, J., Manandhar, B., Truong, J., Ganapati, N.E., Pradhanang, N., Davidson, R.A., and Mostafavi, A.
(2017). Assessment of infrastructure resilience in the 2015 Gorkha, Nepal, Earthquake. Earthquake
Spectra. 33: S147-​S165.

410
 30
Roof gardens as alternative
urban green spaces
A three-​part study on their restorative
quality in Seoul, South Korea

Narae Lee

Introduction
Urbanization has isolated people from natural environments and subjected them to artificial
environments, which could induce psychological and physiological stress (Moore et al. 2003).
Living in an environment with access to green spaces, such as parks and forests, brings many
benefits to people; it enhances physical and psychological health, strengthens social ties, and
increases self-​control (Hartig et al. 2003; Kuo et al. 1998; Ulrich et al. 1991). However, a limited
number and an unequal distribution of urban green spaces in dense urban environments prevent
many people from enjoying beneficial green spaces in their daily lives (Oh and Jeong 2007).
Indeed, access to urban green spaces may vary by race, ethnicity, and socio-​economic status (Dai
2011; Zhou and Kim 2013). Therefore, not every urban resident has the equal opportunity to
enjoy desirable open green spaces near their home or workplace.
As viable alternatives to urban green spaces, roof gardens –​that is, green spaces built on
rooftops –​would allow urban residents to enjoy the benefits of green spaces with relative ease.
Thus, cities facing difficulties in securing enough green spaces due to dense development and
high land prices can adopt roof gardens to increase access to green spaces. For example, Seoul,
South Korea, one of the largest cities in the world, has been experiencing this issue; according to
a Seoul government report, Seoul’s 2010 population density (16,181/​km2) is higher than that of
New York (10,430/​km2),Tokyo (14,386/​km2), and London (5,199/​km2) (Seoul Institute 2015).
Therefore, the city government has been adopting roof gardens to expand green spaces. Seoul’s
municipal government has been implementing an annual project with a governmental subsidy
to promote the installation of roof gardens in both public and private buildings. The project has
been successful, installing a total of 715 roof gardens (around 33,469m2) from 2002 to 2017
(Choi 2018). With the recognition of roof gardens’ importance, especially in densely built envir-
onments, their benefits –​such as retaining and detaining rainwater, mitigating microclimates,
reducing the energy consumption of buildings, and improving psychophysiological health –​
have also been widely studied (Clark et al. 2008; Gregoire and Clausen 2011; Susca et al. 2011).

411
Narae Lee

Therefore, to take stock of roof gardens’ potential as alternative urban green spaces, this chapter
proceeds in the following steps. First, it begins with a discussion of what roof gardens are and
discusses the efforts in South Korea to promote their large-​scale installation. Then, it will move
on to a discussion of how roof gardens can contribute to urban resilience from a psychological
perspective. And, finally, it will introduce an empirical study that examined the psychological
benefits that roof gardens provide.

Roof gardens
Roof gardens are green spaces built on the rooftops of buildings. The design of roof gardens may
vary according to the purpose of use: a space for rest, farming and/​or gardening, plant educa-
tion, therapy, enhancing the urban landscape, and pursuing environmental benefits (e.g. mitigating
urban heat island effects and retaining rainwater). Above all, roof gardens provide a resting place.
Due to a sedentary lifestyle and shortage of accessible urban parks, contemporary urban residents
have a limited opportunity to enjoy greenery in their daily lives.Therefore, roof gardens placed on
the buildings in which office workers spend a majority of their daytime will conveniently allow
them to enjoy greenery while taking a break from work. Second, roof gardens can be used for
urban agriculture. Given people’s increasing interest in food safety, agriculture, plant education,
and getting pleasure from raising and harvesting plants, their interest in urban agriculture has risen.
Introducing agricultural land in urban environments requires land for public use; however, there
are both physical and financial limitations to securing public land for urban agriculture in dense
urban environments. Therefore, we can secure enough agricultural land within walking distance
by using neglected rooftops. Third, roof gardens built on the rooftops of hospitals, as therapy gar-
dens, provide a place for patients and workers to recover and rest.They are advantageous especially
for patients with restricted mobility given that roof gardens can be accessed safely from a patients’
room regardless of time and day. Fourth, roof gardens enhance urban landscape. Neglected rooftops
impair urban landscapes when they are visible from adjacent or higher buildings. Therefore, we
can improve the urban landscape by greening rooftops and properly maintaining them. Lastly, roof
gardens have environmental benefits.These benefits have been identified by empirical studies: roof
gardens provide ecological spaces for small animals, mitigate urban heat island effects, improve air
quality, reduce energy consumption of buildings, and prevent floods by retaining rainwater (Clark
et al. 2008; Dvorak and Volder 2010; Kumar and Kaushik 2005;VanWoert 2005;Wong et al. 2003).
These environmental benefits, in turn, bring about economic benefits.
Recognizing the benefits of roof gardens, the city government of Seoul has been subsidizing
the installation of roof gardens since 2002. The city government accepts applications from both
the public and private sector every year while pursuing these goals: (1) introducing ecological
diversity with various vegetation; (2) increasing urban green spaces; (3) enhancing aesthetic
beauty; (4) facilitating usability; and (5) ensuring easy maintenance (Choi 2018). The govern-
ment reviews applications, conducts field observations, and tests the structural safety to select
funding recipients. The government also reviews the design submitted by the selected applicants
in order to allocate construction costs.
Roof gardens can be classified into three types: intensive, extensive, and semi-​intensive.
Intensive roof gardens are designed mainly for people’s use (see Figures 30.1, 30.2, and 30.3).
These roof gardens are comprised of various types of vegetation, from grass to large trees, with
enough soil depth and landscape furniture –​such as benches, pergola, and water fountains –​
to support diverse uses. Therefore, this type of roof garden most resembles urban parks and
requires high maintenance efforts. Extensive roof gardens are usually vegetated by grass, moss,
and flowering plants, which require low maintenance efforts. This type of roof garden is used

412
 Alternative urban green spaces

Figure 30.1 Intensive roof garden

Source: Tong-​Mahn Ahn, 2012a

mainly for environmental purposes: mitigating microclimates, retaining rainwater, and reducing
energy consumption from heating and cooling buildings. Therefore, we can refer to this type of
roof garden as an ecotype roof garden. Semi-​intensive roof gardens, which share characteristics
of both intensive and extensive roof gardens, are vegetated with low and medium growing plants
such as grass, shrubs, flowers, and short trees. Thus, they require moderate maintenance efforts.
Given that roof gardens are built on rooftops, for the building’s safety, the load effect of vege-
tation and garden furniture on the rooftops need to be considered before installing them. For
this reason, the City of Seoul specified minimum design loads according to the different types
of roof gardens in “Green Roof System Architectural Graphic Standard” (see Table 30.1) (Seoul
Metropolitan Government 2013).

Disasters, mental stress, and green spaces

Urbanization is a universal phenomenon throughout the world: urban areas accommodate more
than half of the world population (Anguluri and Narayanan 2017). Increased urban density and
its continuous expansion to surrounding areas have expanded impervious land cover while at
the same time encroaching vegetated areas. The change in land cover from vegetation to asphalt
and concrete has generated climate change (Berry et al. 2010). Indeed, urbanized environments
with fewer green spaces cause urban heat island effect as a result of decreased air circulation and
cooling effects and flood issues due to impervious land cover that cannot absorb enough rain-
water (Anguluri and Narayanan 2017; Gill et al. 2007).
Unfavorable climate conditions have negative effects on mental health. These negative effects
on mental health can range from minor cases of mental illness, such as anxiety and depression,

413
Narae Lee

Figure 30.2 Extensive roof garden

Source: Tong-​Mahn Ahn, 2012b

to severe ones, such as post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Berry et al. 2010). Sharp variations
in temperature can even generate behavioral disorders, such as suicide and violent criminality
(Cohn et al. 2004; Maes et al. 1994). Moreover, the urban environment is vulnerable to various
natural disasters and has lost the ability to recover from these disturbances as well. For example,
frequent earthquakes in Asian countries have caused many casualties, and Hurricane Katrina is
recorded as the worst natural disaster in the United States (Galea et al. 2007; Kokai et al. 2004).
These disasters engender not only massive casualties, destruction of amenities and facilities, and
economic loss, but also serious mental issues for survivors. People who have experienced life-​
threatening events are prone to experiencing mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and
PTSD (Mueser et al. 2002). Some may recover from the psychological trauma, but others may
experience chronic mental issues (Galea et al. 2007; Kokai et al. 2004). Therefore, supporting
recovery from psychological stress and disorder from natural disasters is an important issue.
Given that the natural environment’s psychological benefits have been widely recognized
(Grahn and Stigsdotter 2010), there has been much interest in research on ecotherapy or nature-​
based therapy (NBT). NBT refers to therapeutic activities in natural settings that help restore
psychological health and well-being (Milton and Corbett 2011). The activities vary from medi-
tation to physical activities, such as walking in natural settings, planting trees, gardening, and
preserving nature (Annerstedt and Währborg 2011; Farmer 2014). In addition, there can be
interaction with a psychiatrist and counselor for better results.
European countries are leading the way in NBT research by yielding promising results. For
example, the Healing Garden in Alarp, which is in Sweden, has led to improvements in patients’
psychological and physical health; and Denmark launched the Healing Forest Garden Nacadia
(NACADIA) in 2007 based on the Healing Garden in Alarp. The effect of NBT on PTSD

414
 Alternative urban green spaces

Figure 30.3 Semi-​intensive roof garden

Source: Tong-​Mahn Ahn, 2012c

Table 30.1 Minimum design loads of three types of roof garden

Roof garden materials People

2
Intensive roof garden 300 kfg / m or more 200 kfg / m 2 or more
Extensive roof garden 120 kfg / m 2 or more 100 kfg / m 2 or more
Semi-​intensive roof garden 200 kfg / m 2 or more 200 kfg / m 2 or more

has shown fruitful results. People who took part in the therapy showed recovery from mental
disorders such as anxiety and depression (Milton and Corbett 2011). Furthermore, their life
quality also improved by adopting a healthy lifestyle and improving their social skills (Farmer
2014). Moreover, refugees with psychological stress after being displaced to a new commu-
nity showed improvement in their mental health after participating in ecotherapy (Tristan and
Nguyen-​Hong-​Nhiem 1989). NBT has also been successful in treating the PTSD of veterans,
who recovered from depression and anxiety and showed improvements in wellbeing, hope, and
social ability (Gelkopf et al. 2013; Poulsen et al. 2018;Varning Poulsen 2017).
Likewise, people who live in neighborhoods with green space within walking distance are
more likely to have better psychological health compared to those who do not have ready access
to green space (Alcock et al. 2014; Maas et al. 2009; Nutsford et al. 2013; van den Berg et al.
2010). This can be due to the ease and frequent interaction with nature in their daily lives. The
benefit of green spaces on mental health is widely accepted: walking in green spaces improves
affective well-​being (Hartig et al. 2003), well-​maintained vegetation provides one with a sense
of safety and preference (Kuo et al. 1998), and interacting with green spaces reduces stress and

415
Narae Lee

provides emotional stability while enhancing vitality (Nutsford et al. 2013; Ulrich et al. 1991;
van den Berg et al. 2016). Therefore, people who live near usable green spaces will receive these
benefits. This may provide urban planners with a keen insight: designing residential areas with
accessible green spaces is crucial for boosting mental health of urbanites.

Roof gardens’ contribution to urban resilience

There are various definitions of “urban resilience”. In this chapter, we define urban resilience as
an urban environment’s capacity of recovering from all kinds of stressors that stem from nature,
such as natural disasters and environmental hazards, as well as human activities such as climate
change, pollution, social disorder, and epidemics. This chapter, however, will focus on the psy-
chological dimensions of urban resilience, which can be affected by the physical and ambient
features of the environment.
As mentioned earlier, having green spaces within walking distance from home is crucial
for maintaining psychological well-being. Introducing enough green space for the public in
dense urban settings, however, is not an easy issue due to high property values and a shortage of
land. Moreover, the total area of green spaces can differ considerably from their usability after
taking into account their distribution and location and population density. For example, Oh
and Jeong’s (2007) study on the spatial distribution of urban parks sheds geographical insight
into the discrepancy between the total area of urban parks and their actual usability. After taking
into consideration the uneven distribution of urban parks, pedestrian travel routes, and popu-
lation density, the actual usability of urban parks decreases by around half of the total area of
green spaces. Moreover, the accessibility of green spaces within a city may vary according to the
socio-​economic status of neighborhood residents. Neighborhoods surrounding Central Park
and the High Line in New York, for instance, have undergone a dramatic rise in property values
and the cost of living. As such, only city residents who can afford to live in these high-​priced
neighborhoods have easy access to these desirable green spaces. In other words, there can be
economic discrimination for urban dwellers in using desirable green spaces (Dai 2011; Heynen
et al. 2006; Wolch et al. 2014; Zhou and Kim 2013). To provide the equal opportunity to access
green spaces and support the mental health of urban dwellers, introducing usable and desirable
urban green spaces is crucial.
Although urban planners have remained committed to developing more urban parks, they
have also shown an increased interest in roof gardens as viable alternatives to urban parks.
Vegetating neglected rooftops of buildings makes it easy for urban planners to secure land and
expand urban green spaces. Moreover, roof gardens installed on the rooftops of residential, com-
mercial, and office buildings expand the opportunity for people with sedentary lifestyles, or who
have limited access to urban parks, to enjoy green spaces during their daily lives. Given the rapid
growth of roof gardening technology, roof gardens can be designed to be comparable to urban
parks, with varied and ample vegetation and landscape furniture. It follows that roof gardens’ psy-
chological benefits may also be comparable to that of urban parks.These manifold psychological
benefits of roof gardens, in turn, can contribute to urban resilience.

Three-​part empirical study

Roof gardens provide not only environmental benefits for cities, but they also produce psycho-
logical benefits for users of these particular green spaces. Indeed, Kim et al. (2013) found that
roof gardens reduce negative emotions, such as tension, anxiety, depression, and anger. The psy-
chological benefits of roof gardens, however, have been under-​studied. Given that roof gardens

416
 Alternative urban green spaces

can be a viable alternative to urban parks, this study assesses whether the psychological benefits
of roof gardens are comparable to that of urban parks and then discusses their potential con-
tribution to urban resilience. This study examines the restorative quality of roof gardens; in this
study, restorative quality refers to a quality of urban environments that reduces mental fatigue
and improves psychological well-being. Therefore, it assesses whether the restorative quality of
roof gardens resembles the restorative quality of urban parks. This paper is a three-​part empirical
study that addresses the following questions: (1) Are roof gardens restorative? (2) Are roof gar-
dens a viable alternative to urban parks? and (3) If roof gardens are a viable alternative to urban
parks, what makes them so?

Examining the restorative quality of roof gardens, urban parks,

and city streets
The first study examined the restorative quality of three different environments using a revised
version of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS): roof gardens, urban parks, and city streets.
The restorative quality of each of these settings was compared with one another.

Participants and Research Setting

A total of 70 participants (43 females and 27 males), whose ages ranged from 23 to 60, participated
in the first study. All participants were Korean, and they were recruited from Seoul, the capital
of South Korea, through convenient sampling.This study used photographs that reflect the three
different setting types: roof gardens, urban parks, and city streets. To account for the different
types of roof gardens, roof gardens were divided into intensive, extensive, and semi-​intensive.
Therefore, the study had a total of five different setting types: intensive roof gardens, exten-
sive roof gardens, semi-​intensive roof gardens, urban parks, and city streets. By selecting four
photographs for each landscape type, a total of 20 photographs were chosen.The photos reflected
weather conditions (other than rain) from late spring to early fall.
The study used the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) to measure the restora-
tive quality of the settings. The study, however, used a modified version of the PRS given
that several limitations on applying the original PRS were identified in a pilot test. Several
questions from the original PRS seemed to have similar meaning, but varied subtly in terms
of meaning, making it difficult to translate and reflect that language nuance into Korean. In
addition, several questions were beyond the comprehension of the participants. Therefore,
the PRS was modified by making it applicable to the study. The revised PRS was developed
based on the short-​form of the PRS (Hartig et al. 1996) by combining questions that have
similar meaning and keeping other questions intact. The revised PRS included a total of seven
questions: two questions measured being-​away, fascination, and coherence, respectively; and one
question measured compatibility. For example, one of the questions of being away, “Spending
time here gives me a good break from my day-​to-​day routine”, was measured on a seven-​
point scale which ranged from -​3 to 3 (-​3 = strongly disagree, 0 = neutral, and 3 = strongly
agree). An additional question was added to ask participants’ preference for each of the settings
as resting places. Preference question asked, “How much do you prefer this place as a resting
place?” on a seven-​point scale which also ranged from -​3 to 3 (-​3 = very negative, 0 = neutral,
and 3 = very positive). The 20 photographs, included in PowerPoint slides, were distributed
to the participants via email.

417
Narae Lee

Table 30.2 One sample test of preference

N Mean Standard deviation Standard error

Extensive roof garden 280 1.41 1.442 .086

Semi-​intensive roof garden 280 1.59 .957 .057
Intensive roof garden 280 1.21 1.271 .076
Urban parks 280 .93 1.229 .073
Cities 280 -​1.81 1.407 .084

Table 30.3 Paired t-​test of preference

Mean SD SE t df p

Cities –​Extensive -​3.229 1.950 .117 -​27.699 279 .000***

Cities –​ Semi-​intensive -​3.404 1.712 .102 -​33.274 279 .000***
Cities –​Intensive -​3.025 1.881 .112 -​26.915 279 .000***
Cities –​Parks -​2.739 1.857 .111 -​24.685 279 .000***
Parks –​Extensive -​.489 1.708 .102 -​4.793 279 .000***
Parks –​ Semi-​intensive -​.664 1.405 .084 -​7.914 279 .000***
Parks –​Intensive -​.286 1.433 .086 -​3.336 279 .001**
Extensive –​ Semi-​intensive -​.175 1.660 .099 -​1.764 279 .079
Extensive –​Intensive .204 1.985 .119 1.716 279 .087
Semi-​intensive –​ Intensive .379 1.275 .076 4.967 279 .000***

***p < .001 **p < .01 *p < .05

Table 30.4 One sample test of Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS)

N Mean Standard deviation Standard error

Extensive roof gardens 1960 1.21 1.610 .036

Semi-​intensive roof gardens 1960 1.30 1.372 .031
Intensive roof gardens 1960 .97 1.668 .038
Urban parks 1960 .90 1.575 .036
Cities 1960 -​1.71 1.503 .034

Results and Discussion

Results indicated that the semi-​intensive roof garden was identified as the most preferred and
restorative, followed by the extensive roof garden, the intensive roof garden, and the park. The
city street, on the other hand, was recognized as a non-​preferred and non-​restorative place
(see Tables 30.2 and 30.4). Results from paired t-​tests also showed that roof gardens, regard-
less of their type, are significantly more preferred and restorative compared to cities and urban
parks (see Table 30.3 and 30.5). Among the three types of roof gardens, the semi-​intensive type
was identified as the most preferred (M = 1.59, SD = .96), and semi-​intensive (M = 1.30,
SD = 1.37) and extensive (M = 1.21, SD = 1.61) were the most restorative. In this study, the
psychological benefits of roof gardens were identified by observing the restorative potential of
roof gardens.

418
 Alternative urban green spaces

Table 30.5 Paired t-​test of Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS)

Mean SD SE t df p

Cities –​Extensive -​2.922 2.052 .046 -​63.054 1959 .000***

Cities –​ Semi-​intensive -​3.015 1.962 .044 -​68.039 1959 .000***
Cities –​Intensive -​2.678 2.213 .048 -​55.852 1959 .000***
Cities –​Parks -​2.613 1.984 .045 -​58.302 1959 .000***
Parks –​Extensive -​.310 1.811 .041 -​7.570 1959 .000***
Parks –​ Semi-​intensive -​.402 1.596 .036 -​11.151 1959 .000***
Parks –​Intensive -​.065 1.590 .036 -​1.818 1959 .069
Extensive –​ Semi-​intensive .092 1.768 .040 -​2.313 1959 .021
Extensive –​Intensive .244 1.999 .045 5.411 1959 .000***
Semi-​intensive –​ Intensive .337 1.484 .034 10.049 1959 .000***

***p < .001 **p < .01 *p < .05

Restorative and non-​restorative landscape factors

The second study used a descriptive survey to identify the restorative and non-​restorative factors
of roof gardens, urban parks, and city streets. In this study, restorative and non-​restorative factors refer
to landscape factors that positively and negatively affect the restorative quality of environments,
respectively.

Methods
A total of 38 participants was recruited among the participants in the first study. Multiple choice
and open-​ended questions were sent via email to inquire into the restorative and non-​restorative
factors in each landscape type (roof garden, urban park, and city street). While taking the survey,
participants were allowed to refer to the photographs used in the first study.

Results and Discussion

The results of the study were that participants identified trees, grass, sky, bodies of water,
benches, and flowers as the restorative elements in roof gardens, urban parks, and city streets
(see Table 30.6). These results are consistent with Kaplan’s (1992) Attention Restoration Theory
(ART). According to ART, nature and natural phenomena (e.g. vegetation, sunset, falling leaves,
and snow) are restorative. Furthermore, according to ART, because aesthetically pleasing natural
phenomena attract people’s attention with ease, they do not require much effort for concentra-
tion. This type of attention is referred to as involuntary attention, and the objects that induce such
involuntary attention are soft fascination. Therefore, people get restoration when they are exposed
to environments with rich soft fascination which requires minimal effort for concentration and
facilitates recovery from mental fatigue.
With regard to non-​restorative elements, similar elements throughout the three types of
environments were selected by the participants in general (see Table 30.7). While advertisement
banners and buildings were selected the most as non-​restorative factors in roof gardens and urban
parks, cars were selected the most in city environments. This result can be explained by the fact
that people are relatively free from the pollution and noise emitted by automobiles and traffic
congestion in roof gardens and urban parks compared to city streets. People was also selected as
one of the non-​restorative elements throughout the settings. However, this finding should be

419
Narae Lee

Table 30.6 Selected restorative factors in cities, roof gardens, and urban parks

Total Number of Response (Response Rate)

Cities Tree Grass Sky Water Flower Bench

32 (24.24) 22 (16.67) 22 (16.67) 20 (15.15) 19 (14.39) 17 (12.88)

Roof gardens Grass Bench Tree Flower Sky Water

25 (19.08) 25 (19.08) 23 (17.56) 23 (17.56) 23 (17.56) 12 (9.16)

Urban parks Tree Grass Flower Water Bench Sky

36 (22.22) 29 (17.9) 27 (16.67) 26 (16.05) 22 (13.58) 22 (13.58)

Table 30.7 Selected non-​restorative components in cities, roof gardens, and urban parks

Total number of response (response rate)

Cities Car Advertisement People Street sign Building

Banner
32 (24.24) 22 (16.67) 22 (16.67) 20 (15.15) 19 (14.39)

Roof gardens Building Advertisement People Street sign

Banner
24 (33.33) 23 (31.94) 9 (12.5) 7 (9.72)

Urban parks Advertisement Building People Car Street sign

Banner
26 (28.26) 20 (21.74) 17 (18.48) 16 (17.39) 8 (8.7)

carefully interpreted. Nordh et al. (2009) argued that people in parks have a restorative role and
this may be tied to an increase in perceived safety. Therefore, people, as a non-​restorative element
of environments, implies a crowdedness that hinders comfort in one’s activities.

Attention and restorative quality

Attention can be associated with eye movement (Deubel and Schneider 1996). An environment
with ample attractive and restorative factors facilitates recovery from mental fatigue. The elem-
ents with soft fascination will naturally captivate one’s attention when resting in the place, which,
in turn, brings about restoration. On the other hand, non-​restorative environments will not be
helpful for decreasing mental fatigue given that such environments lack interesting objects, and
only unpleasing landscape features will be seen. Therefore, what people see in the environment
may be able to explain how much the environment is restorative. Therefore, the third study
analyzed how the restorative quality of the environment can be explained by where individuals
look; the restorative quality will be high if their involuntary attention is attracted more on the
restorative landscape elements. Eye movements were measured using a low-​cost eye-​tracker while
study participants looked at photos of three different settings: roof gardens, urban parks, and city
streets.

Methods
The experiment was conducted in a laboratory in Seoul National University from January to
February 2013. Ten participants were recruited to the laboratory (six females and four males),

420
 Alternative urban green spaces

Table 30.8 Materials of the low-​cost eye-​tracker

Materials Quantity

Webcam Microsoft LifeCam VX-​6000 1

Safety glasses 1
Negative film 8cm
Aluminum wire (diameter 0.5 mm) -​
Mounting strips 2.4 mm x 100 mm -​
IR LED 4
Masking Tape -​

ranging in age from 23 to 39. Participants were recruited from those who participated in the first
study through a convenient sampling. The participants satisfied the sight measurement score of
over 1.0 (including people who wear contact lenses).
This study used photo simulation. Three photographs of roof gardens, urban parks, and city
streets, respectively, were selected among the 20 photographs used in the first study. Therefore,
a total of nine photographs were selected for the third study. For roof gardens and urban parks,
three photographs that were identified as the most restorative in the first study were selected.
Given that city streets were identified as non-​restorative in the first study, three photographs of
city streets that received the lowest scores were selected. As such, we can see whether involuntary
attention varies according to the restorative quality of environments.
To measure involuntary attention, a low-​cost eye-​tracking system was manufactured by refer-
ring to Kowalik and Mantiuk (2011)’s study. Table 30.8 shows a list of the materials used to
make the low-​cost eye-​tracking system in this study. The reliability of the low-​cost eye-​tracker
has been established by previous studies (Kowalik and Mantiuk 2011; Mantiuk et al. 2012).
This study used two software packages: (1) ITU Gaze Tracker v2.0b was used to capture eye
movement; and (2) Open Gaze and Mouse Analyzer (OGAMA) 4.2 was used to analyze the
captured data. OGAMA provides different modules to analyze gaze data, and this study utilized
the Attention Map and Scan Path modules. This study defined fixation as a gaze with at least 200
milliseconds within an omnidirectional 50 pixels area to obtain only meaningful gaze data.
The laboratory was equipped with a computer and the low-​cost eye-​tracker. The invited
participants took part in the experiment individually. The selected nine photographs were shown
consecutively with PowerPoint slides. Eye movement was measured for every photograph while
the participants were wearing the eye-​tracking system. Participants were asked to observe the
photos with an assumption that “they are resting at these places during their break from work”.
Each photo was shown for 20 seconds, and calibration was conducted prior to every measurement.
In the course of the experiment, participants fixed their head around 75 centimeters from the
monitor (with no head movement).

Results and Discussion

To analyze the viewing patterns of participants, we relied on two modules: Attention Map and
Scan Path modules. The Attention Map module, which shows color changes from purple to red
as attentional intensity (i.e. frequency and duration) increases, was used to display view pattern in
environments by aggregating every participants’ view patterns together. The Scan Path module,
which shows viewing patterns with circles and lines, was used to show individual results: (1) circles
refer to the point where visual attention is achieved, and its size increases in accordance with atten-
tional intensity; and (2) lines show paths of eye movement, and their direction shifts at every circle.

421
Narae Lee

Figure 30.4a Scanpath of one of the participants in the roof garden

Source: Tong-​Mahn Ahn, 2012d

Figure 30.4b Scanpath of one of the participants in the roof garden

Source: Korea Urban Forestation Co., Ltd, 2009

Roof Gardens
For roof gardens, much attention was concentrated on landscape furniture, such as per-
gola and benches (see Figures 30.4 and 30.5). In addition, viewing patterns tended to scan
through trees, grass, flowers, and vegetation planted along the edges of the roof gardens.
Although a small portion of participants’ attention focused on the sky and buildings out-
side of the roof gardens, objects within the roof gardens (i.e. plants, landscape furniture, and
people) received most of their attention. This result shows that most attention is focused
on the objects inside the roof gardens; this is similar to Nordh et al.’s (2009) finding that
people tend to focus on the inner parts of urban parks surrounded by vegetation rather than

422
 Alternative urban green spaces

Figure 30.5a View pattern in the roof garden by aggregating all participants’ view patterns
Source: Tong-​Mahn Ahn, 2012e

Figure 30.5b View pattern in the roof garden by aggregating all participants’ view patterns
Source: Korea Urban Forestation Co., Ltd, 2009

on the objects outside of them. This suggests that roof gardens provide a restorative climate
for people by preventing their attention from being diffused to non-​restorative elements
outside of the roof gardens. Concerning the elements within the roof gardens, people, as an
object within the photographs, tended to receive high attention; this mirrors the experi-
mental results of Nordh et al. (2009) and De Lucio et al. (1996), which showed that people
are an element of environments that usually draws much attention. Hence, this attentional
characteristic needs careful interpretation, and it will be discussed in the final discussion
section. Lastly, this study found that most of participants’ attention concentrated on objects
with soft fascination in the roof gardens.

423
Narae Lee

Figure 30.6a Scanpath of one of the participants in the park

Source: Author

Figure 30.6b View pattern in the park by aggregating all participants’ view patterns
Source: Author

Parks
The results indicated that although some attention did reach outside the parks, the better part
of participants’ attention focused on plants, grass, and landscape furniture such as benches and
pergolas, which is consistent with results from Nordh et al. (2009)’s study as mentioned earlier
(see Figures 30.6a and 30.6b). Thus, we also found participants focused attention on the objects
with soft fascination in the urban parks.

424
 Alternative urban green spaces

Figure 30.7a Scanpath of one of the participants in the city street

Source: Author

Figure 30.7b View pattern in the city street by aggregating all participants’ view patterns
Source: Author

Cities
For cities, most of participants’ attention concentrated on outdoor signs, cars, pedestrians,
and street signs, which were all identified as non-​restorative elements in the first study (see
Figures 30.7a and 30.7b). Although trees attracted some of participants’ attention, the degree of
attention on trees was not significant compared to the attention on non-​restorative components.
The fact that much of the participants’ attention was fixated on non-​restorative elements, though
they were instructed to assume that their intention is to rest in the settings, suggesting that it

425
Narae Lee

requires relatively much more effort to maintain one’s attention on restorative components in
city environments compared to roof gardens and urban parks.

The restorative quality of roof gardens

The results throughout this three-​part study indicate that properly designed and well-​managed
roof gardens can be restorative and are comparable to urban parks. This study found that roof
gardens’ restorative quality can be similar to or even higher than that of urban parks; the semi-​
intensive roof gardens were found to be more restorative than, and preferred over, the urban
parks. However, these results need to be interpreted carefully, given that the results can vary
according to the setting selection. In addition, the selected photos cannot represent all different
types of roof gardens, urban parks, and city streets. In spite of this limitation, this study found
evidence for roof gardens’ potential as a new type of urban green space that can be comparable
to urban parks.
Moreover, the study that used the low-​cost eye-​tracker found that participants concentrated
their attention on the inner part of the roof gardens and on the restorative landscape elements
in them. These findings are similar to what we found from results on the urban parks. For the
city landscapes, however, the restorative elements attracted relatively less attention.These findings
are consistent with Attention Restoration Theory (ART); people keep their attention on the
restorative elements in urban parks and roof gardens without much effort, but their attention
diffused to various non-​restorative components in city streets. In addition, the relatively small
number of restorative elements in city streets compared to urban parks and roof gardens may also
explain the low attention on the restorative elements.
As mentioned earlier, we need to carefully interpret the finding on the focused attention on
people given that a certain number of people can provide a sense of safety and comfort (Nordh
et al. 2009).The selected photographs of roof gardens do not include crowds; rather, they include
only a few people. As such, the focused attention on people may also explain the restorative
quality of the environment.

The use of roof gardens to enhance urban resilience

Throughout the study, we found that roof gardens operate as alternatives to urban parks, espe-
cially for people who lack access to green spaces in their daily lives. Roof gardens can be used
to expand urban green spaces and improve accessibility to them. They enable more people to
enjoy emotional benefits such as reduction of mental fatigue, emotional stability, and increased
self-​control that green spaces provide. Furthermore, this study suggests that roof gardens can
contribute to urban resilience given that more people will benefit psychologically by increased
interaction with the natural environment. In addition, the expanded opportunity to access
green spaces may enhance social ties by stimulating frequent interaction between neighbors or
colleagues.
Given that the restorative quality of roof gardens can vary according to their design, however,
further study is necessary to identify the aspects of roof gardens that enhance their restorative
quality. In addition, this study did not consider the diverse backgrounds of the participants, such
as socio-​economic status and living environment. As a result, these aspects need to be considered
in order to prevent possible biases from the missing information. Lastly, this study does not
suggest that roof gardens should replace urban green spaces such as open green spaces and
urban parks. Roof gardens are used for limited purposes such as resting and gardening, and only
people who live or work in the buildings equipped with roof gardens have easier access to them.

426
 Alternative urban green spaces

It follows that roof gardens should be used as an ancillary way to expand green space in areas
with a scarcity of land to build more urban parks. In other words, city planners should maintain
their efforts in expanding urban parks; but, at the same time, they should maximize the utility
of roof gardens by installing them in areas lacking parks and where they are easily accessible by
the public (Ahn 2011).

References
Ahn, T.M. (2011). (ed.) Green roofs in Seoul to make the metropolis healthier: A critical discussion.
Proceedings from 4th Healthy Cities: Making Cities Liveable Conference. Noosa: AST Management
Pty Ltd.
Ahn, T.M. (2012a). Extensive roof garden, Utilized with permission from author through personal
communication.
Ahn, T.M. (2012b). Intensive roof garden, Utilized with permission from author through personal
communication.
Ahn, T.M. (2012c). Scanpath of a single participant in roof garden, Utilized with permission from author
through personal communication.
Ahn, T.M. (2012d). Semi-intensive roof garden, Utilized with permission from author through personal
communication.
Ahn, T.M. (2012e). View pattern of all participants in roof garden, Utilized with permission from author
through personal communication.
Alcock, I., White, M.P., Wheeler, B.W., Fleming, L.E., and Depledge, M.H. (2014). Longitudinal effects on
mental health of moving to greener and less green urban areas. Environmental Science & Technology.
48(2): 1247–​1255. https://​doi.org/​10.1021/​es403688w.
Anguluri, R. and Narayanan, P. (2017). Role of green space in urban planning: Outlook towards smart cities.
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. 25: 58–​65. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ufug.2017.04.007.
Annerstedt, M. and Währborg, P. (2011). Nature-​assisted therapy: Systematic review of controlled and
observational studies. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 39(4): 371–​388. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​
1403494810396400.
Berry, H.L., Bowen, K., and Kjellstrom, T. (2010). Climate change and mental health: a causal pathways
framework. International Journal of Public Health. 55(2): 123–​ 132. https://​doi.org/​
10.1007/​
s00038-​009-​0112-​0.
Choi, J.S. (2018). 2018년 옥상녹화 텃밭 조성사업 추진계획. Seoul, South Korea: Parks & Landscape
Policy Division. https://​opengov.seoul.go.kr/​sanction/​14495449?fileIdx=2#pdfview.
Clark, C., Adriaens, P., and Talbot, F.B. (2008). Green roof valuation: A probabilistic economic analysis
of environmental benefits. Environmental Science & Technology. 42(6): 2155–​2161. https://​doi.org/​
10.1021/​es0706652.
Cohn, E.G., Rotton, J., Peterson, A.G., and Tarr, D.B. (2004). Temperature, city size, and the southern sub-
culture of violence: Support for Social Escape/​Avoidance (SEA) Theory1. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology. 34(8): 1652–​1674. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1559–​1816.2004.tb02792.x.
Dai, D. (2011). Racial/​ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in urban green space accessibility: Where
to intervene? Landscape and Urban Planning. 102(4): 234–​ 244. https://​ doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.landurbplan.2011.05.002.
De Lucio, J.V., Mohamadian, M., Ruiz, J.P., Banayas, J., and Bernaldez, F.G. (1996).Visual landscape explor-
ation as revealed by eye movement tracking. Landscape and Urban Planning. 34(2): 135–​142. https://​
doi.org/​10.1016/​0169-​2046(95)00208-​1.
Deubel, H. and Schneider, W.X. (1996). Saccade target selection and object recognition: Evidence for
a common attentional mechanism. Vision Research. 36(12): 1827–​ 1837. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
0042-​6989(95)00294-​4.
Dvorak, B. and Volder, A. (2010). Green roof vegetation for North American ecoregions: A literature review.
Landscape and Urban Planning. 96(4): 197–​213. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2010.04.009.
Farmer, P. (2014). Ecotherapy for mental health. Journal of Holistic Healthcare. 11(1).
Galea, S., Brewin, C.R., Gruber, M., Jones, R.T., King, D.W., King, L.A., McNally, R.J., Ursano, R.J.,
Petukhova, M., Kessler, R.C. (2007). Exposure to hurricane-​ related stressors and mental illness
after Hurricane Katrina. Archives of General Psychiatry. 64(12): 1427. https://​ doi.org/​10.1001/​
archpsyc.64.12.1427.

427
Narae Lee

Gelkopf, M., Hasson-​Ohayon, I., Bikman, M., and Kravetz, S. (2013). Nature adventure rehabilitation for
combat-​related posttraumatic chronic stress disorder: A randomized control trial. Psychiatry Research.
209(3): 485–​493. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.psychres.2013.01.026.
Gill, S.E., Handley, J.F., Ennos, A.R., and Pauleit, S. (2007). Adapting cities for climate change: The role of
the green infrastructure. Built Environment. 33(1): 115–​133. https://​doi.org/​10.2148/​benv.33.1.115.
Grahn, P. and Stigsdotter, U.K. (2010). The relation between perceived sensory dimensions of urban green
space and stress restoration. Landscape and Urban Planning. 94(3–​4): 264–​275. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.landurbplan.2009.10.012.
Gregoire, B.G. and Clausen, J.C. (2011). Effect of a modular extensive green roof on stormwater runoff and
water quality. Ecological Engineering. 37(6): 963–​969. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.ecoleng.2011.02.004.
Hartig, T., Korpela, K., Evans, G.W., and Gärling, T. (1996). Validation of a Measure of Perceived
Environmental Restorativeness. Göteborg: University of Göteborg, Department of Psychology.
Hartig, T., Evans, G.W., Jamner, L.D., Davis, D.S., and Gärling, T. (2003). Tracking restoration in natural and
urban field settings. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 23(2): 109–​123. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
S0272-​4944(02)00109-​3.
Heynen, N., Perkins, H.A., and Roy, P. (2006). The political ecology of uneven urban green space: The
impact of political economy on race and ethnicity in producing environmental inequality in Milwaukee.
Urban Affairs Review. 42(1): 3–​25. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​1078087406290729.
Kaplan, S. (1992). The restorative environment: Nature and human experience. The Role of Horticulture
in Human Well-​Being and Social Development, 134–​142. Portland, OR: Timber
Kim, J.H., Yang, J., and Yoon, Y.H. (2013). Psychological Relaxation Effects of User Based upon the Types
of Rooftop Garden. Journal of Environmental Science International. 22(4), 435–​442. https://​doi.org/​
10.5322/​JESI.2013.22.4.435
Korea Urban Forestation Co., Ltd. (2009). www.biotope.co.kr/example/example_view.asp?page=1​
&idx=242
Kokai, M., Fujii, S., Shinfuku, N., and Edwards, G. (2004). Natural disaster and mental health in Asia. Psychiatry
and Clinical Neurosciences. 58(2), 110–​116. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1440-​1819.2003.01203.x
Kowalik, M. and Mantiuk, S.R. (2011). Do-​it-​yourself eye tracker: impact of the viewing angle on the eye
tracking accuracy. Proceedings of CESCG, 1–​7.
Kumar, R. and Kaushik, S.C. (2005). Performance evaluation of green roof and shading for thermal
protection of buildings. Building and Environment. 40(11): 1505–​ 1511. https://​
doi.org/​ 10.1016/​
j.buildenv.2004.11.015.
Kuo, F.E., Bacaicoa, M., and Sullivan,W.C. (1998).Transforming inner-​city landscapes: Trees, sense of safety,
and preference. Environment and Behavior. 30(1): 28–​59. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​0013916598301002.
Maas, J., Verheij, R.A., de Vries, S., Spreeuwenberg, P., Schellevis, F.G., and Groenewegen, P.P. (2009).
Morbidity is related to a green living environment. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
63(12): 967–​973. https://​doi.org/​10.1136/​jech.2008.079038.
Maes, M., Meyer, F., Thompson, P., Peeters, D., and Cosyns, P. (1994). Synchronized annual rhythms in
violent suicide rate, ambient temperature and the light-​dark span. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica.
90(5): 391–​396. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1600-​0447.1994.tb01612.x.
Mantiuk, R., Kowalik, M., Nowosielski, A., and Bazyluk, B. (2012). Do-​it-​yourself eye tracker: Low-​cost
pupil-​based eye tracker for computer graphics applications. In: Advances in Multimedia Modeling.
Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 115–​125. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​978-​3-​642-​27355-​1_​13.
Milton, M. and Corbett, L. (2011). Ecopsychology: A perspective on trauma. European Journal of
Ecopsychology. 2: 28–​47.
Moore, M., Gould, P., and Keary, B.S. (2003). Global urbanization and impact on health. International Journal
of Hygiene and Environmental Health. 206(4): 269–​278. https://​doi.org/​10.1078/​1438-​4639-​00223.
Mueser, K.T., Rosenberg, S.D., Goodman, L.A., and Trumbetta, S.L. (2002). Trauma, PTSD, and the course
of severe mental illness: an interactive model. Schizophrenia Research. 53(1–​2): 123–​143. https://​doi.
org/​10.1016/​S0920-​9964(01)00173-​6.
Nordh, H., Hartig,T., Hagerhall, C.M., and Fry, G. (2009). Components of small urban parks that predict the
possibility for restoration. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. 8(4): 225–​235. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.ufug.2009.06.003.
Nutsford, D., Pearson, A.L., and Kingham, S. (2013). An ecological study investigating the association
between access to urban green space and mental health. Public Health. 127(11): 1005–​1011. https://​
doi.org/​10.1016/​j.puhe.2013.08.016.

428
 Alternative urban green spaces

Oh, K. and Jeong, S. (2007). Assessing the spatial distribution of urban parks using GIS. Landscape and
Urban Planning. 82(1): 25–​32. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2007.01.014.
Poulsen, D., Stigsdotter, U., and Davidsen, A. (2018). “That guy, is he really sick at all?” An analysis of how
veterans with PTSD experience nature-​based therapy. Healthcare. 6(2): 64. https://​doi.org/​10.3390/​
healthcare6020064.
Seoul Institute (2015). Population Household Housing. https://​seoulsolution.kr/​ko/​seoul-​and-​world-​cities.
Seoul Metropolitan Government (2013). Green Roof System Architectural Graphic Standards. http://​
news.seoul.go.kr/​env/​material_​main#view/​102?tr_​code=m_​sweb.
Susca,T., Gaffin, S.R., and Dell’Osso, G.R. (2011). Positive effects of vegetation: Urban heat island and green
roofs. Environmental Pollution. 159(8): 2119–​2126. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.envpol.2011.03.007.
Tong-Mahn Ahn (2012a to 2012e), Images provided to author through personal communication.
Tristan, J. and Nguyen-​Hong-​Nhiem, L. (1989). Horticultural therapy and Asian refugee resettlement.
Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture. 4: 15–​20.
Ulrich, R.S., Simons, R.F., Losito, B.D., Fiorito, E., Miles, M.A., and Zelson, M. (1991). Stress recovery
during exposure to natural and urban environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 11(3): 201–​
230. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​S0272-​4944(05)80184–​7.
van den Berg, A.E., Maas, J.,Verheij, R.A., and Groenewegen, P.P. (2010). Green space as a buffer between
stressful life events and health. Social Science & Medicine. 70(8): 1203–​1210. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.socscimed.2010.01.002.
van den Berg, M., van Poppel, M., van Kamp, I., Andrusaityte, S., Balseviciene, B., Cirach, M., Danileviciute,
A., Ellis, N., Hurst, G., Masterson, D., Smith, G., Triguero-​Mas, M., Uzdanaviciute, I., de Wit, P., van
Mechelen,W., Gidlow, C., Grazuleviciene, R., Nieuwenhuijsen, M.J., Kruize, H., Maas, J. (2016).Visiting
green space is associated with mental health and vitality: A cross-​sectional study in four european cities.
Health & Place. 38: 8–​15. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.healthplace.2016.01.003.
VanWoert, N.D. (2005). Green roof stormwater retention. Journal of Environmental Quality. 34(3): 1036–​
1044. https://​doi.org/​10.2134/​jeq2004.0364.
Varning Poulsen, D. (2017). Nature-​based therapy as a treatment for veterans with PTSD: what do we
know? Journal of Public Mental Health. 16(1): 15–​20. https://​doi.org/​10.1108/​JPMH-​08-​2016-​0039.
Wolch, J.R., Byrne, J., and Newell, J.P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and environmental
justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough.’ Landscape and Urban Planning. 125: 234–​
244. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.landurbplan.2014.01.017.
Wong, N.H., Cheong, D.K. W.,Yan, H., Soh, J., Ong, C.L., and Sia, A. (2003). The effects of rooftop garden
on energy consumption of a commercial building in Singapore. Energy and Buildings. 35(4): 353–​364.
https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​S0378-​7788(02)00108-​1.
Zhou, X. and Kim, J. (2013). Social disparities in tree canopy and park accessibility: A case study of six cities
in Illinois using GIS and remote sensing. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. 12(1): 88–​97. https://​doi.
org/​10.1016/​j.ufug.2012.11.004.

429
 31
Resilience through
nature-​based solutions
Governance and implementation

Bernadett Kiss, Kes McCormick, and Christine Wamsler

Nature-​based solutions as a means to build urban resilience?

In recent years, nature-​based solutions (NBS) have received increasing attention as a way to
enhance urban resilience by addressing the multifaceted challenges facing cities (European
Commission 2018a; Kabisch et al. 2016; Nature Editorials 2017; Nesshöver et al. 2017; Wamsler
et al. 2017). NBS are defined as deliberate interventions seeking to capture and use the distinct
properties of natural systems to address urban challenges while simultaneously providing envir-
onmental, economic, and social benefits when building resilience (European Commission 2015;
Naturvation 2018a).
NBS are said to respond to a range of urban challenges, from extreme hazard events and
climate variability to public health and social inequality issues. In turn, a lack of green and
blue infrastructure can result in the increase of disaster and climate risk, as well as an unequal
distribution and access to recreation, resources, and job opportunities, which impedes social
integration (Anguelovski 2013; Haase et al. 2017; Jennings et al. 2012; Kabisch and Dagmar
2014; Wamsler 2014; Wolch et al. 2014). Urban growth, accompanied with the expansion of
hard impermeable surfaces increases, for instance, flood risk. Dense built areas and the lack
of vegetation also exacerbate the urban heat island effect and decrease urban livability. In
addition, weak policy environments are often unable to enforce sustainable urban planning
principles and investments in green or blue infrastructure development (Wamsler 2014; Zölch
et al. 2018).
NBS are often presented as alternatives or complements to grey infrastructure in disaster risk
reduction and climate change adaptation (European Commission 2018b; Wamsler et al. 2017).
They can help reduce all risk factors (i.e. hazard exposure, vulnerability, response, and recovery
capacity) throughout the disaster cycle (Demuzere et al. 2014; Kabisch et al. 2016; Wamsler
et al. 2017). Beach nourishment, the restoration of mangroves, green embankments or retential
walls, and improved water management in the outskirts of cities have demonstrated good per-
formance as hazard exposure reduction measures. The creation of retention ponds, green roofs
or urban gardens within cities can help reduce vulnerability in flood-​prone areas. Mobile plant
systems deployed during heat waves are an example of effective response preparedness, and green

430
 Nature-based solutions

infrastructure elements that can be easily recovered or replaced can be used as recovery prepared-
ness measures with multiple benefits, especially when combined with socio-​economic measures
(Wamsler et al. 2017). There is also evidence that NBS can be designed to enhance biodiversity
and improve environmental quality, while contributing to economic activities and supporting
social wellbeing (e.g. Kabisch et al. 2016; Nesshöver et al. 2017).
Despite the recognized potential benefits of NBS, its use still remains limited, partly due
to a scarce and fragmented knowledge base around adequate governance and implementation
(Droste et al. 2017; Kabisch et al. 2016; O’Donnell et al. 2017). Accordingly, the local imple-
mentation of resilience-​boosting NBS interventions still faces challenges and it is only slowly
being integrated into conventional governance and urban planning practices (Brink et al. 2016;
Wamsler and Pauleit 2016). Case studies on NBS governance practices are scarce, hindering
local government capacity to understand and apply learnings on potential institutional settings,
including partnerships and functioning financial arrangements for enhanced urban resilience. To
better understand the local implementation of NBS in urban planning, it is important to iden-
tify and investigate successful governance practices, public participation schemes and financial
approaches, enabling or limiting the development and implementation of NBS interventions in
cities.
Against this background, in this chapter we present case studies on how selected NBS have
been implemented in Malmö (Sweden), Melbourne (Australia), and Munich (Germany). Each
of these cities has enhanced urban resilience through NBS to overcome some of the most preva-
lent urban sustainability challenges they face. These include densification, sparse or unevenly
distributed green areas, weak social integration, lack of biodiversity, and more frequent extreme
weather (heavy rainfall and heat waves) and its consequences, like flooding and drought. These
challenges are closely interlinked with and often undermine the quality of health and wellbeing
of citizens, with particular impact on marginalized groups. Hence, the specific aim of this chapter
is to provide examples of the implementation of NBS through co-​governance practices that
involve citizens under innovative institutional arrangements.

Case Study Methodology and the Cases

Case study methodology was used to analyze the three examples between 2017–​2018, including
a literature review, a total of 60 interviews and site visits, including walk-​through analyses and
group discussions. The focus of the analysis was on investigating current governance practices,
including (1) actors and institutional arrangements, (2) supporting policies, (3) partnerships and
public participation, and (4) financial schemes, as well as the underlying conditions facilitating
the emergence and mainstreaming of nature-​based innovations. The results section is structured
in accordance to these four factors.
The case studies were selected for investigation because the cities are part of the urban
resilience definition and the 12 key drivers of the urban resilience framework developed by
the Rockefeller Foundation and Arup (Rockefeller Foundation and Arup 2015).1 The cases
have undergone a rigorous assessment based on the Naturvation project case study approach.2
The three cases of Augustenborg (Malmö), Urban Forest Strategy (Melbourne), and Isar Plan
(Munich) are innovative examples of urban resilience building through novel NBS governance
in urban planning at local and institutional levels that can provide relevant lessons for other
contexts. A detailed description of the three cases is included in Boxes 31.1–​31.3.

431
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

Box 31.1 Open Storm Water Management System in Augustenborg

EcoCity in Malmö

Augustenborg EcoCity is considered a successful residential urban redevelopment addressing

sustainability challenges through nature-​based solutions while building social and climate resili-
ence. Augustenborg was built in the 1950s to provide housing for working class people and
immigrants. From the 1980s, the area was struck by social and environmental problems, including
damp, increasing flooding due to weather extremes and design flaws in the built fabric. Many
flats became empty as people moved away and the remaining tenants suffered from unemploy-
ment and growing marginalization. As a response, in 1998 the District Administration of Malmö
City, in collaboration with MKB (a housing company owning 90 per cent of the properties in
Augustenborg), leading personalities involved with or in the area, along with local residents
initiated an urban renewal project. The municipal waterworks was responsible for the technical
implementation, while water expert residents voluntarily contributed to the design of the system.
Project measures included a new open stormwater management system (see Figure 31.1) in
which water from rooftops and other impervious surfaces is collected and channelled through a
total of 6 kilometer canals, ditches, ten retention ponds and wetlands –​only the surplus entering
a conventional closed sewer system (Naturvation 2018b, Stahre and Geldof 2003). The renewal
included the improvement of green spaces, which can temporarily be flooded to slow the entry
of rainwater into the stormwater system, which normally can be used for leisure activities and
small-​scale food production. In addition, green roofs have been installed on all developments built
after 1998, and retrofitted on almost 10,000 m2 of an existing building –​the Scandinavian Green
Roof Institute. These intercept on average half of the total rainwater runoff and have a signifi-
cant cooling effect in the summer (Wamsler 2014). The main financial sources of Augustenborg
EcoCity project (1998–​2002) include governmental grants (SEK 24 millio), EU LIFE fund (SEK
6 million), MKB (SEK 100 million), and local authorities, mainly Malmö City (SEK 70 million). The
open stormwater management system was financed by Malmö City Waterworks (SEK 35 million)
and the green roofs by the Environmental Department at Malmö City (SEK 4 million) (Naturvation
2018b). Today Augustenborg has become an attractive, multicultural neighborhood in which
the turnover of tenancies has decreased by almost 20 per cent and the environmental impact
has decreased to a similar degree (Ekostaden Augustenborg 2017). Problems with flooding have
ceased and, through community activities, social integration has increased and the image of the
area has significantly improved. Since the renewal, Augustenborg’s climate resilience was put to
the test during a few storm events (2007, 2010, 2014) and it coped much better than the nearby
districts (Wamsler 2014).

432
 Nature-based solutions

Figure 31.1 Components of the open stormwater system in Augustenborg

Photo credit: Bernadett Kiss, 2017

Box 31.2 The Urban Forest Strategy for a Socially and

Environmentally Resilient Melbourne

The Urban Forest Strategy (UFS), as a central part of an innovative policy framework, is a response
to longstanding climate extremes and increasing community concerns about unhealthy trees in
the City of Melbourne. The strategy’s main aims are to adapt the city to climate change, miti-
gate the urban heat island effect, create healthier ecosystems, become a water-​sensitive city,
and engage the community in these endeavors (Oke, C. Councilor, City of Melbourne. Personal
Communication 2017). The UFS also seeks to protect against future vulnerability focusing on
community wellbeing and urban landscape resilience (Gulsrud et al. 2018, p. 162.). The Urban
Landscapes Department of the City of Melbourne is responsible for its implementation. The main
physical measures include tree planting in public spaces in combination with grey structures,
permeable surfaces, and underground water tanks (see Figure 31.2). Accordingly, the strategy
supports activities related to tree planting, management, and care through municipally employed
urban foresters, citizens’ training and involvment in green streetscape design and implementa-
tion through different means of public participation. These activities are either financed through
separate budget posts or as a part of the annual plan and budget. The total costs allocated for
park renewal and tree planting is AUS$ 8.57 million (2017–​2018), while there is also dedicated
capital budget for managing urban forest health and a minor operational budget to support the

433
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

Figure 31.2 Fitzroy Gardens in the City of Melbourne

Photo credit: Kes McCormick, 2017

team of six urban foresters who directly implement the outcomes of the strategy (Council Liaison
Officer, Email Communication 2018). Separate budget post have been created for planting 3,000
trees/​year (Capital Tree Planting Program, AUS$ 1.569 million in 2017–​2018). In the time since
the strategy was published, many of the priority actions have been implemented, reflecting the
provision of significant funding and resources, the high profile of the strategy within and beyond
council, and the “championing” of the strategy by both policymakers and councilors, as well as
community members (Bush 2017). The strategy has received widespread support from citizens
including a vote of confidence to secure council funding for the next ten years by the City of
Melbourne People’s Panel (CoM 2015).

Box 31.3 The Isar Plan for Urban Resilience to Flooding in Munich

The Isar Plan, as the basis for the restoration of the Isar river, provides an excellent example of
how diverse organizations and citizens can work together for agreed multibeneficial outcomes,
such as the recovery of a close-​to-​nature riverside with improved ecological and water quality,
which also provides recreational areas for the community as well as exceptional flood manage-
ment solutions (Wamsler and Pauliet 2016; WSC 2012). Since the 1800s, the Isar river has been
heavily used for different commercial activities, which strongly modified its riverscape resulting in

434
 Nature-based solutions

the loss of its natural character. Flood risk and legal requirements for flood protection necessitated
its redesign. In 1995, the Bavarian Regional Office for Water Management and the City of Munich
initiated the Isar Plan to restore the riverscape (Arzet and Joven, n.d.). The multidisciplinary
planning group included water engineers, landscape architects, city planners, and biologists from
a planning engineering office, the City Planning Department, the Construction Department, the
Environment and Health Department, and the Historical Monument Protection Office of the City
of Munich. The planning steps included meeting with citizen groups (e.g. through the Munich
Forum) and members of different NGOs, such as nature conservation, fishing and kayak groups,
which were represented by the Isar Alliance. The river restoration consisted of the combination
of green and grey measures and the area extended along an 8-​kilometer river corridor in the city.
The cost of the Isar Plan (2000–​2011) was €35 million, out of which €28 million was construction
and €7 million was the remediation of contaminated sites; the cost was shared between the Free
State of Bavaria (55 per cent) and the City of Munich (45 per cent). Physical measures included the
elevation of river dams, widening the riverbed into surrounding flood plains, raising and reinfor-
cing dikes, removing existing sediments and embankments, rebuilding riverbanks, installing small
gravel islands for slowing water flows, replacing in-​stream energy dissipation ground sills with
more natural rock ramps or slides with riffles and pools to allow better passage for fish and other
river organisms and thus to create more natural habitat (Oppermann 2005; Pauleit 2005; Pauleit
and Kollmann 2015; WSC 2012). As a result, the mostly concrete channeled riverbed received
more space to move and the river became able to reshape itself with its original natural features

Figure 31.3 The Isar River getting back its natural riverscape
Photo credit: Bernadett Kiss, 2018

435
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

(see Figure 31.2). The diverse riverscape became a major year-​round attraction for residents, who
actively contributed to its design and qualities, and a frequently visited site by professionals from
around the world, being used as a base case for multiple river restoration and flood protection and
management projects (Binder, Personal Communication 2014).

Insights into governance practices for nature-​based solutions

Across all three cases, the governance of NBS emerges as a complex phenomenon, involving
multiple social and political actors appearing in novel institutional arrangements to address urban
sustainability challenges. Integrated planning, knowledge sharing, and communication are often
critical components for these governance practices. The case studies also show that NBS imple-
mentation often requires governance practices that stretch the limits of the traditional institu-
tional and policy realm in the search for expanded citizen involvement, new partnerships, and
financial solutions.
All three cases hold features of reflexive governance practices, such as institutional change in
response to novel challenges (Beck et al. 1994), self-​critical reflections influencing policy practices
(Stirling 2006), and different modes of governance (e.g. learning-​ based, network, multilevel)
complementing classical administrative, economic, and informative policy mechanisms (Feindt
and Weiland 2018), as well as how these processes impede learning among different actors in
sustainability governance (Newig, et al. 2007;Voß et al. 2006).
In the case of Augustenborg EcoCity Malmö (Box 31.1), flexible learning-​ based co-​
governance approaches have been applied, where the potential of individuals and organizations
to tackle multiple sustainability challenges has been exploited, while breaking away from routines
that were no longer appropriate to the problem, and experimenting, adapting, and reviewing new
measures in a search for more resilient social-​ecological relations.These governance practices are
often realized through the formation of multidisciplinary groups, in which shared views are
developed both on the challenges and collective solutions.
These multidisciplinary groups started to form in the Malmö case in the 1990s, and today
have become a common practice in Malmö City. The recent NBS project groups tipically
include representatives from municipalities, regions, universities, research institutes, housing and
real estate companies, consultants, manufacturers, and contractors. The BiodiverCity project in
Malmö for increased biodiversity and wellbeing in the built fabric is another good example of
NBS for multidisciplinarity (Naturvation 2018b).
In the case of Melbourne, the Urban Forest Strategy (Box 31.2) is a component of the
city’s green governance, which stretches through all levels, from metropolitan areas and regional
ecosystems down to neighborhoods and individual development sites and works across admin-
istrative boundaries and disciplines within the municipality and beyond. The strategy and its
actions, such as tree planting, Urban Forest Visual and the E-​mail a Tree campaign are good
examples for research-​based policy actions. They are not only underpinned by a wide range
of academic research from the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia, but also rely on
different international urban forest and urban greening strategies (Bush 2017; CoM 2012). At
the same time, these policy actions seek to engage with the “federal, state and local governments,
leaseholders, champions and environmental sector leaders, research and educational institutions,
artists, industry forums, businesses, schools and developers”, in an effort to promote “the import-
ance of managing and enhancing urban ecology” across the city (CoM 2012, p. 56).

436
 Nature-based solutions

The third case, the Isar Plan in Munich, is another illustrative and ahead of its time NBS
example (Box 31.3). Its multidisciplinary and multiorganizational planning group integrated the
technical knowledge of water engineers, ecologists, architects, and urban planners to share the
different framings of different stakeholders interactively and negotiate them mutually to enhance
urban resilience. The restoration of natural river banks and the widening of its channel reduced
exposure to flood risk, the flood plains created buffer zones within the city that reduced vulner-
ability, and the water quality has been improved so that it is now possible to swim in the river.
Improved water quality was achieved by involving upstream municipalities in modernizing their
sewage treatment plants.
The co-​governance practices of the three case studies brought about more resilient solutions
in the respective cities, which is linked to (1) the involved actors and institutional arrangements,
(2) supporting policies, (3) partnerships and public participation, and (4) financial schemes, as
well as the underlying conditions facilitating related changes and innovations. These factors are
described in more detail in the following sub-​sections.

Actors and Institutional Arrangements

NBS interventions, dealing with various stakeholders, addressing multiple urban sustainability
challenges and carrying out innovative solutions, often require new complex institutional
arrangements, especially increasing sectoral and departmental collaboration in municipalities.
The Augustenborg EcoCity was one of the first sustainability projects in Sweden indicating the
need for stronger departmental collaboration, in this case between Fosie District Administration,
and the departments of City Planning, Environment, Streets and Parks, and the Waterworks
of Malmö City. “One important factor for a successful result was the trustful and prestige-​less
cooperation that gradually developed between the top management of the technical departments,
especially between the managers of Malmö Waterworks and the Streets and Parks Department”
(Stahre 2008, p. 3).
The Isar Plan in Munich also required a common knowledge base and collaborative efforts
not only across the different municipal departments, such as City Planning, Construction,
Environment and Health, and Historical Monument Protection, but also with the Bavarian
Regional Office for Water Management. At the institutional level, an interdepartmental working
group was responsible for coordinating the project; this group provided support and fostered a
multibenefit approach. In addition, the project was designed by an interdisciplinary group of
engineers, landscape architects, city planners and biologists, both internal and external to the city
administration (Wamsler et al. 2017).
Although the implementation of the Urban Forest Strategy falls under the responsibility of
the Urban Landscape Department of the City of Melbourne alone, it is coordinated with a range
of other initiatives across the city.The strategy is shaped and made by “a multitude of institutions,
organisations and stakeholders” involving internal and external stakeholders (CoM 2012, p. 53).
Through interdepartmental cooperation planners work directly with urban foresters to inte-
grate policy, practices, and analytical tools, coordinating input from many other departments.Via
community and inter-​professional integration, non-​public proponents raise public and political
awareness (CoM 2012).
Several recently released local policies, such as Malmö’s Tree Strategy and Melbourne’s Urban
Forest Strategy, have recognized the need for departmental collaboration for the implementation
of NBS. Although departmental collaboration has been shown to be an important and increas-
ingly common element of NBS governance, it is still not a well-​established common practice

437
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

as competing departmental interests and responsibilities still create barriers for successful NBS
trajectories.

Policy Arena
Complex sustainability challenges call for comprehensive and integrated responses, and
interlinkages among local policies. Our case studies show that the lack of integration, and
conflicting or contradictory objectives, have been weakening the role of policies in implementing
NBS.The policy landscape, however, shows slow changes from previous lack of integration across
different policy domains towards the recognition of the importance of policy interlinkages.
Local policies, such as Melbourne’s Urban Forest Strategy, Malmö’s Tree Strategy, and Munich’s
Climate Adaptation Strategy increasingly support multilevel and collaborative approaches to
urban renaturing, linking biodiversity with socio-​ecological resilience.
Despite the lack of local policy integration in the 1990s, the Augustenborg EcoCity bene-
fited from the emergence of the sustainability principles of the 1992 Rio Conference, the
development of national environmental goals, the Local Agenda 21s, and related financial
incentives (Local Investment Program). These policy events coincided with the trial and error
projects of the municipal waterworks experimenting with nature-​based solutions to manage
flooding, creating a supportive policy landscape for the implementation of the EcoCity project.
In turn, experience from the EcoCity project was fed into the development of the Stormwater
policy of Malmö City (Dagvattenpolicy 2000), which was also based on general sustainability
principles. This policy created the basis for the later Stormwater Strategy (Dagvattenstrategi
2008), which described the roles and responsibilities of all actors involved in the planning and
design of open storm water management systems with the goal to actively involve different
municipal departments in creating additional values to parks, recreational areas, and other open
urban spaces (Stahre 2008).
The Isar Plan respected and, where possible, incorporated existing global, national and
local policies across different sectors, notably flood protection, nature conservation, and urban
planning but also other user rights. In terms of nature protection, the Natura 2000 with its spe-
cial protected areas and the Flora–​Fauna–​Habitat Directive and the related local nature protec-
tion legislation had to be considered. In terms of flood protection, the Isar Plan started before the
relevant European water-​related directives came into effect, i.e. the European Water Framework
Directive (2002) and the Flood Risk Management Directive (2007); thus requirements of these
were incorporated continuously in the project, further pushing issues of ecological water engin-
eering, flood protection, and climate change adaptation measures.
A related policy challenge of the Isar Plan is that the state is responsible for the water man-
agement of bigger rivers (like the Isar River), while the city is responsible for integrating flood
considerations, for instance the flood risk maps, into their planning frameworks, such as the com-
prehensive plans. Furthermore, the city is also responsible for the maintenance of the Isar. This
results in a complex governance constellation making it necessary to consider and link different
regulations and governmental bodies at different levels.
As a more recent policy, the Urban Forest Strategy (2012) has explicitly been developed
in parallel and in line with other city-​level policies, such as the Climate Change Adaptation
Strategy (2009), the Zero Net Emissions Strategy (2002, 2008, 2014), Total Watermark City as
a Catchment (2014), Nature in the City Strategy (2017), and the Open Space Strategy (2012)
potentially linking together the policies’ associated officers, the underlying objectives, and
implementation actions across policy domains. As the UFS states, “planning, development and
implementation of urban tree policy takes place at two levels: long term (strategic and spatial

438
 Nature-based solutions

planning) and shorter-​term (project-​focused planning)” and as a widely understood implemen-

tation strategy it both of these goals (CoM 2012, p. 53).
This in turn helps promote cross-​sectoral, cross-​departmental, and multidisciplinary collabor-
ation for urban resilience. Similarly, current local policies, such as Malmö’s Tree Strategy (2017)
and Munich’s Climate Adaptation Strategy (2016), were developed acknowledging objectives
of other local policies relevant to sustainability, climate change, and urban resilience, including
Malmö’s Environmental Program (2009) and Cloudburst Strategy (2017) as well as Munich’s
green space and urban planning relevant strategies, such as the Open Space Strategy Munich
2030 (2015).

Public Participation
Resilience of urban systems depends heavily on the ability of urban actors to interact and collab-
orate (Adger 2000; Kim and Lim 2016; Lorenz 2010). Citizen involvement in this development
is a key ingredient in managing complex sustainability challenges. Our case studies show that
public participation in NBS is emerging and the means of involvement differ greatly. However,
public participation practices are not yet mainstreamed, especially not when NBS interventions
are linked to local governmental strategies.
Melbourne’s Urban Forest Strategy is a positive exception with its long-​ term, reliable,
flexible, and forward-​thinking citizen engagement ensuring the creation of adaptive capacity
networks. Citizens have been increasingly involved since 2010 in contributing visions and con-
crete suggestions for the city’s green future in co-​governance forums both face-​to-​face and
online, such as the online Participate Melbourne forum, pop-​ up face-​ to-​face-​engagement
sessions across the city, stakeholder workshops, and target discussion groups (CoM 2016).
The municipality has viewed citizens as experts, or “citizen foresters,” facilitating the training
of interested citizens in urban tree care (CoM 2017). Citizens were engaged at the local level
to update neighborhood-​scale strategies (precinct plans) for Melbourne’s urban forest based
on their own indicators, such as sense of place, future hopes, aesthetic preferences, streetscape
design, canopy cover, tree planting, and removal strategies (CoM 2013).Working at a site-​specific
level allowed local authorities to engage with voices often silenced (e.g. children, the elderly,
and socio-​economically diverse populations) by dominant groups, engendering environmental
learning and a greater sense of place (Bendt et al. 2013).
The Urban Forest Visual was developed as part of the Urban Forest Strategy including the
municipality’s individually mapped tree data. This allowed residents to “email” individual trees
and thus facilitated a shift from a complaints-​based narrative to a supportive one (Bush 2017).
The Visual supports citizen co-​management of urban green space by giving them a platform for
social learning and engagement with challenging discussions regarding the impact of climate
change on the management of tree diversity (Gulsrud et al. 2018). Citizen involvement also plays
an important role in other NBS in Melbourne, such as the Greening Your Laneway, whereby the
identification of laneways in the city for greening has been carried out through a public consult-
ation and selection process, in the form of individual meetings and workshops with the whole
laneway community.
Citizen involvement has also, from the beginning, been one of the main objectives in the
Augustenborg EcoCity project in Malmö; the aims of the governmental project funding based
on the Rio principles and the Local Agenda21 included public participation as an objective of
any projects funded under this umbrella. Accordingly, residents and people working in the area
have been involved throughout the project. Local knowledge and capacities were considered and
some local residents worked in the project either through amateur expertise, which later grew

439
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

into a consulting firm or through maintenance contractors offering jobs to local unemployed
young adults.
The public participation in the Isar Plan was also ahead of its time, with citizens strongly
involved in the planning stages from the beginning. Communication with residents included
project benefits, flood prevention, environmental protection, urban qualities, and quality of life
(WSC 2012). However, it is important to mention that the engagement of citizens in the Isar
Plan was strongly driven by European policies, such as the European Landscape Convention
(2004) requiring public participation in landscape planning and management.

Financial Mechanisms
Financing NBS is often based on European, national, or regional additional sources to the
earmarked municipal budgets. The Augustenborg EcoCity and the Isar Plan are demonstrative
examples for this type of multilevel project funding. Melbourne’s Urban Forest Fund, a com-
plementary mechanism to the Urban Forest Strategy, sticks out with its innovative financial
approach among these cases. This case illustrates the involvement of the private sector in NBS
interventions and green infrastructure development in the city, which otherwise is difficult and
not yet a common practice.
Involving the private sector is especially important in cities where the majority of land
within the municipal area is private, as in Melbourne, where 75 per cent of the municipal
land is privately owned or managed. The Urban Forest Fund aims to increase the amount of
green infrastructure across the city area by fund-​matching greening projects dollar for dollar,
and thus offers two ways to participate: as a partner or as a supporter. Private partners investing
in urban greenery are 50 per cent co-​funded through the fund. Applications for partnership
grants must fulfill a list of eligibility criteria and are assessed against their ability to deliver eco-
system service benefits and public benefits.The partnership grants range between AUS$50,000
and AUS$500,000 for both new buildings and retrofits, where greening is to be integrated into
the design of a new property or onto an existing property. Among eligible applicants, owner
corporations and residential strata groups are also included. Supporter contributions on the
other hand are from organizations or individuals wanting to help create a greener and more
livable city.
To date, the Urban Forest Fund has received AUS$1 million in seed funding from the City of
Melbourne, and a further AUS$215,000 contribution from VicRoads, which plans, develops and
manages the arterial road network and delivers road safety initiatives and customer-​focused regis-
tration and licensing services. Contributions are used to provide matched funding to greening
projects that provide community benefit, such as green roofs or walls, green spaces and gardens,
or tree planting. All contributions are allocated towards creating new greening projects that
would otherwise not be able to go ahead. The Urban Forest Fund contributions are recognized
through a variety of tailor-​made ways, including logo placement, special events, and dedicated
marketing opportunities (UFF 2017).
The Augustenborg EcoCity project enjoyed multisource funding amongst others from the
EU LIFE program, the national local investment program (LIP), two municipal departments, and
Malmö’s biggest housing company.When project funding is not available, policy goals and activ-
ities need to be linked to specific budget lines. This is the aim of Malmö’s Tree Strategy to make
the strategy more concrete, transparent, and interpretable for different actors. It also attempts to
create continuity in implementation and maintenance, which is otherwise challenging when
NBS are funded and implemented on a project basis.

440
 Nature-based solutions

The Isar Plan in Munich largely benefited from the financial support of the historically
well-​funded water management and water engineering sector in Bavaria. In addition, due
to recent floods (e.g. 1999, 2005, 2013), water management financing was further increased
through flood management (e.g. Hochwasserprogramm 2002–​2020 for €2 billion) and flood
protection programs (e.g. Landesamt für Umweltschutz 2005–​ 2020 €2 million), which
not only includes 100-​year flood protection measures, but also climate change adaptation
approaches in planning.

Conclusions: Enhancing urban resilience through nature-​based solutions

The case studies show current advances, together with drivers and barriers, in integrating NBS
into local governance practices, to enhance urban resilience. Our results reinforce previous studies
claiming that urban co-​governance for resilience is so far very much based on learning by doing
and processes of “trial and error” mostly in the frame of pilot projects (Berkes 2009; Wamsler
et al. 2016a). In addition, the described case studies from Sweden, Australia, and Germany indi-
cate that the main challenges NBS face in terms of governance include sectoral organization
of municipal structures often linked to silo-​thinking, lack or non-​earmarked state or municipal
financing for NBS, limited citizen involvement in NBS design, implementation, and mainten-
ance, persistent uneven landscapes of socio-​economic power relations and inequalities in access
to urban green areas. Furthermore, mobilizing private involvement, land and financing is not yet
a common practice and related successful examples are rare.
To overcome these challenges and build urban resilience through NBS, increased experi-
mentation as well as systematic mainstreaming of NBS in governance practices is required,
involving various actors, integrating different types of knowledge in novel institutional settings
supported by innovative and integrated policies (Wamsler and Pauleit 2016). Participative and
reflexive local governance practices and innovative multidisciplinary collaboration are central
to NBS and thus enable and enhance urban resilience. Multidisciplinary working groups for
multifunctional solutions can in this context gain increasing importance and contribute to
horizontal and vertical knowledge development in NBS implementation in urban planning
(Wamsler and Pauleit 2016). These knowledge co-​production processes in turn can legitimize
diverse and contested citizen knowledge of urban ecosystems (Cote and Nightingale 2012;
Frantzeskaki et al. 2016).
NBS implementation often also requires complex institutional arrangements, as the case
studies show, since it has to address multiple goals and it has to deal with many different
stakeholders and difficult legal settings, particularly regarding private and public land ownership.
The increasing efforts to mainstream NBS through better departmental collaborations, and the
cross-​departmental and cross-​organizational means of employment to overcome silo-​thinking,
seem to be promising strategies to further promote NBS in the urban arena.
Finally, this chapter has also highlighted that reflexive co-​governance practices of NBS can
support the co-​creation of trust and knowledge in long-​term social learning and encourage both
experimentation and mainstreaming of NBS by drawing on diverse resources. It suggests that the
emerging governance practices can facilitate multiple perspectives on future developments and
trigger cultural change by negotiating new ways of citizen involvement and decision-​making.
Future NBS governance research and practice to support urban resilience should therefore focus
on creating arenas for collaboration and knowledge integration that are able to address the
complexity of urban challenges and allow for meaningful social learning processes and co-​
development of NBS for resilience building.

441
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

Notes
1 The City Resilience Index is intended to serve as a planning and decision-​making tool to help guide
urban investments toward results that facilitate urban resilience and the wellbeing of citizens. It includes
12 universal factors that contribute to city resilience. They are organized into four core dimensions
of the urban resilience framework: (1) Leadership and strategy: Effective leadership and manage-
ment, Empowered stakeholders, Integrated development planning, (2) Health and wellbeing: Minimal
human vulnerability, Diverse livelihoods and employment, Effective safeguards to human health and
life, (3) Economy and society: Sustainable economy, Comprehensive security and rule of law, Collective
identity and community support, (4) Infrastructure and environment: Reduced exposure and fragility,
Effective provision of critical services, Reliable mobility and communications (Rockefeller Foundation
and Arup 2015).
2 In the frame of the Naturvation project (www.naturvation.eu), in-​depth case studies have been carried
out in close collaboration with practitioners in a variety of research themes covering NBS governance,
structural conditions, public participation, NBS impacts, contestations and contradictions, and NBS
innovation trajectories, as well as drivers and barriers to NBS design, implementation and maintenance.
The case study research was based on a rigorous case study protocol available at: www.naturvation.eu.

References
Adger,W.N. (2000). Social and ecological resilience: Are they related? Prog. Human Geography. 24: 347–​364.
Anguelovski, I. (2013). From environmental trauma to safe haven: Place attachment and place remaking
in three marginalized neighborhoods of Barcelona, Boston, and Havana. City & Community.
12(3): 211–​237.
Brink, E., Aalders, J.T., Ádám, D., Feller, R., Henselek,Y., Hoffmann, A., Ibe, K,. Matthey-​Doret, A,. Meyer,
M., Negrut, N.L., Rau, A-​L., Riewerts, B., von Schuckmann, L., Törnros, S., von Wehrden, H., Abson,
D.J., and Wamsler, C. (2016). Cascades of green: A review of ecosystem-​based adaptation in urban areas.
Global Environmental Change. 36: 111–​123. DOI: 10.1016/​j.gloenvcha.2015.11.003.
Arzet, K. and Joven, S. (n.d.). The Isar experience, urban river restoration in Munich. www.wwa-​m.bayern.
de/​uesse_​seen/​massnahmen/​isarplan/​doc/​the_​isar_​experience.pdf. (Accessed July 31, 2018).
Beck, U., Giddens, A., and Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive Modernization: Politics,Tradition and Aesthetics in the
Modern Social Order. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bendt, P., Barthel, S., and Colding, J. (2013). Civic greening and environmental learning in public-​access
community gardens in Berlin. Landscape Urban Planning. 109: 18–​30. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1016/​
j.landurbplan.2012.10.003.
Berkes, F. (2009). Evolution of co-​management: Role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations and
social learning. J. Environ. Manag. 90: 1692–​1702.
Bush, J.M. (2017). Cooling cities with green space: policy perspectives. PhD Thesis. Melbourne: University
of Melbourne.
CoM (2012). Urban Forest Strategy. Making a Great City Greener. 2012–​2032. Melbourne: City of
Melbourne.
CoM (2013). East Melbourne & Jolimont Urban Forest Precinct Plan 2013 –​2023. https://​participate.
melbourne.vic.gov.au/​application/​files/​8314/​1273/​8265/​East_​Melbourne_​Urban_​Forest_​Precinct_​
Plan.PDF. (Accessed November 1, 2017).
CoM (2015). 10-​year Financial Plan 2015–​2025. www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/​SiteCollectionDocuments/​
10-​year-​financial-​plan.pdf. (Accessed February 1, 2018).
CoM (2016). Future Melbourne 2026. www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/​SiteCollectionDocuments/​future-​
melbourne-​2026-​plan.pdf. (Accessed February 1, 2018).
CoM (2017). Nature in the City: Thriving Biodiversity and Healthy Ecosystems. Melbourne: City of
Melbourne.
Cote, M. and Nightingale, A.J. (2012). Resilience thinking meets social theory Situating social change in
socio-​ecological systems (SES) research. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 36: 475–​489. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​
0309132511425708.
Dagvattenpolicy (2000). Dagvattenpolicy för Malmö [Stormwater Policy for the City of Malmö]. www.
projektering.nu/​files/​Dagvattenpolicy.pdf. (Accessed June 1, 2018).

442
 Nature-based solutions

Dagvattenstrategi (2008). Dagvattenstrategi för Malmö. [Stormwater Strategy for the City of Malmö].
Available at: https://​malmo.se/​download/​18.7de6400c149d2490efb1062/​1491298352353/​
Dagvattenstrategi_​2008.pdf. (Accessed June 1, 2018).
Demuzere, M., Orru, K., Heidrich, O., Olazabal, E., Geneletti, D., Orru, H., Bhave, A.G., Mittal, N., Feliu,
E., and Faehnle, M. (2014). Mitigating and adapting to climate change: Multi-​functional and multiscale
assessment of green urban infrastructure. Journal of Environmental Management. 146: 107–​ 115.
doi: 10.1016/​j.jenvman.2014.07.025.
Droste, N., Schröter-​Schlaack, C., Hansjürgens, B., and Zimmermann, H. (2017). Implementing nature-​
based solutions in urban areas: financing and governance aspects. In: N. Kabisch, H. Korn, J. Stadler,
A. Bonn (eds.), Nature-​Based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Areas. Theory and
Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions. Cambridge: Springer.
Ekostaden Augustenborg (2017). EcoCity Augustenborg on Malmö City’s official website.Available at: http://​
malmo.se/​Nice-​to-​know-​about-​Malmo/​Sustainable-​Malmo-​/​Sustainable-​Urban-​Development/​
Augustenborg-​Eco-​City.html. (Accessed June 1, 2017).
European Commission (2015). Towards an EU Research and Innovation policy agenda for Nature-​Based
Solutions & Re-​Naturing Cities. doi: 10.2777/​765301.
European Commission (2018a). Nature-​ Based Solutions. https://​ ec.europa.eu/​research/​ environment/​
index.cfm?pg=nbs. (Accessed July 31, 2018).
European Commission (2018b). Nature-​Based Solutions are helping to address urban challenges. https://​
ec.europa.eu/​easme/​en/​news/​nature-​based-​solutions-​are-​helping-​address-​urban-​challenges. (Accessed
July 31, 2018).
Feindt, P.H. and Weiland, S. (2018). Reflexive governance: Exploring the concept and assessing its crit-
ical potential for sustainable development. Introduction to the special issue. Environmental Policy &
Planning. 20 6: 661–​674, DOI: 10.1080/​1523908X.2018.1532562.
Frantzeskaki, N., Kabisch, N., and McPhearson, T. (2016). Advancing urban environmental govern-
ance: Understanding theories, practices and processes shaping urban sustainability and resilience.
Environmental Science Policy. 62: 1–​6. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1016/​j.envsci.2016.05.008.
Gulsrud, N.M., Hertzog, K., and Shears, I. (2018). Innovative urban forestry governance in
Melbourne?: Investigating “green placemaking” as a nature-​based solution. Environmental Research.
161: 158–​167.
Haase, D., Kabisch, S., Haase, A., Andersson, E., Banzhaf, E., Baró, F., Brenck, M., Fischer, L., Frantzeskaki, N.,
Kabisch, N., Krellenberg, K., Kremer, P., Kronenberg, J., Larondelle, N., Mathey, J., Pauleit, S., Ring, I.,
Rink, D., Schwarz, N., and Wolff, M. (2017). Greening cities –​to be socially inclusive? About the alleged
paradox of society and ecology in cities. Habitat International. 64: 41–​48.
Jennings,V., Johnson-​Gaither, C., and Gragg, R.S. (2012). Promoting environmental justice through urban
green space access: A synopsis. Environmental Justice. 5(1): 1–​7.
Kabisch, N. and Dagmar, H. (2014). Green justice or just green? Provision of urban green spaces in Berlin,
Germany. Landscape and Urban Planning. 122: 129–​139.
Kabisch, N., Frantzeskaki, N., Pauleit, S., Artmann, M., Davis, M., Haase, D., Knapp, S., Korn, H., Stadler, J.,
Zaunberger, K., and Bonn, A. (2016). Nature-​based solutions to climate change mitigation and adapta-
tion in urban areas –​perspectives on indicators, knowledge gaps, opportunities and barriers for action.
Ecology and Society. 21(2): 39. doi: 10.5751/​ES-​08373-​210239.
Kim, D. and Lim, U. (2016). Urban resilience in climate change adaptation: A conceptual framework.
Sustainability. 8: 405.
Lorenz, D.F. (2010). The diversity of resilience: Contributions from a social science perspective. Nat. Hazar.
67: 7–​24.
Nature Editorials (2017). Natural language: The latest attempt to brand green practices is better than it
sounds. Nature. 541: 133–​134.
Naturvation (2018a).What are nature-​based solutions? Available at: https://​naturvation.eu/​about. (Accessed
July 31, 2018).
Naturvation (2018b). WP4: Malmö Case Study. Internal report on the internal homepage. Available
at: https://​naturvation.eu. (Accessed 31 July 2018).
Nesshöver, C., Assmuth,T., Irvine, K.N., Rusch, G.M.,Waylen, K.A., Delbaere, B., Haase, D., Jones-​Walters,
L., Keune, H., Kovacs, E., Krauze, K., Külvik, M., Rey, F., van Dijk, J., Inge Vistad, O., Wilkinson, M.E.,
and Wittmer, H. (2017).The science, policy and practice of nature-​based solutions: An interdisciplinary
perspective. Science of the Total Environment. 579: 1215–​1227. doi: 10.1016/​j.scitotenv.2016.11.106.

443
B. Kiss, K. McCormick, and C. Wamsler

Newig, J.,Voß, J.-​P., and Monstadt, J. (2007). Editorial: Governance for sustainable development in the face
of ambivalence, uncertainty and distributed power: An introduction. Environmental Policy & Planning.
9(3–​4): 185–​192. doi:10.1080/​15239080701622832.
O’Donnell, E.C., Lamond, J.E., and Thorne, C.R. (2017). Recognising barriers to implementation of Blue–​
Green Infrastructure: a Newcastle case study. Urban Water Journal: 1–​11. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​
1573062X.2017.1279190.
Oppermann, B. (2005). Redesign of the River Isar in Munich, Germany. Getting coherent quality for
green structures through competitive process design? In: A.C. Werquin, B. Duhem, G. Lindholm, B.
Oppermann, S. Pauleit, and S.Tjallingii (eds.): Green Structure and Urban Planning. Luxembourg: Office
for Official Publications of the European Communities.
Pauleit, S. (2005). Munich. In: A.C. Werquin, B. Duhem, G. Lindholm, B. Oppermann, S. Pauleit, and S.
Tjallingii (eds), Green Structure and Urban Planning –​Report of COST Action C11. Luxembourg: Office
for Official Publications of the European Communities.
Pauleit, S. and Kollmann, J. (2015). Die Isarrenaturierung in München. Hochwasserschutz, Ökologie und
Erholung integrativ? [Renaturing of the Isar in Munich. Integrating flood protection, ecology and rec-
reation?] In: DGGL Jahrbuch 2015, 34–​39.
Rockefeller Foundation and Arup (2015). City Resilience Index. https://​assets.rockefellerfoundation.org/​
app/​uploads/​20160201132303/​CRI-​Revised-​Booklet1.pdf. (Accessed July 31, 2018).
Stahre, P. (2008). Blue–​ Green Fingerprints in the City of Malmö, Sweden: Malmö’s Way Towards a
Sustainable Urban Drainage. Malmö: VaSyd.
Stahre, P. and Geldof, G.D. (2003). New approach to sustainable stormwater planning. http://​greenroof.se/​
wp-​g r/​wp-​content/​uploads/​2012/​09/​005-​new-​approach-​to-​sustainable-​stormwater-​planning1.pdf.
(Accessed June 1, 2017).
Stirling, A. (2006). Precaution, foresight and sustainability: Reflection and reflexivity in the governance
of science and technology. In: J.-​P. Voß, D. Bauknecht, and R. Kemp (eds.): Reflexive Governance for
Sustainable Development. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 225–​272.
UFF (2017). Urban Forest Fund. www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/​community/​parks-​open-​spaces/​urban-​
forest-​fund/​Pages/​urban-​forest-​fund.aspx. (Accessed February 1, 2018).
Voß, J.-​P., Bauknecht, D., and Kemp, R. (2006). Reflexive Governance for Sustainable Development.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Wamsler, C. (2014). Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation. London and New York: Routledge.
Wamsler, C., Niven, L., Beery, T.H., Bramryd, T., Ekelund, N., Jönsson, K.I., Osmani, A., Palo, T., and
Stålhammar, S. (2016). Operationalizing ecosystem-​based adaptation: Harnessing ecosystem services to
buffer communities against climate change. Ecology and Society. 21(1): 31. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.5751/​
ES-​08266-​210131.
Wamsler, C. and Pauleit, S. (2016). Making headway in climate policy mainstreaming and ecosystem-​based
adaptation: Two pioneering countries, different pathways, one goal. Climatic Change. 137 1–​2: 71–​87.
https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s10584-​016-​1660-​y.
Wamsler, C., Pauleit, S., Zölsch, T., Schuppe, S., and Mascharenas, A. (2017). Mainstreaming nature-​based
solutions for climate change adaptation in urban governance and planning. In: N. Kabisch, H. Korn,
J. Stadler, and A. Bonn (eds.): Nature-​Based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Areas.
Theory and Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions. Cham: Springer.
Wolch, J.R., Byrne, J., and Newell, J.P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The
challenge of making cities “just green enough.” Landscape and Urban Planning. 125: 234–​244.
WSC (2012). Water sensitive cities –​Case Study 17: Isar Plan, Germany. http://​wscstudytour.com/​user-​
data/​Case%20Studies/​Case%20Study%2017%20-​%20Isar%20River%20Plan%20-​%20Germany.pdf.
(Accessed July 31, 2018).
Zölch, T., Wamsler, C., and Pauleit, S. (2018). Integrating the ecosystem-​based approach into municipal cli-
mate adaptation strategies: The case of Germany. Journal of Cleaner Production. 170: 966–​977.

444
 32
Social resilience and
capacity building
A case study of a granting agency

Laura Tate

Introduction
In fostering resilience, it is critical to address, and better understand, its social dimension (social
resilience). This is increasingly important in the planning domain (Beatley 2009; Bernier and
Meinzen-​Dick 2014; Bostick et al. 2017; Cowell, 2013). For local social groups significantly
impact community resistance and resilience –​according to the degree of trusting and action-​
focused relationships among them, and by virtue of their relative ability levels for harnessing
resources from outside the community (Di Gregorio et al. 2012). Likewise, the degree of social
connectedness within a community –​or not –​can impact broader resilience in the face of acute
threat, as suggested in the study of war-​torn Kosovo by Agani et al.l (2010). The importance of
connectedness in disaster response has also been analyzed in the case of the Tohoku tsunami and
subsequent Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan. Findings there further affirm the importance of
local connectedness and horizontal collaboration, both for its own value and to enhance collabor-
ation with national level actors, once the latter are in a position to assist (Aoki 2015).This chapter
contributes to our understanding of social resilience by examining selected microprocesses at
work in a project designed to foster social resilience, social innovation, and capacity-​building in
British Columbia, Canada. By better appreciating the microprocesses at work in social resilience,
as well as planning in general (see Fainstein 2010; Fischler 2000; Flyvbjerg 1998; 2000; Huxley
and Yiftachel 2000; McGuirk 2001), proponents of social and other forms of resilience may be
able to structure more effective resilience programs and projects. Learning from such analysis
may be of particular benefit to efforts particularly in the preparedness, response, and recovery
phases of concerted disaster response.
Resilience is one of several constructs that cities use to position specific policy initiatives; and such
concepts can and do often overlap (Hatuka et al, 2018). It has particular value in the context of disaster
management approaches, whose four stages consist of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery
(Altay et al. 2006).While the mitigation phase of such approaches may emphasize more formal gov-
ernance and institution-​led responses, the other three phases lend themselves well to, and may in
fact depend upon, the involvement of civil society, including non-​profit and volunteer groups. As
Altay et al. observe, disasters are multifaceted events that engender “a complex set of rapidly evolving
problems” (2006:251) and disrupt standard decision-​making arrangements and processes. Successful

445
Laura Tate

disaster management efforts, then, require backup plans and resources that can prevail during such
disruptions, and where local capacities for contributing to all four stages are integrated and effective.
When unpacking the more targeted notion of social resilience, studies of this construct can
(and should) overlap with other constructs, including the notion of social innovation. The case
study at hand thus includes the complementary and overlapping concept of social innovation,
while considering the influences of local context and microprocesses. It uses an Actor Network
Theory (ANT) lens to unpack the successes and challenges in a collaboratively funded capacity-​
building project. The chapter first explains the rationale for this methodology, then reviews and
analyzes the granting and capacity-​building case. It concludes with preliminary recommendations
for those working to better understand and enhance social resilience.

Why an ANT lens?

How might ANT illuminate the microprocesses needed for social resilience and social innov-
ation? ANT is not predictive, but a tool for analyzing group activity processes (successful or not)
towards social goals. ANT reveals the messiness and impermanence of networks that form, loosely
stabilize, sometimes break apart, and then retabilize in new ways to achieve those tasks (Latour
2007). ANT emerged from the sociology of science, advanced by notable thinkers like Francis
Callon, John Law, Ann-​Marie Mol, and Bruno Latour. It is also considered a subset of socio-​
technical systems theory. As many caution, there is no fixed set of methodological parameters
for ANT (Farias 2010; Nimmo 2016; Rydin and Tate 2016; and Tate 2013). Its power lies in its
openness to the co-​existence of multiple realities and multiple approaches. Given the context-​
specific and complex nature of social resilience, this multiplicity can be particularly informative.
ANT further celebrates distributed agency, illuminating the multiple channels and directions
in which agency or power flow, and appreciating the agency (power-​channelling abilities) of
the non-​human as well as the human. This nuanced approach to agency is therefore helpful in
unpacking the microprocesses impacting social resilience and social innovation. In fact, ANT’s
relational view of agency or power suggests that it is inevitably “more precarious, more local,
and more multiple” (Nimmo 2016: xxxiv) than structural approaches and explanations suggest.
This may be particularly useful in the response and recovery phases of disaster management,
when disruptions to pre-​disaster networks may cause severe and long-​lasting impacts. In this
context, understanding distributed agency at a micro-​level may be of benefit in enhancing
the effectiveness of response and recovery work, whether in rerouting resource distribution
channels to meet immediate needs, or in enabling the reconstruction of new networks that
account for past and current network realities.
ANT also has an interest in the non-​human, including tangible objects, like buildings, plants,
and animals; and it can include abstract items like laws, plans, and policies. It considers social
realities in less dualistic terms, and avoids artificially dividing the human from the non-​human
(Nimmo 2016: xvii). And, it revels unintended social, economic, and environmental consequences
of actions (Law and Singleton 2013). Ultimately, an ANT lens can unveil new possibilities –​and
new consequences for planning and resilience work. For example, Rutland and Aylett highlighted
the social and environmental benefits from distributed agency in Portland, Oregon, revealing
how small actions from different and, at times, seemingly isolated, actors, can eventually coalesce
into a force for good (2008:633). Rydin and Tate support this potential (2016: 15), reinforced
by cases from Vilches and Tate (2016), and from Van Wezemael and Silberberger (2016). In sum,
there are many microprocesses facilitating social goals, including social resilience and innovation
and that have been observed and highlighted by several scholars using an ANT lens. Other ANT
contributions, and scholars exploring them in detail, are shown in Table 32.1.

446
 Case study of a granting agency

Table 32.1 Summary: ANT contributions to unpacking social resilience microprocesses

Multiple channels and power flow directions. Focus Doak and Karadimitriou (2007); Latour (2007);
on multiple channels and directions in which Nimmo (2016); Rydin and Tate (2016):
power flows (distributive agency). Power does 10–​13; Rutland and Aylett (2008)
not always move in a direct, linear manner; nor is
it always top-​down.
Objects matter. Interest in role of objects /​material Beauregard (2012b); Latour (2007); Rydin
items in influencing other network members. (2012); Rydin and Natarajan (2015); Vilches
These can include abstract items like laws, plans, and Tate (2016)
policies, programs, agreements, and service
coordination routines
Unending effort needed in distributed agency. ANT Brownill (2016); Farias (2010); Latour (2007);
recognizes need for continuous effort to stabilize Murdoch (1998); Nimmo (2016); Ruming
agreement around goals. (2008) Tate (2013)
Translation matters. Network benefits must be Beauregard (2015:131–​132); Goulden (2016);
translated to prospective members to secure their Latour (2007); Rydin (2014);
participation in network activities. Translation can Ruming et al. (2016); Tate (2013)
involve equivalencies, where translations are not
literal but put things into terms relevant to each
individual or case.
Reality is (and networks are) performed. Networks, Ackland (2014); Brown and Capdevila (1999);
network relationships, and objects are created Law and Singleton (1999); Mol (1999);
by members through process of performativity. Muller (2015); Weber (2015)
This happens as members essentially “will” the
networks into being and then work out the
details, through often repetitive and refining
action(s) critical to network definition.

Source: Author

Case study
We turn now to the case study, involving a granting and capacity-​building project for non-​profit
agencies in British Columbia (a form of “social innovation boot camp”), led by a collaborating
group of funders. Prior to collaborating, participating funders all gave grants to enhance social
resilience.Those grants included (but were not limited to) funds benefitting those marginalized by
mental illness and/​or addiction.The project began when two funders, the Vancouver Foundation
and City of Vancouver, came together seeking: more shared outcomes; a higher calibre of projects
to fund; and possible economies of scale. In April 2014, the Community Action Initiative (CAI)
also joined the discussions, eventually followed by the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA)
and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (Author; and LOA 2014).
The author’s role in the project was participatory, as lead staff with one funder in the project.
In this role, the author attended meetings with the staff of the other funding agencies and with
her agency’s board of directors.
Despite the risk for research bias, the author’s role provided potential for interpretive
insights. An interpretive lens values experience in revealing the significance of social events
(see Richardson and Fowers 1998; Smith and Larkin 2009; Weegmann and Piwowoz-​Hjort
2009; Yanow 2000). That said, interpretive researchers advocate triangulation to prevent bias
(Lather 1991; Smith 1997).The author thus triangulated with a formal developmental evaluation

447
Laura Tate

report by an independent local evaluation consultant, the HoweGroup. All five funding agencies
commissioned the HoweGroup, acknowledging the value of independent help in assessing,
reflecting upon, and adjusting the project throughout. The final HoweGroup report also contained
excerpts, including critical comments, from anonymous interviews with: staff from each funder,
the training facilitator, and project participants. Documentation by The HoweGroup is thus
summarized here to counterbalance any bias. Further triangulation was done by circulating and
presenting a draft of this article to two leading members of the collaborative for critical feedback.
While all five agencies consented to the scholarly work of the author on this topic, only staff
from the two other leading agencies commented on the article. Unfortunately, the remaining
two agencies faced staffing constraints (including an employment change for one representative)
that prevented post-​project research involvement.

Summary of events
In Altay et al.’s (2006) review unpacking the types of activities linked with each disaster response
phase, developing mutual aid agreements and memoranda of understanding is an ideal task for
the preparedness phase. By better understanding the origins of such agreements, scholars and
practitioners concerned with resilience could improve their recommendations for enhancing
disaster preparedness. In the case studied here, this type of agreement played a prominent role.
While the project significantly evolved, including midstream adjustments, it embodied three
components, articulated in a formal letter of agreement (LOA).The LOA in fact became an important
project touchstone and reference. Critical project components included advanced workshops with
selected non-​profit groups; and a related grant competition. Both required lead non-​profits to col-
laborate with other agencies in their communities.This collaborative project thus evolved in a flex-
ible way, with concrete goals and milestones. See Figure 32.1 for more detailed components.

Analysis
As noted earlier, ANT can reveal microprocesses that either help or hinder social resilience and
social innovation. This section considers the five categories of ANT contribution listed earlier
in Table 32.1. It drew from the author’s interpretive perspective, counterbalanced by the inde-
pendent evaluation and by testing preliminary findings through a presentation and conference
call with staff from the other two largest funders.

Focus on multiple channels and power flow directions

In a way, this project actually unfolded through two interconnected networks. One involved
the project initiators and funders. The second comprised the benefitting non-​profit agencies,
which were funded to attend the capacity-​ building training and to develop granting
applications. The initiative’s overall structure (and larger network) implicitly promoted inter-
agency collaboration to attain social resilience and social innovation. In part, this structure
responded to gaps in the social welfare state (Moulaert et al. 2005). It also acknowledged the
complexity of many social problems and corresponding solutions. It therefore consciously
built distributive agency (multiple power channels) into the training and granting approach
(see also other subsections that follow). In this sense, it might be instructive for other settings,
including disaster management.
To the extent that training and granting recipients felt empowered, and learned more about
social innovation concepts and tactics, the funders enabled some distributed agency. In fact, the

448
 Case study of a granting agency

Figure 32.1 Components of agency collaboration

independent evaluation by the HoweGroup did find that training participants were satisfied in
this regard, with the majority very or somewhat satisfied, as shown in Figure 32.2.
Distributed agency was evident in the smaller funders’ network, through adaptations to pro-
ject parameters to respect each granting agency’s different budgets, mandates, and constituencies
(also discussed in the next two subsections).This suggests there may be value in conscious efforts
to structure other social resilience efforts, including disaster management, in ways that maximize
distributed agency. Such efforts should draw from further study of how distributed agency can
unfold in empowering and robust ways.

Belief that objects matter

The case study helped highlight the role of critical objects in catalyzing coalition-​building.
One such object comprised funder collaboration parameters in a letter of agreement (LOA),
which clarified different agency interests and mandates. This was critical, since each agency had
a slightly different focus. For example, four foundations could serve a larger constituency, but
the City’s jurisdiction was limited to municipal boundaries. Moreover, while FNHA had fewer
geographical constraints, its interest in the project emphasized social inclusion through a mental
wellness plan serving First Nations and Urban Aboriginal populations, called A Path Forward
(2013; see especially p. 13). Given these differing mandates, in the early days of the collaboration,
some agencies struggled to fully understand how collaboration could succeed. Among other
things, the process of articulating (and then revising) LOA components helped provide clarity
needed to advance the project and helped bind participants to the effort. This performative
aspect is a shared facet of several other case studies analyzed through an ANT lens (see Table 32.1
and remaining subsections).

449
Laura Tate

Assessing a system’s
48% 33% 19%
readiness for change

Taking a designer’s 5
52% 29% 14%
mindset for next steps %

System mapping for

53% 33% 14%
team projects

Social inclusion as 5 5
57% 33%
a shared goal % %

Introduction to system
67% 24% 9%
thinking and mapping

Very satisfied Somewhat satisfied Not at all satisfied No response

Figure 32.2 Level of satisfaction of training participants with program

Source: HoweGroup 2015

Recognizing that unending effort is needed in distributed agency

Both the funders’ network and non-​ profit-​
led networks continuously worked to stabilize
agreement on shared goals.We focus here on the non-​profit-​led network. On the whole, training
provided through the broader project boosted capacity for some non-​profit agencies, in ways that
enabled this ongoing stabilization-​focused effort (HoweGroup 2015: 31).This was reaffirmed by
a representative from one participating non-​profit team:

It was refreshing to talk about failure, taking risks, the importance of timing with innovation
projects and acknowledging that there are so many unknowns where you are truly doing
participatory work with diverse stakeholders… it is both exciting and scary, and I appreciate
that there is room for [these unknowns] when talking about systems change.
(Project team member, HoweGroup 2015: 31–​32)

In one instance, however, these efforts were unsuccessful for a non-​profit coalition, where tran-
sition in the lead agency’s senior staff led to dissolution of shared goals and withdrawal by that
lead agency from the training and final granting opportunity. While other coalition members
were still allowed to participate in the training, they were unable to compete in the final granting
opportunity without a lead agency. This then caused them to question the training model:

I think the whole idea of [funders] needing a lead agency [for non-​ profit led grant
applications] was a challenge for our group as our lead agency bowed out. It didn’t work
because there was no alternate from the lead agency, and no one could be sent in their place,
so we missed out.
(Project team member, HoweGroup 2015: 28)

Other facets of this dimension are discussed in the following subsection.

450
 Case study of a granting agency

Translation matters
As noted above, the LOA became a key network object. It also helped translate, or to explain,
benefits to funders’ network members, in terms that resonated with their mandates. One such
benefit was the very concept of social innovation, implicitly linked with social resilience. The
project promoted social innovation and aimed to reward participants whose grant proposals
demonstrated the greatest social innovation potential.Yet it became tricky to structure a shared
project meeting all funders’ interests. For example, one funder adamantly opposed any kind of
quota in granting, since the focus of the project was on social innovation. This posed an ini-
tial challenge, for individual funders with distinct mandates focused around specific cohorts.
While all funders wanted to address indigenous people’s needs, doing so had particular man-
date relevance to the FNHA and to CAI. In the end, other than quotas for Vancouver-​based
agencies, the final LOA structure responded with contingent language about aboriginal1 agency
selection, tying FNHA’s training contribution only to any aboriginal agency actually funded
(LOA 2014:7). Three aboriginal agencies were eventually selected, bringing the total FNHA
contribution to just under $25,000. This episode also showed how the LOA as an object
continued to influence funders network members. In the author’s presentation to triangulate
this research with staff of the other two large funders, both representatives did believe that trans-
lation had occurred. One affirmed that he was glad translation had enabled the collaboration
(Transcript 2016).

Reality is, and networks are, performed

By requiring ongoing meetings to agree on various LOA components, various drafts of
the LOA invoked aspects of performativity. Readers will recall from Table 32.1 that
performativity helps network members refine and reshape network relationships, and objects
through processes that are often repetitive. Through various repetitions, or reiterations of key
network processes and/​or objects, members ensure that networks become more solid, and
mutually supported.
Performativity also occurred when the project funders learned about social innovation
together, building a shared understanding for future network activities and functions. This was
confirmed by independent evaluation:

The [funders] uncovered key factors of success toward increasing [social] innovation… [that
enabled funders] to be more innovative and work in a partnership model and allowed for
the [funders] to take risks with the uncertainty of innovative work. The [funders] felt early
on in the project that this model (including the defined value of innovation) allowed them
to move forward on projects that were riskier or had more uncertainty than if the organ-
ization was funding alone.
(Howegroup 2015: 17)

The incremental learning approach seemed to spark early successes. It began with including
the capacity-​building facilitator in meetings to discuss the overall partnership as well as the
curriculum and expanded to funder staff attendance at the initial regional workshops. At these
workshops, funder representatives enjoyed more focused learning about social innovation, and
developed a shared understanding and vocabulary for this concept, reducing the need for con-
tinuous new translations when using this term (Author; see also Rose 2014).

451
Laura Tate

These workshops defined social innovation as:

An initiative, product, process or program that profoundly changes any social system by
changing one or more of:
• The basic routines (how we act; what we do)
• The basic resource flows (money, knowledge, people)
• Authority flows (laws, policies, rules)
• Beliefs (what we believe is true, right/​wrong).
(Rose 2014)

Finally, the definition of social innovation included a concretely performative component, as

workshop attendees received advice on intervening at the right point in the life cycle of the
social system. Here again, both representatives of the other two major funding agencies agreed
that performativity had occurred. One also stated that with a second iteration of the project
(now involving only the two other agencies), they could “approach this work with a base level of
understanding that was arrived at during the [prior year’s] version” (Transcript 2016).
Independent evaluation corroborated this common understanding among the funders,
who: “increased their understanding of social innovation and through this process were given
a common language to describe their work to others and also more clearly understand their
own innovative processes” (Howegroup 2015: 28). Individual staff comments underscored this
perspective:

Having the increased understanding of social innovation, the language and principles, has
allowed the collaborative members to understand the process and have the rationale to
“make the case” for why the group is operating in this way. This is the “permission granter”
that allows the Collaborative to talk about the work in a concrete way, increases confidence
and allows the [funders] to communicate.
(Funder representative, Howegroup 2015)

Through this project funders and community groups have come to a common definition of
social innovation. Before this process we all had a different understanding of what innovation
was.We have been able to develop a more consistent understanding of what we’re talking about.
(Funder representative, Howegroup 2015:28–​29)

Both larger funder representatives appreciated multiple exposures to the social innovation con-
cept. One agency representative recalled his own difficulty absorbing it the first time: “[F]‌or me,
it was not hearing the exact same messages about social innovation. It was also about hearing
the messages expressed differently as they were repeated” (Respondent 1 in Transcript 2016).
Respondent 2 agreed, noting that each exposure explored the definition at a slightly different
angle. She thought multiple iterations allowed the group to deeply explore, and ultimately
embrace, the concept:

At times when one partner described a concept, they would challenge each other. The
repetitions of the concept highlighted minute differences that we could then note, and work
through, and bring the partners to a common place. There had been a lot of work on the
back end –​the need to keep checking in on the shared understanding. It was time-​con-
suming, but also interesting
(Respondent 2 in Transcript 2016)

452
 Case study of a granting agency

In addition to common staff level understanding, the project also built common board
decision-​making understanding. At an early stage, the funders agreed that final choice of
capacity-​building recipients could be made through the board of just one funder agency
with a province-​wide scope. The agreement required that the staff from other funders would
participate in those discussions. To further enhance this process, the funders arranged for
the board members to get similar training in social innovation; and the training facilitator
attended a board meeting two months before the key decision meeting (CAI Leadership
Council Minutes, November 2014).
The capacity building for the 12 chosen project teams occurred in February and April, 2015.
It was generally successful (Howegroup 2015: 5), although interim evaluation described some
mid-​course correction, as not all non-​profit agencies were as ready to embrace the concepts as
others. Some found that the lecture style format did not work for them, for example, and so
supplementary one-​on-​one telephone team coaching sessions ensured they received help that
was appropriate to the stage teams were at with their own projects, and their understanding of
the social innovation concepts (Howegroup 2015: 17). These changes seemed to confirm the
positive and responsive relationships built among the funders, as well as successful performativity
and translation of at least some interests.
Capacity building helped participants refine final project ideas and present these to the pro-
ject funders, followed by formal submission of grant applications as appropriate.Where there was
a clear social inclusion or mental wellness focus, proponents were encouraged to submit their
applications to the joint City of Vancouver and CAI competition. Proponents could also con-
currently participate in the Vancouver Foundation’s competition, if desired. Where there was no
social inclusion focus, proponents might apply solely to the Vancouver Foundation. A total of ten
out of the 12 project teams applied through the social inclusion/​mental wellness competition,
and four grants were awarded to allow two-​year projects to promote social inclusion for vulner-
able populations. Initially there had been hope that a fourth collaborative funder might join the
granting opportunity. For varied reasons, roughly a month before the application forms were
being created, the mental wellness collaborators learned this would not work out. This meant
a reduced total number of grant opportunities and some delays in advising participants on key
proposal submission details.
According to the independent evaluation, the proposals submitted through the final com-
petitive process were generally of a higher caliber because of the training enabled through the
initiative.

The project plans that have come forward are more innovative, robust and have more
sophisticated goals… the applicants actually talked about the systems in which they are
operating within and they have indicated how they intend to influence the system. So often
behaviour change is confused with systems change.The projects that came through the pro-
cess did a good job of distinguishing between the root causes within the system they were
intending to address and the intended behavioural changes they were hoping to see among
the vulnerable populations with which they work.
(Funder representative, Howegroup 2015: 30)

The independent evaluation concluded that, while procedural improvements might help the
venture, overall its first iteration was successful and would be worth repeating.

453
Laura Tate

Conclusion
Social resilience plays an important role in broader forms of resilience, but it is not as well
understood. And yet, the potential for greater understanding to boost the effectiveness of disaster
management work at all phases of response –​especially in preparedness, response, and recovery –​
is strong. This is because social resilience enhances the skills and capacities of local agencies to
reassess and respond more effectively in a context where information and resource flows may
be disrupted in short and medium terms. This case study sought to advance scholarship on
social resilience, including resilience applied in disaster management, by considering some of the
microprocesses involved in fostering it through a collaborative granting project. It used ANT
to delve into these things in a systematic way, with the goal of fostering deeper learning for
scholars and practitioners interested in resilience generally, and specifically interested in better
understanding of its social dimension.
For example, the focus on multiple channels and power flow directions in this case, as well
as the need for unending effort to stabilize goals, and to translate benefits to network members,
showed several ways the project fostered distributed agency. As noted at the start of this chapter,
action-​focused relationships between local agencies are critical to resilience (Di Gregorio et al.
2012). Such relationships implicitly need distributed agency –​especially in the event of a disaster
which temporarily distances a community from broader networks and resources. In this context,
there may be benefit in further studying how distributed agency can and does benefit resilience-​
focused projects and programs.
As also discussed at the outset, the ability to create social cohesion is another important com-
ponent of social resilience (Agani et al. 2010). The case study in this chapter unpacked several
microprocesses that helped to foster greater cohesion, understanding that social cohesion has
parallels with network formation and stabilization.The case revealed the efforts needed to enable
successful collaboration of agencies that might have otherwise operated in silos. Collaboration is
generally an important theme in planning literature (e.g. Healey 1997; and Innes 1996). It is also
important in resilience work that acknowledges the potential for a destabilizing crisis to occur –​
a crisis that might result in significant ruptures with a community’s business as usual. In a related
vein, the case has added to a nascent body of work addressing translation and equivalencies in
planning (Goulden 2016; Ruming et al. 2016; and Rydin and Tate 2016). As Ruming et al. and
Rydin and Tate remind us, equivalencies lie at the heart of planning practice and merit further
elaboration.
Finally, this chapter has explored performativity in a planning context –​again a notion which
should be of interest to resilience and disaster management scholars as well as planners more
broadly. This notion has benefitted from preliminary exploration in a broader planning and
urban studies context through Weber’s work (2015).The documents that are core to the planning
craft –​community plans –​while not considered in this chapter, are other objects that one could
examine through ANT’s performativity dimension. For the process of creating plans in today’s
society is also a recursive one, in which not only are residents and stakeholders consulted, but
technical feasibility is examined. Frequently the plan is then breathed into life during imple-
mentation by a host of network actors who must engage with, and embrace, the plan, frequently
adjusting it in the process of implementing it as contexts shift.There may thus be merit in further
appreciating the ways in which performativity can enhance agreement, cohesion and resilience.
As with all studies, inevitably some knowledge remains hidden to researchers, whether or
not they view the arena through a participatory lens. While I have attempted to triangulate
by supplementing my own outlook with data from an independent report by a credentialed

454
 Case study of a granting agency

evaluator, outside experts also have biases and data gaps. I sought to rectify some of these gaps by
exposing fellow funders to the ideas in my draft paper and asking them for further comments.
I incorporated these into the article, but even these will still give an incomplete view. Rather
than having the final word on any of these themes, the paper invites other scholars to continue
the conversation through further exploration.

Note
1 While the preferred term is Indigenous, at the time of the project aboriginal was used more frequently
among key local agencies. It is used here for continuity purposes.

References
Ackland, A. (2014). Lost in translation: Tracing the erasure of the critical dimension of a radical educational
discourse. Studies in the Education of Adults. 46(2): 192–​210.
Agani, F., Landau, J., and Agani, N. (2010). Community-​ building before, during, and after times of
trauma: The application of the LINC model of community resilience in Kosovo. American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry. 80(1): 143–​149.
Altay, N., Green, W., and Lapetina, J. (2006). Improving Disaster Response Efforts with Decision Support
Systems. Richmond, VA: Management Faculty Publications, University of Richmond, Robins
School of Business. https://​scholarship.richmond.edu/​cgi/​viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&contex
t=management-​faculty-​publications.
Aoki, N. (2015). Wide-​area collaboration in the aftermath of the March 11 disasters in Japan: Implications
for responsible disaster management. International Review of Administrative Sciences. 81(1):196–​213.
Beatley, T. (2009). Introduction. Planning for Coastal Resilience: Best Practices for Calamitous Times.
Washington, DC: Island Press, xi–​xvi.
Beauregard, R (2012a) In search of assemblages. Crios. 4: 9–​16.
Beauregard, R (2012b) Planning with things. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 32: 182–​190.
Beauregard, R. (2015).Truths and realities. In: Planning Matter. Acting With Things. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press, 113–​132.
Bernier, Q. and Meinzen-​ Dick, R. (2014). Resilience and social capital. Paper presented at 2020
Vision: Building resilience for food and nutrition security. Conference held May 2014 by the
International Food Policy Research Institute.
Bostick, T., Holzer, T., and Sarkani, E. (2017). Enabling stakeholder involvement in coastal disaster resilience
planning. Risk Analysis. 37(6): 1181–​1200.
CAI Community Action Initiative (2014). Minutes of the meeting of the CAI Leadership Council,
November 2014.
Cowell, M. (2013). Bounce back or move on: Regional resilience and economic development planning.
Cities. 30: 212–​222.
Di Gregorio, M., Hagedorn, K., Kiri, M., Korf B., McCarthy, N., Meinzen-​Dick, R., Swallow, B., Mwangi,
E., and Markelova, H. (2012). Property rights and collective action for poverty reduction: A framework
for analysis, 25–​48. In: E. Mwangi, H. Markelova, and R. Meinzen-​Dick (eds.): Collective Action and
Property Rights for Poverty Reduction: Insights from Africa and Asia. Philadelphia, PA: Penn Press for
International Food Policy Research Institute.
Doak, J. and Karadimitriou, N. (2007). (Re)development, complexity and networks: a framework for
research. Urban Studies. 4: 209–​229.
Fainstein, S. (2010). The Just City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Farias, I. (2010). Introduction. In: I. Farias and T. Bender (eds): Urban Assemblages: How ANT Changes
Urban Studies (139–​159). Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Fischler, R. (2000). Communicative planning theory: a Foucauldian assessment. Journal of Planning
Education and Research. 19(4): 358–​368.
Flyvbjerg, B. (1998). Rationality and Power. S. Sampson (trans.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
FNHA First Nations Health Authority (2013). A Path Forward. British Columbia First Nations and
Aboriginal People’s Mental Wellness and Substance Use 10 Year Plan. A Provincial Approach to Facilitate
Regional and Local Planning and Action.

455
Laura Tate

Goulden, S. (2016). Constructing “green building”: Heterogeneous networks and the translation of sustain-
ability into planning in Israel. In: Y. Rydin and L. Tate (eds.): Actor Networks of Planning. Exploring
the Influence of Actor Network Theory. London: Routledge, 27–​43.
Hatuka, T., Rosen-​zvhi, I., Birnhack, M., Toch, E., and Zur, H. (2018). The political premises of contem-
porary urban concepts: The global city, the sustainable city, the resilient city, the creative city, and the
smart city. Planning Theory and Practice. 19(2): 160–​179.
Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative Planning. Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies.Vancouver: University of
British Columbia Press.
Howegroup (2015). Promoting Social Inclusion in Vulnerable Populations: Final Evaluation-​Final Report
to the Collaborative. August 14, 2015.Vancouver, British Columbia.
Huxley, M. and Yiftachel, O. (2000). New paradigm or old myopia? Unsettling the communicative turn in
planning theory. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 19: 333–​342.
Innes, J. (1996). Planning through consensus building: A new view of the comprehensive planning ideal.
Journal of the American Planning Association. 62(4): 460–​472.
Lather, P. (1991). Getting Smart: Feminist Research And Pedagogy Within The Postmodern.
New York: Routledge.
Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-​Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Law, J. and Singleton,V. (2013). Actor network theory and politics: Working in and on the world. Qualitative
Sociology. 36, 485–​502.
LOA –​Letter of Agreement (2014).Vancouver, British Columbia: Vancouver Foundation, City ofVancouver,
Community Action Initiative, First Nations Health Authority,Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
McGuirk, P. (2001). Situating communicative planning theory: Context, power and knowledge. Environment
and Planning. 33: 195–​217.
Moulaert, F., Martinelli, F., Swyngedouw, E., and Gonzalez, S. (2005). Towards alternative model(s) of local
innovation. Urban Studies, 42(11): 1969–​1990.
Nimmo, R. (2016). Editor’s introduction: From generalised symmetry to ontological policits and after-​
tracing actor-​network theory. In: Actor Network Theory Research.Volume 1: Emergence, Development,
and Transformation. London: Sage Publications, xxi–​xlv.
Richardson, F.C. and Fowers, B.J. (1998). Interpretive social science: an overview. American Behavioral
Scientist. 41(4): 465–​495.
Rose, C. (2014). Social innovation in complex systems. Presentation given at multiple regional workshops
in British Columbia, Canada. Fall, 2014.
Ruming, K. (2008). Negotiating development control: Using actor-​ network theory to explore
the creation of residential building policy. City Futures Research Centre, University of New
South Wales, Sydney, Australia. www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/​cityfutures/​publications/​othercfresearch/​
negotiatingdevelopmentcontrol.pdf.
Ruming, K., Mee, K., and McGuirk, P. (2016). Planned derailment for new urban futures? An Actant Network
Analysis of the “great [light] rail debate” in Newcastle, Australia. In: Y. Rydin and L. Tate (eds.): Actor
Networks of Planning. Exploring the Influence of Actor Network Theory. London: Routledge, 44–​61.
Rutland, T. and Aylett, A. (2008). The work of policy: Actor networks, governmentality, and local action on
climate change in Portland, Oregon. Environment and Planning D. 26: 627–​646.
Rydin, Y. and Tate, L. (2016). Exploring the influence of actor network theory. In: Y. Rydin and L.
Tate (eds.): Actor Networks of Planning. Exploring the Influence of Actor Network Theory.
London: Routledge, 3–​24.
Smith, S.J. (1997). The phenomenology of educating physically. In D. Vandenburg (ed.): Phenomenology
and Educational Discourse. Durban: Heinemann: 119–​144.
Smith, J., Flowers, P., and Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, Method,
and Research. London: Sage Publications.
Tate, L. (2013). Growth-​management implementation in metropolitan Vancouver: Lessons from actor-​
network theory. Environment and Planning B. 40: 783 –​ 800.
Transcript (2016). Transcript of presentation by Author and discussion among representatives of all three
major funding agencies, April 5, 2016.
Van Wezemael, J. and Silberberger, J. (2016).’Emergent places’. Innovative practices in Zurich, Switzerland.
In: Y. Rydin and L.Tate (eds.): Actor Networks of Planning. Exploring the Influence of Actor Network
Theory. London: Routledge: 175–​185.

456
 Case study of a granting agency

Vilches, S. and Tate, L. (2016). Grants as significant objects in community engagement networks: Kelowna,
British Columbia. In: Y. Rydin and L.Tate (eds.): Actor Networks of Planning. Exploring the Influence
of Actor Network Theory. London: Routledge, 62–​78.
Weber, R (2015). Performing building cycles: How real estate professionals turn booms into bubbles.
Unpublished paper presented at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning annual conference in
Houston, Texas, October 2015.
Weegman, M. and Piwowoz Hjurt, E. (2009). Naught but a story’: Narratives of successful AA recovery.
Health Sociology Review. 18(3): 273–​283.
Yanow, D. (2000). Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis. London: Sage

457
 33
Critical junctures in land
use planning for disaster
risk management
The case of Manizales, Colombia

Julia Wesely

Introduction
Urban dwellers are increasingly at risk of large-​scale, infrequent disasters, such as earthquakes and
tsunamis, as well as small-​scale but frequent events like fires, landslides, and localized flooding.
This is due to the high density of exposed people who live in hazard-​prone areas, as well as the
failures of many cities to provide the urban poor, in particular, with adequate living conditions
to reduce their vulnerabilities (Bull-​Kamanga et al. 2003; Dodman et al. 2013; Jabeen 2015).
Nevertheless, urban areas also offer many favorable conditions to manage disasters, mitigate
existing risk, and avoid the creation of new risk due to their institutional capacities as well as
human, financial, and technical resources. Campaigns like UNISDR’s “Making Cities Resilient”
bring to the forefront how cities develop capacities to anticipate and respond to risk, which
makes them central actors in disaster risk management (Johnson and Blackburn 2014).
Climate change and urbanization are widely considered contributing and driving factors for
global increases in levels of risk as well as frequency and severity of disasters, but urban risk accu-
mulation processes are more complex. They comprise dynamic interactions between the social,
economic, and ecologic factors that condition people’s vulnerability to specific hazards across
the city (Bull-​Kamanga et al. 2003). Hereby, the built environment and land use planning, which
shape the quality, quantity, and distribution of housing and infrastructure, strongly influence the
exposure of urban dwellers to different kinds of risk and their response capacity (Johnson 2011).
This chapter approaches this complexity of interactions for urban disaster risk manage-
ment (DRM) in land use planning through investigating a widely-​recognized case study in the
field: the city of Manizales in Colombia. It draws from resilience-​thinking, which postulates that
social–​ecological interactions like those between natural hazards, social vulnerability and cap-
acity to act, can be understood within the framework of complex adaptive systems.These systems
are characterized by non-​linear behavior, cross-​scale dynamics, high levels of uncertainty and
path dependencies, as well as capacities to adapt to changing conditions (Dennis et al. 2016; Nel
et al. 2018). The dynamics of many urban areas make adaptability and the capacity to innovate

458
 Critical junctures in land use planning

and steer change paramount to counteract environmental degradation as well as socio-​economic

deprivation (Castán Broto and Bulkeley 2013).
Manizales is insightful for examining the aforementioned dynamics: a highly hazardous
city, which has a long institutional history of innovation and adaptability that enabled
it to increasingly manage risk as an integral part of urban development (Chardon 1999;
Hardoy and Velasquez Barrero 2014; Velasquez Barrero 2010). Innovative DRM practices in
Manizales have been widely examined (Birkmann et al. 2011; Cardona 2007; Hardoy and
Velasquez Barrero 2014; Lavell 2009) and this chapter complements these analyses through
providing a better understanding of the complex historical trajectories, which enabled their
emergence.
The chapter adopts the approach of critical junctures, which are defined as crunched and
accelerated moments of decision making with long-​lasting impacts. They can emerge from
hazard and disaster events, or legal changes, amongst others, and trigger a path-​dependent process
that constrains future choices (Capoccia 2016). Critical juncture analysis is rooted in historical
institutionalism, which broadly intends to reveal and study political processes and mechanisms
to understand how institutions shape certain outcomes in real-​world contexts (Steinmo 2008).
Outcomes might depart from the intentions of the influencing actors, which highlights the
complexity of path-​dependence and that the critical junctures approach must not be confused
with simple cause and effect logic (Capoccia and Kelemen 2007). Through working with this
complexity, rather than simplifying it, the critical juncture approach aligns with calls from resili-
ence literature to investigate and reconnect the dynamic interactions of social, economic and
ecological urban systems (Beilin and Wilkinson 2015).
The critical juncture analysis in this chapter is structured along the following components
(adapted from Collier and Collier 1991):

• The antecedent baseline conditions against which the change can be evaluated;
• The cleavage or crisis, which generates accumulating tensions that eventually trigger the crit-
ical juncture;
• The critical juncture itself; and
• Its legacies.

This approach can be illustrated along a hypothetical example for DRM. An antecedent con-
dition for a critical juncture might be a neighborhood located in a flood-​prone area. Once
a flood occurs, inhabitants have to evacuate and lose their properties, which triggers a crisis.
The critical juncture then refers to a moment of decision making: is it possible to improve
the building standards and living conditions in situ, or would the community have to relocate?
What decision-​making factors are considered, who is excluded from the decision-​making pro-
cess and who champions it? The result and its implementation will have a legacy not only for the
inhabitants and their livelihoods but can potentially also serve as precedent for future decisions
about relocations from flood-​prone areas.
The chapter draws on primary data from 30 semi-​ structured interviews and partici-
pant observations as well as secondary data gathered by the author during fieldwork between
September and December 2015. As part of this research, a wide range of critical junctures in
the thematic areas of hazard and disaster events, norms and strategic frameworks, as well as land
use planning and the built environment have been identified (see Figure 33.1). They captured
the interviewees’ experiences in their professional lives, and thereby reflected key moments for
Manizales’ DRM1 over the past 35 years.

459
Figure 33.1 Critical junctures for DRM in Manizales
Source: Author
 Critical junctures in land use planning

Analyzed over time and in relation to each other, the critical junctures help to reveal com-
plex path dependencies in Manizales, and the capacities to reduce, manage and avoid risk, which
institutional actors have created and consolidated. This chapter focuses on two critical junctures
related to land use planning in Manizales.

• The land use planning Law 388 of 1997 and the first municipal land use plan of 2001;
• The revision of the land use plan 2017–​2029.

These two were selected for their power to illustrate the complex challenges of adaptability in
disaster risk mitigation, as well as the strategic role for urban development in Manizales.

The institutionalization of disaster risk management in a hazardous and

productive natural environment
The municipality of Manizales in the Colombian Andes is part of the so-​called central-​south
region of the Department of Caldas, which comprises 7506 km2, corresponding to 0.65 per
cent of the national area. Ninety-​seven per cent of the municipality’s 397,000 inhabitants live
in the urbanized area with a low annual population growth rate of 0.4 per cent. The urban area
of Manizales is divided into 11 districts (comunas) and 180 neighborhoods (barrios) (Manizales
Cómo Vamos 2017).
The city was founded in 1848 on a plateau (see Figure 33.2) and became economic-
ally important due to its rich resources and strategic trade links, with its cable car and train
connection. It was affected by several devastating earthquakes and fires in its early history. Today,
land and mudslides are the most frequent hazard events, which is attributed to the increased,
oftentimes unplanned, housing construction on the steep northern and southern slopes that
started to intensify from the 1940s, and particularly in the 1970s (Cardona et al. 2014). More
than 1,100 landslide disaster events and 120 hydro-​meteorological events were registered in
Manizales between 1970 and 2011. In comparison, other Colombian cities like Medellín and
Bogotá registered about 200 and 160 landslide disaster events, respectively (Campos. et al. 2012).
The following three interdependent characteristics of Manizales contextualize its disaster and
risk management as well as the close correlation between risk and land use planning: (1) the
city’s hazardous and resource-​r ich environment, (2) its relatively high levels of quality of life and
increasing socio-​economic inequalities, and (3) the strong institutionalization of DRM and the
role of inter-​institutional networks.
First, Manizales was founded in a strategic location to appropriate and trade with its rich
natural resources, as the city’s environmental conditions have provided a range of livelihood
benefits for its inhabitants: The fertile volcanic soil and climatic conditions are favorable for
growing coffee, which characterizes the region economically and culturally. A range of agricul-
tural products like bananas, avocados, mangos, and maize are also cultivated in the city for house-
hold consumption. Moreover, inhabitants benefit from the availability of guadua, a local bamboo
species, which they use for (formal and informal) construction of buildings (Chardon 2000).
Manizales is characterized by its steep and meandering slopes and the variety of micro-​
climates that occur on its altitudes from about 2,200 meters to 8,00 meters (Chardon 2000).
Precipitation levels change frequently, whereby April/​May and October/​November are particu-
larly wet with approximately 250 millimeters of rainfall per month, compared to 80 millimeters
in the dry season. Heavy rainfall becomes hazardous when it saturates the volcanic soil, which in
turn poses a risk particularly for people occupying the slopes.

461
Julia Wesely

Figure 33.2 View from the center towards the east of Manizales. High-​ rise buildings are
constructed on the plateau of the city, while small residential houses remain invisible from this
perspective
Photo credit: Author, December 2014

Second, in economic terms, Manizales is considered a relatively wealthy city within Colombia.
It scored highest on the 2016 social prosperity index and shows the fourth lowest poverty levels
of Colombian cities. Nevertheless, this still means that 28 per cent (58,000) of the inhabitants
are considered to live in poverty with less than COP 265,000/​person/​household and 5 per cent
(3,200) in extreme poverty with less than COP119.000/​person/​household. Although the data
have to be viewed cautiously, the survey by Manizales Cómo Vamos, which consolidates sev-
eral official government sources, shows that Manizales has the lowest overall housing deficit in
Colombia. About 3,000 new housing units are required to cover the quantitative deficit, because
2,900 units are currently located in non-​mitigable high risk zones and about 100 are needed for
new migrants to the city. According to the same survey, public service providers claim to provide
100 per cent service coverage of water, sewerage, and electricity as well as 79 per cent coverage
for gas supply. Moreover, health services claim that 98.2 per cent of the population have some
sort of health insurance (Manizales Cómo Vamos 2017).
Additional to the aforementioned landslide risk on the slopes, environmental challenges stem
from the lack of residual water treatment resulting in very poor water quality of its rivers, air
pollution in the city center and the lack of publicly accessible green space. The latter serves as
an example to demonstrate that environmental burdens are unequally distributed, as the low-​
income district San José only counts on 0.25 m2 green space per inhabitant compared to an
average 6.77m2 in Manizales.The environmental inequalities are exacerbated by socio-​economic
ones, as the city is also characterized as highly unequal with a Gini co-​efficient of 0.48 (Manizales

462
 Critical junctures in land use planning

Cómo Vamos 2017). However, although many low-​income urban dwellers live in precarious and
hazardous situations on the slopes, it would be overly simplistic to draw direct correlations. It is
key to point out that middle and high-​income inhabitants also live at risk, thereby making risk an
inclusive and city-​wide issue. Thus, DRM in Manizales is not only a matter of addressing what
is typically framed along discourses of vulnerability, hazard exposure, and development; it also
requires a critical examination of people’s diverse capacities to act.
Third, many publications from and about Manizales highlight its highly institutionalized
DRM and Figure 33.3 outlines the main entities contributing to it, according to the municipal
DRM plan (Alcaldía de Manizales 2016) and complemented by fieldwork observations.
Manizales’ innovative approach to DRM has been partly attributed to strong inter-​institutional
collaboration (CAPRADE 2005; Hardoy and Velasquez Barrero 2014; Romero-​Lankao and
Gnatz 2013). Particularly the alliance between the municipal government, the Environmental
Studies Institute (IDEA-​UNAL) at the National University of Colombia, and the environmental
authority of the Department of Caldas (CORPOCALDAS) has developed and consolidated
since the 1980s into a championing network for advancing DRM. The inter-​institutional and
inter-​sectorial approach to DRM has become one of the pillars enabling Manizales to develop
its land use plans in a way that was widely recognized as spearheading and innovative by the
national government.

Critical junctures of land use planning

In the disaster risk literature, land use plans are widely recognized as key strategic instruments
for supporting risk reduction in the built environment through either avoiding hazard exposure
or assigning socio-​economic activities to certain areas to reduce vulnerability (Johnson 2011;
Sutanta, Rajabifard and Bishop 2013). A land use plan considers that different hazards pose
different levels of threat depending on land uses such as industrial activities or residential houses.
It thereby plays a central role in linking DRM to other thematic areas of urban planning such as
transport, health, manufacturing, and service provision.
Manizales has to date adopted two land use plans (Planes de Ordenamiento Territorial POT),
each of which have defined a 12-​year strategy for spatial planning in the municipality. Both land
use plans were identified by the majority of interviewees as critical junctures, because of their
strategic importance to integrate urban planning and DRM. In terms of resilience dynamics, the
first critical juncture provides analytical insights particularly into interactions and path depend-
encies across policy levels, while the second one reveals innovative ways of managing changing
mitigation capacities and dealing with uncertainty.

Law 388 of 1997 and the Municipal Land Use Plan, 2001
Figure 33.4 summarizes the analytical components of the critical juncture of the first land
use plan.

Antecedent Conditions
Three key laws and policies prepared the space for the first national Land Use Law 388 of
1997 in the decade before its establishment. First, Law 9 of 1989 defined the social function of
property and the public and private forms of using land. Second, the Constitution of 1991, and
particularly Article 39, provided an important landmark for manifesting land use planning as a
framework for action through the establishment of decentralized land use planning councils at

463
Figure 33.3 DRM institutions related to Manizales
Source: Author
 Critical junctures in land use planning

Figure 33.4 Critical juncture: Land use plan 2001–​2013

Source: Author

the municipal level (Arbouin-​Gomez 2012; Hernández Peña 2010). Third, municipal develop-
ment plans (according to Law 152 of 1994) were established as key urban planning instruments,
guiding the mayor’s implementation programfor achieving specific socio-​ economic goals,
defining the budget, and prioritizing interventions for the government for four years (Garcia
Ferrari et al. 2018). Importantly, DRM forms a mandatory component of these plans. Compared
to municipal development plans, land use plans are often described as the more technical instru-
ment for guiding private development and public works (Ortiz 2018). The emergence of these
urban planning policies was embedded into the wider political–​economic situation of Colombia
during the 1990s. It followed the urgency to regulate land speculation by the private sector and
to strengthen the administrative and technical capacities of the state in urban planning (Garcia
Ferrari et al. 2018; Ortiz 2018).
In Manizales, the lack of land use planning was particularly manifest in land speculation on
scarce low-​r isk land and the expansion of (informal) settlements on the steep southern and nor-
thern slopes. Increased rural–​urban migration to the city since the 1970s due to conflicts and
agricultural crises changed the land uses and exacerbated landslide risks. Frequent landslides led
to deaths, damage to infrastructure and housing, and put pressure on the municipal government
to act. Additionally, Manizales experienced several large-​scale disasters near the city, including the
eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz in 1985 and earthquakes in 1979 and 1999 (Romero-​Lankao
and Gnatz 2013). These devastating events brought to the forefront the importance of inter-​
institutional coordination especially in information systems, early warning and recovery phases
and were drivers for the development of the DRM systems and plans on municipal and national
levels (Davidson et al. 2007).

465
Julia Wesely

Cleavage/​Crisis
The national Law 388 of 1997 has been widely acknowledged by policymakers as the cul-
mination of the aforementioned policies in the 1990s to provide a framework for Colombian
urbanism. It builds upon decentralized institutions and provides a long-​term (12-​year) perspec-
tive on urban development (Congreso de Colombia 1997).
It provided a cleavage for a critical juncture for DRM for two main reasons. Law 388 demands
municipalities to include risk management into land use planning, and particularly to define and
implement non-​mitigable areas. These refer to those areas where structural risk reduction was
technically not deemed to be possible because of the slope conditions. In already occupied areas,
a non-​mitigable area would bring about the necessity for relocation programmes, while non-​
occupied areas would apply building restrictions. Through this obligation, risk legally became a
conditioning element of land use planning in Colombia and merits a closer look at how munici-
palities deal with this conditionality and the complex knowledge and decision-​making processes
underlying it.
Moreover, besides regulating the outcomes (the plan itself), Law 388 also provided a nor-
mative framework for the planning process. It includes deadlines for presenting draft and final
documents, responsibilities of the regional environmental authorities, territorial planning
councils, and municipal government, as well as the implementation of the public consultation
process. Hence, the law raises important issues regarding governance and participation to define
the “desired order” for land use planning (Hernández Peña 2010).
Thus, Law 388 considers land use planning as an urbanistic concept for physically planning
land use through zoning and other instruments, as well as a political–​ administrative pro-
cess of implementing the structures, roles and responsibilities of territorial authorities
(Arbouin-​Gomez 2012).

Critical Juncture
The municipality of Manizales adopted its first land use plan through Agreement 508 in 2001.
The roles of the land use plan have been defined and widely communicated by the muni-
cipal government along three lines (Senior official, Secretariat of Planning, public presentation
9 January, 2015):

• “As a social agreement between the inhabitants and their territory;

• As a technical and normative instrument for long-​term planning and management;
• As a set of actions, policies and management of physical planning, which guide the develop-
ment of the municipal land and which regulate the use, occupation and transformation of
the physical, urban and rural space.”

Several interviewees from the local government proudly claimed that the plan in Manizales’
was the first adopted land use plan in Latin America, which included configured risk in already
occupied areas and implicit, future risk in unoccupied ones as determining factors for physical
planning.
Further, several publications highlighted that the land use plan of Manizales coincided with
national and international environmental sustainability agendas such as the UN Local Agenda
21 and its local environmental action plans and Colombia’s Green Municipalities programme
(Romero-​Lankao and Gnatz 2013). It was therefore a critical juncture to thematically linking

466
 Critical junctures in land use planning

the environmental and urban planning agendas of the municipality (see Hardoy and Velasquez
Barrero 2014; Velazquez 1997 for a detailed examination of sustainability agendas and muni-
cipal development plans) as well as bridging multiple governance levels.

Legacy
By 2001, Manizales already had a strong local government and consolidated its institutional
cooperation in DRM across government sectors, academia, the private sector, and civil society
organizations. Interviewees commented that this critical juncture translated into additional
resources for these alliances to implement inter-​institutional plans in fields such as transporta-
tion, ecological infrastructure and residential development with implications on risk levels across
the city. For example, the declaration of ecological set-​aside areas supported the stabilization of
slopes to reduce landslide risk (Romero-​Lankao and Gnatz 2013)
The land use planning process formally provided scope for expanding alliances beyond
formal institutions through public participation in consultations and debates at different stages
of the process. However, these spaces were recognized as an opportunity for engagement only
by a few civil society organizations. On the one hand, government interviewees lamented the
limited public reach of their activities, but on the other, these participatory spaces have been
critiqued by interviewees from civil society organizations as a formality rather than genuine
invitation to publicly debate the land use plan. Many inhabitants were either unaware of
the land use planning process and/​or did not see how their participation –​often in sessions
with lengthy technical presentations conducted during work hours –​made a difference to
their lives.
Interviewees from the municipal government highlighted that the land use planning pro-
cess mobilized resources for advancing knowledge on DRM, and that accurate baseline data to
allow for evidence-​based decision-​making became one of the central legacies: “For us, it is very
important to have a land use plan, because it allows us to have the knowledge of the territory
and to know where one can give (building) licenses or under which conditions determined
licenses can be given to inhibit new areas of risk, new settlements” (Senior Official, Secretariat
of Planning, November 5, 2015). Interviewees also emphasized that disaster risk studies were
more advanced in Manizales compared to other Colombian cities and other thematic areas in
Manizales, because risk has been on the political and research agenda in the municipality since
the 1970s. The land use plan assessed risk through a series of studies including the geology,
geo-​morphology, erosion processes, and current land use. Maps were produced for earthquake,
land and mudslide, flooding and fire hazards (CAPRADE 2005). Through overlaying and
weighting the different elements of risk, a baseline document called “The physical characterisa-
tion and a preliminary determination of the hazards and natural and anthropic risks in the city
of Manizales”2 was created, which served as a technical guideline to include risk into the land
use plan (González Largo 2012).
Based on these studies, a critical legacy challenging the management of complex adaptive
systems, comes from the definition of non-​mitigable zones, which –​at least on paper –​manifested
the precautionary principle of DRM for the 12 years of the land use plan. Potential direct
consequences were relocation and resettlement in already occupied areas as well as the prohib-
ition of new buildings on vacant sites. From the perspective of urban development and problems
with the increasing land speculation, strictly protected areas were a desirable instrument to regu-
late otherwise loose land use permits. Some interviewees from academia mentioned that DRM
was one of the thematic areas that provided a window for contesting land speculation, because
it gave the state the power to inhibit construction on high-​risk plots. This aligned with the

467
Julia Wesely

aforementioned antecedent conditions that the land use planning was expected to be a powerful
instrument to frame and guide private development.
In practice, however, many interviewees particularly from academia and civil society pointed
to the failures of enforcing non-​mitigable risk zones. On the one hand, this manifested in the
construction of a large shopping mall after developers found a study that helped in contesting
the non-​mitigable status of the plot in the land use plan. While the mall was built and mitigated
risk in the precise location, it has been highly controversial due to exacerbating the risk of
the surrounding, low-​income neighborhoods through increasing pressure on the soil. On the
other hand, implementation failures became visible in the continuous construction of precarious,
informal housing on the high-​r isk northern and southern slopes of the city (see Figure 33.5).
Furthermore, the distinction between mitigable and non-​mitigable zones also revealed the
dominant deterministic understanding of risk, which was prevalent in Colombia at that time
(Allen et al. 2015).The land use plan accounted for levels of hazard and vulnerability, but did not
provide the adaptability to manage changing levels of risk.
The problem of this stagnant view was exacerbated in conjuncture with other limited
understandings. For example, costs of relocation programs were calculated solely based on the
construction costs for housing and basic infrastructure and ignored related social processes,
such as living costs and livelihood opportunities. It has been widely documented that these
social factors, however, shape people’s preference of living sometimes informally in a declared
high-​r isk zone rather than in a low-​r isk one with more costs and other, social risk (Chardon

Figure 33.5 Informal housing constructed on the southern slopes around 2010
Photo credit: Author, 2015

468
 Critical junctures in land use planning

2010; Kelman and Mather 2008). Hence, relocation programmes from non-​ mitigable
high risk areas brought about potential adverse effects on the actual risk that inhabitants
faced; they paradoxically increased due to lack of available infrastructure, broken social ties,
lack of employment opportunities, and insufficient educational and recreational facilities
(Chardon 2010).
In sum, this first municipal land use plan became a critical juncture in its confluence of sev-
eral urban policies in the 1990s. It particularly highlights the need for transversal planning across
government sectors and particularly the environmental and risk agendas. Further, it revealed the
need for a critical interrogation of the implications of knowledge production and adaptability for
defining and implementing mitigable and non-​mitigable areas. This need becomes exacerbated
in the following critical juncture.

Towards the 2017–​2029 land use plan

The second critical juncture concerns the 2017–​2029 land use plan, which was at the drafting
stage in 2015 (see Figure 33.6). Due to political change in the municipal government in January
2016 and several open discussion points in the draft plans, the municipal council decided to post-
pone the final parts of the land use planning process until the new mayor was in office. It was
eventually approved in 2017. The following section is based on data collected during fieldwork
and can therefore only be considered as an indicative, preliminary analysis.

Antecedent Conditions
The land use plan of 2001 was updated in 2003 and 2007 to reflect changes in the city and to
correct errors from planning documents. In the period of the first land use plan between 2001

Figure 33.6 Critical juncture: Land use plan 2017–​2029

469
Julia Wesely

and 2013, Manizales was confronted with a series of heavy rains, particularly in 2003, 2005,
2008, and 2011. They triggered multiple heavy landslides, which in their accumulation caused
severe damage to buildings and infrastructure, cost the lives of many inhabitants and exacerbated
institutional resource deployment.
These events had several repercussions on land use planning. Particularly, they changed the
understanding of infrastructure in the city from “fixing the hazard” through stabilizing the slopes,
towards emphasizing that its functionality requires consistent maintenance and a recognition of
interactions between structural and non-​structural forces. Interviewees from CORPOCALDAS
lamented that landslides were triggered because drainage channels were blocked with rubbish,
or because people used terraced slopes for agriculture. One of the most recognized examples
that emerged to reframe the understanding between the built environment and social develop-
ment, is the “Guardians of the Slope” (Guardianas de la Ladera). This program employs women,
who are heads of their households, on a part-​time basis and builds their capacities to maintain
the slope stabilization infrastructure across the city. Their tasks go beyond mechanic labor and
include awareness raising, education programs, and communication about the importance of risk
mitigation (Prieto et al. 2006).
Moreover, evaluations of DRM after the hazard events revealed a series of research needs,
which required further funding. For example, there was a need to better understand the relations
between risk and critical infrastructure (Bernal et al. 2017) and to improve early warning systems
in the watersheds.The inter-​institutional alliance consisting of CORPOCALDAS, the municipal
and regional government and the National University of Colombia decided to develop a pro-
posal for a holistic project to address the accumulated gaps and challenges.

Cleavage/​Crisis
The emergence of the proposal coincided with the La Niña phenomenon, which led to heavy
winter rains in 2010. At the end of December 2010, the national government declared a state
of economic, social, and ecological emergency, which enabled it rapidly to issue a decree
concerning the reform of the National Calamity Fund. As a consequence of this reform, the
Adaptation Fund was created and the Colombia Humanitaria campaign was rolled out with the
intention to finance large-​scale risk mitigation programmes as well as recovery and reconstruc-
tion in response to La Niña (Presidencia de la República de Colombia 2010).
Due to the previous development of the inter-​institutional project proposal, Manizales was
the first applicant for Colombia Humanitaria and won COP 64,600 million funding for the
inter-​institutional project “Integrated Risk Management”.3 An additional COP 20,000 million
was acquired through a credit from the Colombian Development Bank, which was paid back
between 2009–​2019 through raising the municipal environmental surcharge on properties by
0.05 per cent to 0.2 per cent. The tax income was transferred to CORPOCALDAS, which was
responsible for its management and implementation. The majority of the funding was dedicated
to structural and non-​structural risk mitigation, education, and communication, and 10 per cent
was dedicated to research. The detailed knowledge underlying the land use plan 2017–​2029
is strongly based methods, data, monitoring, and knowledge developed through this project.
Beyond contributions of the project outputs to land use planning, the emergence of this project
demonstrates the strength of the inter-​institutional alliance in adapting to, and taking advantage
of, changing policy conditions.
A second cleavage emerged from legal changes. The national disaster risk management Law
1523 of 2012 redefined the roles and responsibilities for DRM. Importantly, it allocates the
responsibility for DRM to all Colombian citizens and obliges institutions to implement risk

470
 Critical junctures in land use planning

(rather than disaster) management strategies in a transversal manner within their competences
and jurisdiction. The management of risk dynamics was further shaken up by Decree 1077 of
2015, which induced a potential paradigm shift from deterministic to probabilistic understandings
of risk in long-​term land use planning.

Critical Juncture
The most significant momentum of the new land use plan in terms of risk management emerged
from a resolution by the regional environmental agency CORPOCALDAS, which backed up
the establishment of so-​called conditional land use, which challenges previous definitions of land
as mitigable or non-​mitigable. Rather, the concept proposes an analysis of the costs and benefits
of risk management considering the particular capacities, such as available financial capital for
mitigation measures, which are available in a certain area at a defined time.
In practice, this implies that “detailed studies” are required whenever a land use change is
planned in a high and medium hazard area. Beyond classifying the land, these studies outline the
types and costs of actions to reduce risk and capacities to implement them. Detailed studies are
conducted in accordance with the program of the municipal development plan (see Bernal et al.
2017 for a detailed outline of the process).
The methodology for probabilistic assessments of multihazard risk that enable this shift
away from deterministic understandings of risk in land use planning has been widely published
(Bernal et al. 2017; Carreño et al. 2017; Salgado-​Gálvez et al. 2017). Interviewed government
officials highlighted that Manizales is uniquely positioned to apply this methodology and draw
upon timely and spatially accurate data, particularly through acceleration of research emerging
from the “Integrated Risk Management” project. They anticipated that the land use plan and
its process of assessing risk in a holistic manner would enable the city to deal with uncertainty
through providing enhanced adaptability to changing conditions.

Evolving legacy
Interviewees from the local government and academia showed that the establishment of a condi-
tional land use category is an innovation from a risk management perspective as it departs from
the previous deterministic understanding of mitigability. From a conceptual perspective, they
argue that it clearly demonstrates how risk rather than disaster is managed, because the land use
plan accounts for current as well as future risk in relation to the different capacities to mitigate
it. Further, it shows that scientific uncertainty does not justify inaction while also highlighting
that scientific “certainty” (i.e. an accurate risk assessment of the situation of today) does not auto-
matically justify deterministic action for the 12-​year period of the land use plan. Instead, levels
of interventions are identified based on probability levels of events and their expected effects.
Interventions include protection works, early warning systems, resettlement, restriction of land
use, amongst others (Salgado-​Gálvez et al. 2017).
Where technical capacities for mitigation exist, the question then turns to the evaluation of
costs and benefits of relocation as opposed to in situ upgrading. Several interviewees from the
government stated that there is now a broader view on the social and economic costs of relocation
compared to the static view, which has been critiqued in the previous land use plan. This implies
that planners account not only for the immediate construction of the new housing, but the social
challenges, employment opportunities, transportation, and other infrastructure related to it.
However, the change undoubtedly triggers a variety of implementation challenges. For
example, assessments are currently linked to property ownership, which risks mis-​and

471
Julia Wesely

mal-​recognizing the most marginalized, informal settlers, and other kinds of vulnerable tenants,
who live in high-​r isk areas that are mostly constructed on municipal property. The change then
fundamentally brings the following questions to the forefront: whose capacities, whose know-
ledge, and whose decisions count?
Interviewed urban researchers see a danger in this more flexible land use plan, because the
market can buy its way out of what used to be –​at least on paper –​a conditioning factor
for urban planning, namely risk management. They see an increasing role particularly for civil
society organizations to contest the trajectory towards a more market-​based approach that
exacerbates the social–​spatial fragmentation of the city. One of the most active groups to address
this demand is the Subámonos al bus del POT collective, which presents an important legacy of
the land use planning process from the perspective of civil society. It was founded in July 2013
as an umbrella organization of academics, community leaders, social organizations, and citi-
zens to function as a bridge to municipal planning institutions (Civil society leader, September
30, 2015). Amongst others, the collective facilitated weekly meetings and a so-​called Cabildo
Abierto, an open council meeting in October 2015, where they voiced their concerns about the
draft plan and alternative ideas.
In sum, the emergence of the critical juncture demonstrated the innovative capacity of the
inter-​institutional alliance through the “Integrated Risk Management” project. The second land
use plan shows a move towards a dynamic understanding of the creation and management of
risk, rather than disasters, with a consideration of the changing capacities of private and public
actors to reduce and avoid risk. However, this increased flexibility further opens up risk man-
agement to market forces at the expense of marginalized populations. It makes regulatory and
strategic instruments like municipal development plans increasingly important and calls for a
stronger civil society to contest developments at the expense of marginalized inhabitants.

Conclusions
This chapter analyzed two critical junctures in land use planning that contributed to config-
uring Manizales’ current approach to DRM. This analysis looked at various characteristics of
the framework of complex adaptive systems, such as planning uncertainties, inter-​institutional
collaboration, and discourses about capacities to adapt to changing conditions, among others.
Revealing the historical trajectories of land use planning through these characteristics provided
an understanding of underlying processes and challenges for adaptable and innovative forms
of DRM.
The critical junctures illustrated that the built environment holds particular challenges in the
dynamics between deterministic and probabilistic understandings of risk. Although deterministic
perspectives are not coherent with the notion of the social construction of risk and complex
risk accumulation processes, they supported that risk management was –​at least on paper –​at
the margin of a market logic in Manizales. The recent introduction of conditional land use in
the 2017–​2029 land use plan is a more accurate representation of the existing potential for miti-
gating risk. It highlights that municipal actors are increasingly considering the role of capacities
to mitigate risk in a specific area in addition to vulnerability and hazards when defining levels of
risk. However, there is a caveat that property owners with more technical and financial capaci-
ties find a more supportive environment than those who are already highly vulnerable and have
fewer available resources.
In sum, the implementation of the new land use plan will demand critical interrogation of
the probabilistic multihazard risk assessment from a decision-​making perspective, asking: Who

472
 Critical junctures in land use planning

has the capacity to contribute to, use, critically examine, contest, and appropriate the “detailed
studies”? On the one hand, the case of the “Integrated Risk Management” project showed
the strength of inter-​institutional expert alliances and their contribution to creating spaces and
championing innovation, which today distinguish Manizales from other cities. On the other
hand, one has to be cautious that these systems are susceptible to being undemocratic and top-​
down. Civil society organizations are increasingly seeing participatory processes like land use
planning as a window for demanding more bottom-​up processes and holding the government
to account for their rights to safe and dignified living conditions. Reducing and avoiding risk
through land use planning will require bringing both approaches together as well as making
visible and strengthening the capacities and knowledges of marginalized inhabitants living on
hazardous terrain.

Acknowledgements
This work is part of a PhD project, which was supervised by Dr Cassidy Johnson and supported
by the Economic and Social Science Research Council and the Natural Environment Research
Council (ES/​J500185/​1).

Notes
1 In Colombia, DRM is organized around the following three phases that guide public policy on national,
regional, and municipal levels: Risk knowledge and information, risk reduction, disaster management
(Congreso de Colombia 2012). In some municipalities like Manizales, risk transfer is considered a
fourth component (Cardona 2007) while others consider it part of risk reduction.
2 A detailed document archive can be accessed from www.gestiondelriesgomanizales.com/​ index.
php?option=com_​content&view=article&id=12%3Aplan-​de-​ordenamiento-​territorial&catid=4
0%3Areduccion-​del-​r iesgo&Itemid=197 (October 28, 2018).
3 See www.gestiondelriesgomanizales.com/​index.php?option=com_​content&view=article&id=124&It
emid=228.

References
Alcaldía de Manizales (2016) Decreto No. 0415 de 2016. Por medio del cual se adopta el Plan Municipal
Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres del municipio de Manizales. Manizales: Secretaría Jurídica.
Allen, A., Lambert, R., Apsan Frediani, A., and Ome, T. (2015) Can participatory mapping activate spatial
and political practices? Mapping popular resistance and dwelling practices in Bogotá eastern hills. Area.
47(3): 261–​271. doi: 10.1111/​area.12187.
Arbouin-​Gomez, F. (2012) Derecho urbanístico y desarrollo territorial colombiano. Evolución desde la
colonia hasta nuestros días. Universitas. 124: 17–​42.
Beilin, R. and Wilkinson, C. (2015) Governing for urban resilience. Urban Studies. 52(7): 1205–​1217.
doi: 10.1177/​0042098015574955.
Bernal, G.A., Salgado-​Gálvez, M.A., Zuloaga, D., Tristancho, J., González, D., and Cardona, O.D. (2017)
Integration of probabilistic and multihazard risk assessment within urban development planning and
emergency preparedness and response: Application to Manizales, Colombia. International Journal of
Disaster Risk Science. 8: 270–​283.
Birkmann, J., Chang Send, D., and Suarez, D. (2011) Adaptive Disaster Risk Reduction Enhancing Methods
and Tools of Disaster Risk Reduction in the Light of Climate Change Adaptive Disaster Risk Reduction
Enhancing Methods and Tools of Disaster Risk Reduction. 43. Bonn: DKKV Publication.
Bull-​
Kamanga, L., Diagne, K., Lavell, A., Leon, E., Lerise, F., MacGregor, H., Maskrey, A., Meshack,
M., Pelling, M., Reid, H., Satterthwaite, D., Songsore, J., Westgate, K., and Yitambe, A. (2003) From
everyday hazards to disasters: The accumulation of risk in urban areas. Environment and Urbanization.
15(1): 193–​204.

473
Julia Wesely

Campos., A., Holm-​Nielsen, N., Díaz, C., Rubiano, D.M., Costa, C.R., Fernando Ramírez, C., and Dickson,
E. (2012) Analysis of Disaster Risk Management in Colombia. A Contribution to the Creation of Public
Policies. Executive Summary. Bogotá: The World Bank Colombia and GFDRR.
Capoccia, G. (2016) Critical junctures. In: O. Fioretos, T. Falleti, A. Sheingate, and G. Capoccia (eds.): The
Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–​22.
Capoccia, G. and Kelemen, R.D. (2007) The study of critical junctures: Theory, narrative, and counterfactuals
in historical institutionalism. World Politics. 59(3): 341–​369.
CAPRADE (2005) La gestión local del riesgo en una ciudad andina: Manizales, un caso integral, ilustrativo
y evaluado. Manizales: Comunidad Andina.
Cardona, O.D. (2007). La gestión del riesgo colectivo. Un marco conceptual que encuentra susteno en una
ciudad laboratorio. Manizales:: LA RED.
Cardona, O.D., Pérez, M. del P., and Suarez, D.C. (2014). Perfil Ambiental Participativo en la Cuenca Urbana
Cervantes. Manizales: Instituto de Estudios Ambientales -​Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede
Manizales.
Carreño, M.L., Cardona, O.D., Barbat, A.H., Suarez, D.C., Perez M.d.P., Narvaez, L. (2017). Holistic disaster
risk evaluation for the urban risk management plan of Manizales, Colombia. International Journal of
Disaster Risk Science. 8: 258–​269.
Castán Broto,V. and Bulkeley, H. (2013). Maintaining climate change experiments: Urban political ecology
and the everyday reconfiguration of urban infrastructure. International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research. 37(6): 1934–​1948.
Chardon, A.-​C. (1999). A geographic approach of the global vulnerability in urban area: Case of Manizales,
Colombian Andes. GeoJournal. 49(2): 197–​212.
Chardon, A.-​C. (2000). Manizales Expuesta a Situaciones de Riesgo: Un Crecimiento Urbano Incontrolado
en un Contexto Andino. Manizales: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, pp. 13–​29.
Chardon, A.-​C. (2010). Reasentar un hábitat vulnerable. Teoría versus praxis. revista invi. 25(70): 17–​75.
Collier, R.B. and Collier, D. (1991). Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement,
and Regime Dynamics in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Congreso de Colombia (1997). Ley 388 de 1997. Por la cual se modifica la Ley 9, y la Ley 3 de 1991 y se
dictan otras disposiciones.
Davidson, C.H., Johnson, C., Lizarralde, G., Dikmen, N., and Sliwinski, A. (2007). Truths and myths about
community participation in post-​disaster housing projects. Habitat International. 31(1): 100–​115.
Dennis, M., Armitage, R.P., and James, P. (2016). Social-​ecological innovation: adaptive responses to urban
environmental conditions. Urban Ecosystems. Urban Ecosystems. 19(3): 1063–​1082. doi: 10.1007/​
s11252-​016-​0551-​3.
Dodman, D., Brown, D., Francis, K., Hardoy, J., Johnson, C., and Satterthwaite, D. (2013). Understanding
the Nature and Scale of Urban Risk in Low-​and Middle-​Income Countries and Its Implications for
Humanitarian Preparedness, Planning and Response. 4. London: International Institute for Environmnet
and Development.
Garcia Ferrari, S., Smith, H., and Calderon, E. (2018). Contemporary tendencies in Colombian urban
planning: the case of the “Planes Parciales” in Medellín. International Planning Studies. 23(4): 355–​375.
doi: 10.1080/​13563475.2018.1500276.
González Largo, C.C. (2012). Evaluación del Riesgo con Técnicas Probabilistas y su Incorporación en los
Planes de Ordenamiento Territorial. El caso de Manizales. Boletín ambiental 107. Manizales: Instituto
de Estudios Ambientales -​Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales.
Hardoy, J. and Velasquez Barrero, L.S. (2014). Re-​thinking “Biomanizales”: Addressing climate change adap-
tation in Manizales, Colombia. Environment and Urbanization. 26(1): 1–​16.
Hernández Peña, Y.T. (2010). El ordenamiento territorial y su construcción social en Colombia: ¿Un
instrumento para el desarrollo sustentable?. Cuadernos de Geografía: Revista Colombiana de Geografía.
19: 97–​109.
Jabeen, H. (2015). Adapting the assets of urban low-​income households with climate extremes: experience
from Dhaka. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. 7(1): 72–​88.
Johnson, C. (2011). Creating an Enabling Environment for Reducing Disaster Risk: Recent Experience
of Regulatory Frameworks for Land, Planning and Building in Low and Middle-​Income Countries,
Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. London: UNISDR.
Johnson, C. and Blackburn, S. (2014). Advocacy for urban resilience: UNISDR’s Making Cities Resilient
Campaign. Environment and Urbanization. 26(1): 29–​52.

474
 Critical junctures in land use planning

Kelman, I. and Mather, T. (2008). Living with volcanoes: The sustainable livelihoods approach for volcano-​
related opportunities. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. 172(3–​4): 189–​198.
Lavell, A. (2009). Local Disaster Risk Reduction: Lessons from the Andes. Lima: LA RED.
Manizales Cómo Vamos (2017). Informe calidad de vida Manizales. Manizales: Universidad Nacional de
Colombia –​Sede Manizales.
Mejía Prieto, B., GiraldoValencia, G.I., and Trujillo Galvez, L.M. (2006) Guardianas de la ladera: Un programa
de cultura ciudadana en la prevención del riesgo. Manizales: Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Sede
Manizales.
Nel, D., du Plessis, C., and Landman, K. (2018). Planning for dynamic cities: introducing a framework to
understand urban change from a complex adaptive systems approach. International Planning Studies.
23(3): 250–​263. doi: 10.1080/​13563475.2018.1439370.
Ortiz, C. (2018). Colombia, disP –​The Planning Review. 54(1): 35–​37.
Presidencia de la República de Colombia (2010). Decreto 4819 de 2010. Por el cual se crea el Fondo
Adaptación. Bogotá: Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público.
Romero-​Lankao, P. and Gnatz, D.M. (2013). Exploring urban transformations in Latin America. Current
Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 5(3–​4), pp. 358–​367. doi: 10.1016/​j.cosust.2013.07.008.
Salgado-​Gálvez, M.A., Bernal, G.A., Zuloaga, D., Marulanda, M.C., Cardona, O.D., and Henao, S. (2017).
Probabilistic seismic risk assessment in Manizales, Colombia: Quantifying losses for insurance purposes.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 8(3): 1–​12.
Steinmo, S. (2008). What is historical institutionalism?. In: D. Della Porta and M. Keating (eds.): Politics.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 150–​178.
Sutanta, H., Rajabifard, A., and Bishop, I.D. (2013). Disaster risk reduction using acceptable risk measures for
spatial planning. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. 56(6): 761–​785.
Velasquez Barrero, L.S. (2010). Biociudad: Alternativa para la Sostenibilidad de Pequeñas Ciudades. El Caso
de Manizales en Colombia. Revista Internacional Sostenibilidad, Tecnología y Humanismo. 5: 57–​82.
Velazquez, L.E. (1997). Monitoreo del Plan de Desarrollo: Manizales.

475
 34
Urban resilience
State of the art and future prospects

Adriana Allen, John Twigg, Michael A. Burayidi, and

Christine Wamsler

Why urban resilience?

To a large extent, the “urban turn”, has also been the “resilience” turn. In fact, over the last two
decades, thinking about urbanization as a planetary condition, and about climate change as an
unequivocal threat, has somehow fostered wide consensus on the idea that we need to think and
learn how to live not just in an “urban world”, but in a “resilient urban world”. A world where
cities can prepare, withstand and recover from a wide range of crises and threats, both known and
unknown, including global warming, disaster events, pandemic diseases, terrorism, and financial
and social meltdown (Coaffee and Lee 2016). As put by Ahern (2011), the “aim [of urban resili-
ence] is to contain and mitigate surprises by no longer assuming that urban environments are
‘fail-​safe’, but rather to develop procedures that follow a ‘safe-​to-​fail’ strategy” (p. 341).
Translated into urban planning and social theory, resilience has thus become a powerful
boundary-​spanning concept, with the capacity to reframe and permeate debates on urban
change. This refers not only to the multi and inter-​disciplinary engagements across the fields
of engineering, ecology, and psychology –​to name just a few –​but also to its ability to facili-
tate communication, exchange, and coordination with and among urban policymakers and
practitioners across the world. As such, urban resilience has rapidly become a salient reference to
seek innovation and mobilize resources and alliances across multiple agents and networks.
Propagated by scholars and practitioners from multiple disciplines, think tanks, and inter-
national organizations as a means to move towards a positive attribute, urban resilience epitomizes
how ideas and practices might travel, settle, construct, and/​or colonize new domains of thinking
and practice. In the process, the concept has become translated and embedded in new contexts,
forging new meanings, relations, practices, and subjectivities. Throughout these trajectories,
urban resilience has been equally used as a wide-​meaning metaphor, a forensic lens to read the
past, a desirable vision to prepare for the future, or as a specific approach or means to support
cities to cope and transcend sudden shocks and slow-​burn risks.
Accordingly, urban resilience and urban sustainability also share much in common through
their journeys: initially conceived in scientific specialized niches, both terms have become key
in the vocabulary of international agreements, the methodological search for innovation, and
the everyday language of urban practitioners across the world, as further described in Chapter 1.

476
 State of the art and future prospects

Thus, it is not surprising that urban resilience is currently received with equal support and criti-
cism. While firmly endorsed as an international goal, many are also talking about resilience as a
notion of the past and inviting us to think ‘beyond urban resilience’ (Davoudi and Porter 2012;
Lhomme et al. 2013; Mykhnenko 2016; Shaw 2012;Vale 2014)
Different geographical contexts have formed and influenced the urban resilience concept.
As noted by Yuan in Chapter 11, in China and other countries, “[t]‌he theoretical discussion on
urban resilience […] has been largely limited to the literature review of existing theories from
developed countries” (p. 131) and directly translated into policy and planning prescriptions.
While Chinese cities have a long history of surviving disasters by building resilient communi-
ties, the term has not been featured to describe such practices. The same could be said about
many other geographical contexts across the Global South or, more precisely, “outside” the
epicenters of resilience thinking and theorization.Yet, urban resilience is posed internationally as
an imperative, which often neglects the fact that it is highly context specific.
Is the power and usefulness of the concept of urban resilience now at risk of getting lost in
translation? Is it forcing ways of thinking and acting upon cities that reinforce Western hegem-
onies and naturalizing them as “universal”? Are we witnessing increased communication across
fields of urban thinking and action at the expense of substantial meaning? If not, what is the
actual scope of urban resilience for opening new ways of understanding and acting upon urban
change?
The chapters in this volume explored such questions and the intellectual, methodological,
axiological, and practical productivity of urban resilience from a wide range of angles and in a
wide set of contexts. Adhering to Meerow and Newell’s (2016) proposal, we offer here a cross-​
reading of the contributions featured in this volume to scrutinize resilience in relation to the
following set of questions: why resilience, resilience of what, to what, resilience where and when,
and resilience for whom? In addition to these “five W’s”, we add the question of resilience by
whom, as a means to bring to the fore a critical and political reproblematization of current
debates and practices.

Resilience of what?
The question of what is made to be made resilient to what has received significant attention over
the last decade (Chelleri et al. 2015).This has been inspired by a search for clarifying the meaning,
target, and scope of resilience-​seeking analyses and practices. In broad terms, the current debate
is somehow polarized between those who endorse a general understanding of resilience as the
generic adaptability, flexibility, or adaptive capacity of urban systems to unspecified disturbances
(Miller et al. 2010) and those who argue for specificity (Carpenter et al. 2001, see also Chapter 3
by Thorén in this volume). For the former, adhering to a general and open framing enhances the
communicative power of resilience as a boundary-​spanning notion, malleable enough to travel
across disciplinary and policymaking domains and to expand the scope of resilience to respond
not only to expected disturbances, but also to those currently unforeseen.This is widely the pos-
ition adopted by the City Resilience Framework developed by the Rockefeller Foundation and
Arup, which defines city resilience as “the capacity of cities to function, so that the people living
and working in cities –​particularly the poor and vulnerable –​survive and thrive no matter what
stresses or shocks they encounter” (Rockefeller Foundation and Arup 2015: 11).
In their meta-​analysis of the scientific literature on methodologies and indicators to assess
urban resilience, Suarez, Gómez-​Baggethun, and Onaindia (Chapter 16) found that almost
half of the publications reviewed adhere to a holistic definition of resilience by referring to
urban socio-​economic systems in general. Unsurprisingly, the emphasis in most cases is on the

477
A. Allen, J. Twigg, M. A. Burayidi, and C. Wamsler

biophysical dimensions of urban systems including both physical infrastructure and environ-
mental conditions. However, when looking at the question of resilience to what, the bulk (over
two-​thirds) of the papers analyzed refer to specific disturbances –​predominantly in relation to
disasters triggered by natural hazards or extreme weather events related to climate change –​as
opposed to resilience to any kind of disturbance or stress.
As contended by Pizzo (2015) and elaborated by Adil and Audirac in Chapter 4,
distinguishing “whether the perturbation in question is a sudden shock, like Hurricane
Katrina or Harvey, or a slow burn, like sustained urban depopulation like in Detroit or
Youngstown, post-​disaster roadmaps anticipate and operationalize the notion of resilience
quite differently”. The authors go on to argue that “when the perturbation is a slow-​burn
process, like lake eutrophication, long term droughts, or urban shrinkage, post-​disaster revi-
talization roadmaps emphasize renewal and reconstruction. In this case, the perturbation itself
is conceived not as a shock or unexpected aberration, but rather as an expected function
(i.e. feedback processes) of system dynamics.” Construing these processes as gradual or slow-​
burn social and natural stresses helps us to capture the simultaneous existence of multiple
interlocking systems as regular socio-​ecological features in urban development. For instance,
in his examination of open spaces as multifunctional infrastructure, LaGro (Chapter 7) argues
that urban open spaces “have the capacity to markedly increase urban sustainability, livability,
and resilience”. Though this performative function of cities is often impeded by limited local
governance capacity, obsolete policies and siloed approaches propagated through professional
education and practice. Taking a wider look at critical infrastructures such as functioning
electricity and energy systems to water supply, Silvast in Chapter 22 builds upon the work
of Graham and Marvin (2001) to highlight the role and obduracy of such systems in regu-
lating everyday life and disaster situations, while consolidating path dependency and lock-​in
trajectories.
What is evident through the different chapters in this volume and the wider literature is that,
under the banner of urban resilience, “very different events (a flood, a war, a social upheaval) [are
treated] as essentially equal, without distinguishing what is unexpected from what is contentious
or unwanted” (Pizzo 2015, p. 134). How urban crises are construed and responded to, under
varying circumstances, provides insights into different favored lens, from engineering, ecological,
evolutionary, or feminist, among many other hegemonic and counter-​hegemonic framings. In
this sense, Barbara (2015), reminds us that while “we need to correctly and specifically narrow
the concept and its use […] this is not the primary problem. Instead […] its political meaning
[is] of the utmost importance” (p. 134).
Thus, how urban resilience is being translated into urban planning and practice demands a
critical examination of how the presumed uncontroversial mobilization of metaphors from the
physical and natural sciences is impacting upon the real world. (Carpenter et al. 2001; Pickett
et al. 2004).
Applying the notion of resilience to understand institutional responses to shrinking cities and
property abandonment in the US city of Muncie, West (Chapter 15) demonstrates the scope of
the notion to rethink how cities respond to a broad spectrum of issues beyond climate change. In
doing so, he argues that to retain and expand its usefulness, urban resilience “must be deracinated
from biology and replanted in the field of contemporary social theory”. (p. 185) In other words,
he reminds us that resilience is a social process of construction and reconstruction of the city
rather than a natural phenomenon. Thus to “understand how cities can best respond to trauma,
degradation and shock, we should not look towards the law-​like regularities of the natural
sciences. Instead, we should focus our attention on the haphazard and idiographic networks of
association that create stasis and change in social relationships.”

478
 State of the art and future prospects

In the same vein, Lema, Liesch and and Graziano (Chapter 21) apply a resilience lens to study
the growth pathways of several American “legacy cities” following the 2008–​2012 financial crisis.
They argue for an understanding of resilience that encompasses non-​linear dynamics and an itera-
tive process of “relational adaptation”, a “process through which the world is being reshaped and
an ongoing adaptation is taking place” ( pp. 274–275).The notion of relational adaptation resonates
with David Chandler’s invitation to think about resilience as a means to govern complexity
(Chandler 2014). Adhering to this argument implies acknowledging that “[c]‌omplex life is govern-
able, but on a very different basis than ‘liberal’ life” (Chandler 2014, p. 20). This takes us to explore
how urban resilience is socially constructed and governed, a topic to which we return below.
Aragón-​Durand (Chapter 12) advocates the adoption of a social constructionist perspective
to move beyond positivist approaches that emphasize biophysical conditions, obscuring how
discourses, meanings and values are playing out at the policy level, and with what consequences,
for what, and who is included and excluded. In the following section we explore the “when and
where” of urban resilience or, in other words, how temporal and spatial considerations play out
in the way in which the notion is conceived analytically and in planning practice.

The “where” and “when” of urban resilience

If we agree that urban resilience calls for understanding and responding to constant change and
uncertainty, how do temporal, spatial, and multiscalar questions feature in current debates? As
argued by Allen et al. (2017), time and history matter together, as we cannot address questions
of what resilience and for whom without engaging with the questions of where and when that
are embedded in any attempt to make specific social and biophysical systems resilient to different
threats and risks (Allen 2014).
Accordingly, in their critical comparison of the notions of urban resilience and urban sustain-
ability, Kuhlicke et al. Chapter 2 argue that, while both concepts have an explicit future orienta-
tion, they operate at different time-​scales. On the one hand, sustainability has a strong reference to
the link between current actions and long-​term impacts and conditions (i.e. through its emphasis
on intra-​and inter-​generational questions); whereas “[u]‌rban resilience, in contrast, highlights
the more pressing need to be able to deal with surprising events, which can, potentially, occur at
any time.” (p. 22) The authors contend that the same is true when it comes to the treatment of
spatial considerations. Through their normative emphasis on ensuring that actions taken in one
location should not negatively impact the needs and rights of other urban systems, debates on
urban sustainability adopt an explicit multiscalar and inter-​local justice perspective. By contrast,
prevailing applications of the concept of resilience are spatially less encompassing. Through the
emphasis on “increasing the capacity of specific locations, communities, neighborhoods or cities
to adapt to, cope with, and learn from disturbances” (Chapter 2, p. 23) resilience-​seeking strat-
egies typically run the risk of obscuring the displacement and externalization of risk both across
space and time, which also has equity and environmental justice implications.
In their systematic review of the literature on urban resilience, Suárez et al. (Chapter 16)
confirm the trend described above. When looking at the question of when, the authors found
that most studies privilege rapid-​onset disturbances over slow-​onset or cumulative and long-​
term processes. Temporal considerations feature at best through efforts to “compare resilience
levels before and after a disturbance” (p. 208), while just a few studies acknowledge the need
for long-​term resilience planning. By contrast, some contributors in this volume offer valuable
perspectives to expand the timeframe in which resilience can be apprehended and pursued.
Examining risk accumulation cycles across two sub Saharan cities, Allen et al. (Chapter 25)
contend that debates on urban resilience should go beyond the tendency to consider adaptive

479
A. Allen, J. Twigg, M. A. Burayidi, and C. Wamsler

capacities to bounce back or forward from discrete events, to deal instead with risk accumulation
or urban “risk traps”. Such traps are defined “as the vicious cycle through which various envir-
onmental hazards and episodic but repetitive and often unrecorded disasters not only accumulate
in particular localities, but tend to grow exponentially over time” (p. 331) (Allen et al., 2017). In a
similar vein, West (Chapter 15) argues convincingly against the fallacies of ignoring the fact that
cities never do reach equilibrium: instead, permanent and cumulative change is the norm. Thus,
as he demonstrates through his analysis of institutional responses to shrinking cities and prop-
erty abandonment, “responses to urban decline are historically and politically contingent upon
planning, rather than part of natural or biological cycles” (p. 184).
In her longitudinal analysis of resilience planning in Manizalez, Colombia,Wesely (Chapter 33)
advocates examining the critical junctures that “help to reveal complex path dependencies [in
the city], and the capacities to reduce, manage and avoid risk, which institutional actors have
created and consolidated”. This approach allows for a critical examination of “the dynamics
between deterministic and probabilistic understandings of risk” (p. 472) revealing not just what
capacities for resilience might operate in a city but how and why risk management might be
marginalized or confined to a market planning logic. Through working with complexity, rather
than simplifying it, the critical juncture approach aligns with calls to investigate and reconnect
the dynamic interactions of social, economic, and ecological urban systems. Critical junctures
often lead to accelerated moments of decision making with long-​lasting impacts. Nevertheless,
urban resilience governance is often based on learning by doing, “trial and error” processes, and
pilot projects (Berkes 2009; Wamsler et al. 2016).
Suarez et al. (Chapter 16) found that in a literature survey on urban resilience, almost half
of the reviewed studies capture resilience only at the city scale, while others focus on the scale
of the neighborhood, the block or individual buildings, but rarely simultaneously. While some
contributors in this volume raise the importance of spatial and cross-​scalar analysis to expand
the capacity of urban resilience to capture the full dynamics of urban socio-​ecological systems,
such analyses are still rare. Urban resilience is complex and challenging, so arguably looking
across scales is a step too far for most researchers –​but the effort must be made. As pointed
out by Suarez et al., “[l]‌ocal resilience may be affected by global-​scale processes, whereas local-​
scale transformations can influence broader-​scale resilience.” (p. 201) Kuhlicke et al. (Chapter 2)
observe that urban resilience encompasses what Anderson (2010) defines as a “paradoxical pro-
cess”, where actions in the “now and here” are justified by anticipated outcomes while shaping
future and elsewhere conditions. Thus, analytically and practically, resilience debates and strat-
egies need to make explicit their embedded assumptions and actual and potential trade-​offs
across time and space.

Resilience for whom?

In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have raised the question of resilience for whom
(e.g. Chelleri et al. 2015; Cote and Nightingale 2011). These contributions have been inspired
by a shared concern about the lack of consideration of questions of agency, inequality, power,
politics, and ideology across popular, academic, and activist arenas. Cretney (2014) identifies two
main interpretations that emphasize respectively the notions of adaptive capacity and transform-
ation. The former refers “to the patterns and processes of behavior that engage change to main-
tain a system within the parameters of critical thresholds” (Cretney 2014). Transformation refers
to a more radical path, where untenable or undesirable conditions in a given socio-​ecological
system, are changed, or at least when transformative preparedness to change is sought or achieved

480
 State of the art and future prospects

(Walker and Salt 2012). Both interpretations have been criticized for normalizing a discourse
on development as a global imperative regardless of the political economy and ecology context.
In their literature review, Suárez et al. (Chapter 16) observe three prevailing approaches
adopted to operationalize the question of resilience for whom. The first and second concern
the use of spatial analytical methods within a particular locality, or a focus on particular social
groups to identify the differential impacts of threats and hazards and also the distribution of
positive effects prompted by actual and/​or potential resilience-​seeking strategies. Distributional
assessments of “good and bad” are often conducted in relation to a single variable presumed to
explain what makes certain social groups more vulnerable than others, such as income, gender,
or age. Intersectional readings of vulnerability and resilience are still rare, and those that simul-
taneously engage with questions of where and who are even less common (Chaplin et al. 2019).
The third approach adopts equity indicators often under the generic assumption that some social
inequalities can diminish or enhance resilience to specific disturbances.
Several chapters throughout the book invite a more critical exploration of the question of
resilience for whom. Johannessen et al. (Chapter 13) explore the interface between risk, vul-
nerabilities, social equity, and the resilience of urban water services in the context of Metro
Cebu, the fastest-​growing urban area outside of Manila in the Philippines. They conclude that
preventive measures to tackle gaps in access to and control over critical infrastructures are essen-
tial to build the resilience of the most disadvantaged in Metro Cebu, a message that is largely
applicable to most cities across the Global South, where peri-​urbanization without infrastructure
is largely the norm (Allen 2014).
In Chapter 20, Ruszczyk reminds us about the still predominantly invisible and invisibilized
role of women in the city and, more widely, of gender dynamics in hegemonic urban gov-
ernance systems. Examining the intersection of invisibility and gender in Bharatpur –​one of
the largest cities in Nepal –​she explores how Cindi Katz’s (2010) understanding of resilience,
reworking and resistance to patriarchal notions of social reproduction can help us “to better
understand the subtleties of people’s oppositional practices and not overestimate their counter-​
hegemonic effects” (p. 318). In a context where the influence of the state is skewed by factors
such as gender, caste, affluence, and geographical location, some urban dwellers might have
more leverage than others to rework their resilience-​seeking strategies through collective efforts.
A similar point is raised by Sandoval (Chapter 19) in his analysis of the place-​making strat-
egies adopted by stigmatized Latino business owners in downtown Woodburn in the United
States. Here, Sandoval reveals the extent to which ethnic resilience strategies challenge traditional
power dynamics and operate as a means to confront a racialized planning context biased towards
a white historic preservation perspective.
As argued by Rouse in Chapter 18, “inequality, social stratification, and poverty are key
factors that increase a population’s vulnerability to natural disasters”, but also shape exposure
and vulnerability to a wide range of socially constructed threats, including many often labeled as
“natural” events. An ample body of literature has raised attention to the disproportionate impacts
affecting poor, impoverished and marginalized social groups. However, generic engagements
with the notion that some citizens are more vulnerable than others do not lead automatically to
greater engagement with issues of social equity and inclusion relating to risk exposure, depend-
ence on systems and governance structures. Klinenberg (2002) reminds us that in any given
context, there is a “geography of vulnerability” that is linked to class, race, place, age, and so on,
which explains the disproportional impact of various threats and crises. This point is also clearly
demonstrated by Yoo (Chapter 9), in her assessment of who is most vulnerable to extreme heat-​
weather events in American cities.Yet there is a tendency in much of the resilience literature to
pay lip service to a long list of those most at risk, but without engaging with the sources of their

481
A. Allen, J. Twigg, M. A. Burayidi, and C. Wamsler

marginalization in the first place. Furthermore, those acknowledged as being disproportionally

affected by a wide range of “disturbances” are often portrayed as “victims”, devoid of agency,
knowledge and capacity to actively partake in building urban resilience. On the other hand, a
further problematization refers to the overreliance on community-​based adaptability and built-​
in resilience strategies to cope with both sudden shocks and risk accumulation cycles or urban
“risk traps” (Allen et al. 2017).
In Chapter 14, Hartt et al. invite us to think about the stigmatizing /​negative reading of
shrinking cities with reference to the US context. Their reflection applies to many other ways
in which negative labels, attached to specific groups because of their social identity or location
within the city, often help to propagate stigmatization and victimization, thus rendering invisible
the actual role that those groups can actively play in catalyzing wider change. Looking at disaster
volunteerism, Montano (Chapter 17) reminds us that disaster survivors tend to be unwillingly
cast as victims by those seeking to assist them during disaster response. “Yet, researchers have
found there is actually a robust citizen response in the form of survivors helping themselves
and others around them, and additional help arriving from outside the impacted community”
(p. 219). Moreover, disaster volunteerism can take place on a massive scale, and volunteers are
involved at every stage of the disaster cycle, making them an important contributor to com-
munity resilience in a wide range of geographical, social, and political contexts globally, even
though this can create tension with formal, hierarchical organizational structures (Twigg and
Mosel 2017).This highlights a widespread tendency in resilience debates to ignore the agency of
those meant to benefit from resilience-​seeking strategies, and the existence of a growing body of
literature challenging such assumptions (Bankoff 2007; Cannon and Müller-​Mahn 2010; Pelling
and Manuel-​Navarrete 2011).
Importantly, some contributors also argue that the concept of resilience needs to be expanded
to include the role of people’s inner dimensions, including their values, beliefs, worldviews,
and associated cognitive/​emotional capacities. This is in line with recent calls for the need to
more values-​and worldview-​sensitive risk reduction and adaptation (Brink and Wamsler 2019;
Wamsler and Raggers 2018). Chapter 5 by Wamsler et al. addresses this new dimension of urban
resilience, arguing that emotional and cognitive capacities, such as mindfulness, empathy and
compassion, might be a means to improving not only individual, but also collective and societal
resilience. Similarly, MacKinnon and Derickson (2012) contend that resilience can be under-
stood not just as the opposite of vulnerability but rather as a form of “resourcefulness” to best
“maintain the functioning of an existing system in the face of externally derived disturbance.
[However] [b]‌oth the ontological nature of ‘the system’ and its normative desirability escape crit-
ical scrutiny. As a result, the existence of social divisions and inequalities tend to be glossed over
when resilience thinking is extended to society” (p. 258).
The above discussion also highlights the need to repoliticize resilience framings and norma-
tive claims in light of questions of equality, diversity, and justice. As argued by Adil and Audirac
(Chapter 4), to a large extent, “[i]‌nherently depoliticized and conservative, resilience thinking
concedes little, if any, conceptual space to poverty and social justice” (p. 39), instead privileging a
consensus-​driven, orderly and stable view of society. In their view, this requires taking a critical
stance to the functionalist legacy of early resilience thinking to make room for a deeper prob-
lematization of social change, agency, power, and conflict. As proposed by Allen et al. (2017), a
systematic interrogation of the interrelation between urban resilience and environmental justice
offers a productive way forward, to uncover unshaken assumptions not only in relation to dis-
tributional outcomes but also the conditions under which misrecognition and lack of parity of
participation actively produce and reproduce all forms of urban injustice paradoxically in the
name of resilience.

482
 State of the art and future prospects

Resilience by whom
The question of resilience by whom is much less explored than others in the current literature.
As argued by some scholars, debates on urban resilience tend to be acritical about the presumed
distribution of roles and responsibilities (Allen et al.2017; Bahadur and Tanner 2014; Harris et al.
2017; Welsh 2014). In Chapter 2, Kuhlicke et al. note that, “[i]‌n resilience-​based governance
settings, governmental bodies and administrations tend to devolve responsibility to local actors,
including citizens, by communicating the limits of their ability to protect citizens and, as a result,
make citizens individually and ‘morally’ responsible for future disturbances and risks.” (p. 21).This,
they notice, is in high contrast with debates on urban sustainability, where the responsibilities
of public actors and international organizations are clearly recognized and specified. Restricting
the role of local authorities to enabling and/​or supporting the self-​organizing efforts of local
communities and individuals often means in practice that resilience-​seeking efforts remain out of
funding and regulatory governmental frameworks (Cannon and Müller-​Mahn 2010).
Resilience governance is best by complexity: it involves multiple actors and new or altered
relationships. Institutional problems and blockages to effective resilience building are a thread
running through several chapters, but a stronger understanding of how governance institutions
function on an everyday basis is needed if those institutions are to be transformed. Suarez et al.
(Chapter 16) observe that although ecological and socio-​ecological perspectives of resilience
are widely accepted among academics, an engineering vision dominates in policy. This is pos-
sibly because such an approach makes it easier to communicate, measure and demonstrate
success.
In Chapter 25, Allen et al. point out that a more critical stance to the governance of resili-
ence demands avoiding the tendency to either ignore or romanticize and homogenize the role
of local communities. In their view, this requires engendering grassroots-​led processes to assess
the heterogeneity of local capacities in light of wider governance relations that often hinder such
capacities through various forms of misrecognition –​i.e. those perpetuated by insecure tenure,
eviction threats and more generally a punitive treatment of informality across the urban Global
South. On the other hand, approaches to making cities resilient across the so-​called Global
North tend to present this as a managerial task that simply requires adapting existing planning
approaches.
As highlighted by Adil and Audirac (Chapter 4), “translating resilience thinking into urban
planning carries the possibility not only of eschewing progressive transformation in favor of the
dominant and highly institutionalized social order but also enjoins greater liberties for unre-
stricted market-​oriented mechanisms (Davoudi and Porter 2012; MacKinnon and Derickson
2012; Vale 2014).” Across different contexts, urban resilience strategies seem to be implicitly
aligned with the rolling back of the state (Davoudi and Porter 2012). For Adil and Audirac,
this implies that “underlying this malleability is a fundamental inadequacy of the resilience
lens to grasp society in all its complexity –​often ignoring or glossing over critical issues of
socio-​economic disenfranchisement and disempowerment –​owing not only to its function-
alist systems ontology but also to Hollings’ preferential conceptualization of self-​organization
dynamics through market mechanisms” (p. 41).
Adil and Audirac go on to argue that the concept of resilience inadvertently reinforces the
status quo maintained by incumbent institutions and undermines popular struggles and conflict
that may arise in response. Operationalizing resilience in urban planning can potentially sanction
the marginalization of subaltern voices and undermine accountability. Tate (Chapter 32) shows
how analytical tools such as ANT can help researchers and planners to understand “distributed
agency” –​the various groups, networks, channels, and microprocesses that generate resilience and

483
A. Allen, J. Twigg, M. A. Burayidi, and C. Wamsler

social innovation –​thereby revealing the co-​existence of multiple local realities and approaches,
and drawing attention to the continuous networked efforts needed to build social cohesion in
resilience-​focused projects and programs.
Resilience theory and practice are evolving alongside other newly emerging approaches,
such as ecosystem and nature-​based solutions and associated understanding of governance.
Knowledge co-​production processes can legitimize diverse and contested citizen knowledge of
urban ecosystems.

A future research agenda –​some final remarks

The concept of resilience is likely to continue to dominate and influence the international and
also national and local agendas for decades to come. In doing so, it is important that we find
ways to adequately systematize and understand how the concept is differently perceived and
operationalized as expounded in the discussions in this book, namely regarding: resilience of
what, where and when, and for whom and by whom? These questions will continue to bedevil
discussions of the concept and its implementation as policymakers and other change agents
seek to adapt urban areas to societal and climatic changes for the future. The contributors to
this book acknowledge that related discussion are still evolving and welcome further explora-
tory studies on the subject. Originating from different countries, professional backgrounds,
and academic disciplines, they reflect the strengths and limitations of our current knowledge
on the resilience concept. For all their wide range and considerable depth, we seem to be still
unable to convey a full and all-​compassing picture of urban resilience in its diverse contexts to
arrive at a consensus about how to act worldwide in pursuit of urban resilience. However, this
is also not the ultimate goal. In fact, resilience should not be understood as an off-​the-​shelve
concept, but rather a context-​specific process that requires diversity, flexibility and redundancy
to ensure that all risk factors and underlying root causes are addressed through a system of
continuous self-​reflection and learning. Inevitably, there are emergent issues that deserve fur-
ther investigation. A few initial suggestions for inclusion in a future research and policy agenda
are set out below.
Resilience ideals place heavy demands on local institutions and actors who may lack the cap-
acity and resources to take forward a holistic resilience agenda. The methodological, operational,
and contextual challenges of achieving urban resilience across a wide range of domains appear
sometimes to be underestimated by researchers, policy leaders, and other change agents. Setting
up localized systems and mechanisms for learning and understanding of how positive changes
happen and why efforts do or do not succeed should be a priority. This involves moving beyond
a narrow technocratic or managerial discourse to explore how different groups and institutions
function and interact, while takling into account related issues of power and empowerment. In
this context, normative contentions need to be brought to the fore and made more explicit.
An interrogation of urban resilience vis-​à-​vis the notion of justice can help in addressing this
gap. Power relationships and resilience as a conservative process reinforcing the status quo are
discussed in several chapters. In practice, trade-​offs are often made (e.g. between engineering and
social needs) but the processes of negotiation, contestation, communication, and empowerment
are likely to be obscure. As Aragón-​Durand points out (Chapter 12), resilience can be a contested
process and there is much to be learnt from closer investigation of such contests.
Although the relationship between resilience and inequality is addressed in the literature,
an adequate intersectional and relational perspective on resilience is still lacking. Resilience
thinking and practice must expand beyond the biophysical origins of the concept in its con-
sideration of urban systems to include the socio-​economic and institutional responses and their

484
 State of the art and future prospects

interrelations. For now, resilience has been too often depoliticized and objectified, resting in a
safe zone of contention. We argue that to be effective, resilience thinking, and practice must also
consider the distributional and relational aspects of urban development to adequately consider
societal and nature considerations.
Thus far, less attention has been placed in discussions on who and for whom of resilience, that
is both the target groups and the actors who should lead and prepare cities for resilience. Linking
personal, practical and political spheres of transformation is in this context key, as highlighted
by Wamsler et al. (Chapter 5). Furthermore, the spatial and cross-​scalar impacts of resilience
building also have to be considered, but have so far received scant discussion in the literature and
by practitioners of the field. As the authors in this volume have shown, the fortification of resili-
ence in one area may displace this to other areas or increase other regions and locales to greater
vulnerability either in time or in space. Further research is needed to show the inter-​linkages and
cross-​scalar impacts of urban resilience building.
The role of the private sector in urban resilience is also a significant factor that deserves fur-
ther investigation, although it is often mentioned in passing in discussions on resilience. Civic
leaders must move beyond the market logic of current thinking on resilience where responsi-
bility is devolved to self-​organizing actors at the local level with little public sector involvement.
Sustaining urban resilience requires the involvement of the public, private, and non-​governmental
sectors, acting in collaboration and together to achieve lasting impacts.
Finally, we should not forget that at the center of resilience building is people’s welfare and
ensuring sustainable development of today’s and future generations. This requires further work
to better link the resilience concept and related operationalization to the sustainable develop-
ment goals, UN-​Habitat New Urban Agenda, and climate change adaptation and climate change
mitigation agendas. Greater weight should therefore be placed in developing not only people’s
emotional, cognitive, and relational capacities but also entitlements to withstand threats and build
resilience. In fact, while current focus is on practical and political spheres of transformation, the
socio-​environmental rights dimension of resilience and their linkages to practical and political
spheres have so far been vastly overlooked.This is an area that is still very much in its infancy and
for which more exploration is needed.

References
Ahern, J. (2011). From fail-​safe to safe-​to-​fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world.
Landscape and Urban Planning. 100: 341–​343.
Allen, A. (2014) Peri-​urbanization and the political ecology of differential sustainability. In: S. Parnell
and S. Oldfield (eds.): A Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South. London: Routledge,
522–​538.
Allen, A., Griffin, L., and Johnson, C. (2017). Environmental Justice and Urban Resilience in the Global
South. London: MacMillan Press.
Allen, A., Zilbert Soto, L., Wesely, J., in collaboration with Belkow, T., Ferro, V., Lambert, R., Langdown,
I., and Samanamú, A. (2017). From state agencies to ordinary citizens: reframing risk-​ mitigation
investments and their impact to disrupt urban risk traps in Lima, Peru. Environment and Urbanization.
29 (2): 477–​502. http://​journals.sagepub.com/​doi/​abs/​10.1177/​0956247817706061.
Anderson, B. (2010). Preemption, precaution, preparedness: anticipatory action and future geographies.
Progress in Human Geography. 34: 777–​789.
Bahadur, A. and Tanner,T. (2014).Transformational resilience thinking: putting people, power and politics at
the heart of urban climate resilience. Environment & Urbanization. 26(1): 200–​214.
Bankoff, G. (2007). Dangers to going it alone: social capital and the origins of community resilience in the
Philippines. Continuity and Change. 22: 327–​355.
Berkes, F. (2009). Evolution of co-​management: Role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations and
social learning. Journal of Environmental Management. 90: 1692–​1702.

485
A. Allen, J. Twigg, M. A. Burayidi, and C. Wamsler

Brink, E. and Wamsler, C. (2019). Citizen engagement in climate adaptation surveyed: The role of values,
worldviews, gender and place. Journal of Cleaner Production. 209: 1342–​1353.
Cannon, T. and Müller-​Mahn, D. (2010).Vulnerability, resilience and development discourses in context of
climate change. Natural hazards. 55(3): 621–​635.
Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, J., and Abel, N. (2001). From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of
what to what? Ecosystems. 4(8): 765–​781.
Chandler, D. (2014). Resilience –​The Governance of Complexity. New York: Routledge.
Chaplin D., Twigg J., and Lovell E. (2019). Intersectional Approaches to Vulnerability and Resilience
Building. London: Overseas Development Institute. www.braced.org/​ resources/​i/​
intersectional-​
approaches-​vulnerability-​reduction/​.
Chelleri, L., Waters, J.J., Olazabal, M., and Minucci, G. (2015). Resilience trade-​offs: addressing multiple
scales and temporal aspects of urban resilience. Environment and Urbanization. 27(1): 181–​198.
Coaffee, J. and Lee, P. (2016). Urban Resilience: Planning for Risk, Crisis and Uncertainty. London: Palgrave.
Cote, M. and Nightingale, A.J. (2011). Resilience thinking meets social theory: Situating 550 social change
in socio-​ecological systems (SES) research. Progress in Human 551 Geography. 36(4): 475–​489.
Cretney, R. (2014). Resilience for whom? Emerging critical geographies of socio-​ecological resilience.
Geography Compass. 8/​9 (2014): 627–​640.
Davoudi, S. and Porter, L. (2012). Resilience: A bridging concept or a dead end? Planning Theory Practice.
13(2), 299–​333. http://​doi.org/​10.1080/​14649357.2012.677124.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2001). 2001: Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological
Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge.
Harris, L.M., Chu, E.K., and Ziervogel, G. (2017). Negotiated resilience. Resilience. 1(19). http://​doi.org/​
cmrr.
Katz, C. (2004). Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Klinenberg, E. (2002). Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Lhomme, S., Serre, D., Diab,Y., and Laganier, R. (2013). Analyzing resilience of urban networks: A prelim-
inary step towards more flood resilient cities. Natural hazards and earth system sciences. 13(2): 221–​230.
MacKinnon, D., and Derickson, K.D. (2012). From resilience to resourcefulness: A critique of resili-
ence policy and activism. Progress in Human Geography. 37(2): 253–​270. http://​doi.org/​10.1177/​
0309132512454775.
Meerow, S. and Newell, J.P. (2016). Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why? Urban
Geography: 1–​21.
Miller, F., Osbahr, H.; Boyd, E.; Thomalla, F.; Bharwani, S.; Ziervogel, G.; Walker, B.; Birkmann, J.; Van
der Leeuw, S.; Rockström, J.; Hinkel, J.; Downing, T.; Folke, C., and Nelson, D. (2010). Resilience
and vulnerability: Complementary or conflicting concepts? Ecology and Society. 15(3): 11. www.
ecologyandsociety.org/​vol15/​iss3/​art11/​.
Mykhnenko,V. (2016). A right-​wingers’ ploy?. In: S. Springer, K. Birch, and J. MacLeavy (eds.): Handbook
of Neoliberalism. London & New York: Routledge, 190–​206.
Pelling, M. and Manuel-​Navarrete, D. (2011). From resilience to transformation: the adaptive cycle in two
Mexican urban centres. Ecology and Society. 16, article 11.
Pickett, S.T., Cadenasso, M.L., and Grove, J.M. (2004). Resilient cities: meaning, models, and metaphor
for integrating the ecological, socio-​economic, and planning realms. Landscape and urban planning.
69(4): 369–​384.
Pizzo, B. (2015). Problematizing resilience: Implications for planning theory and practice. Cities. 43: 133–​
140. http://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.cities.2014.11.015.
Rockefeller Foundation and Arup (2015). The City Resilience Index: understanding and meas-
uring city resilience. London: Arup. www.arup.com/​perspectives/​publications/​research/​section/​
city-​resilience-​index.
Shaw, J. (2012). Interrogating the gap between the ideals and practice reality of participatory video.
Handbook of Participatory Video, 225–​241.
Twigg, J. and Mosel, I. (2017). Emergent groups and spontaneous volunteers in urban disaster response.
Environment and Urbanization. 29(2): 443–​458.
Vale, L. (2014). Architecture, Power and National Identity. London: Routledge.
Walker, B. and Salt, D. (2012). Resilience Practice: Building Capacity to Absorb Disturbance 725 and
Maintain Function. Washington DC: Island Press.

486
 State of the art and future prospects

Wamsler, C., L. Niven, T.H. Beery, T. Bramryd, N. Ekelund, K.I. Jönsson, A. Osmani, T. Palo., and S.
Stålhammar (2016). Operationalizing ecosystem-​based adaptation: harnessing ecosystem services to
buffer communities against climate change. Ecology and Society. 21(1):31.
Wamsler C. and Raggers, S. (2018). Principles for supporting city-​citizen commoning for climate adap-
tation: from adaptation governance to sustainable transformation. Environmental Science and Policy.
85: 81–​89.
Welsh, M. (2014). Resilience and responsibility: governing uncertainty in a complex world. The
Geographical Journal. 180(1): 15–​26.

487

Note: Tables are shown in bold type and figures in italic. Footnotes are indicated by an “n” and the
footnote number after the page number e.g., 241n1 refers to footnote 1 on page 241.
100 Resilient Cities Programme 42, 144, 369
2030 agenda (United Nations Agenda for
Sustainable Development) 197, 380
abandonment, of property 8, 184, 186, 187–189,
187, 188, 190, 192, 193
aboriginal agency 451
access to alternative water and sanitation systems
358–359
accountability 40, 60, 123, 126, 315, 349, 483;
municipal resilience in Chile 368, 375, 376
Action at the Frontline (AFL) 61, 65
Action Plan Implementation Project (APIP)
400, 401
action research 66, 186–187
action-planning, strategic 67, 340, 343, 345
Actor Network Theory (ANT) 446–447, 447, 454
acute shocks 3, 240
adaptability 18, 23, 27, 32, 52, 85–86, 173, 482;
and critical infrastructure 117, 121, 122, 123,
127; generic 20, 201, 477; and land use planning
458–459, 461, 468, 469, 471; positive 36, 40
adaptation xxix, xxx, 291, 293, 303, 320–321, 322,
482; and agency 40; climate 5, 40–41, 42, 50,
335, 438, 439; and collapse 28, 29, 30, 31; to
global sustainability challenges 78; immigrant
247; positive 49–50; relational 479; to a shock
274–275; see also climate change adaptation
(CCA)
adaptation policy 7, 143, 154, 317
adaptation strategy 10, 109, 247, 310–315,
438, 439
adaptedness 26
adaptive capacity 20, 71, 384, 439, 477, 480;
and climate change 153, 155n6; and climate
justicescape 85, 86, 91, 95; and critical
infrastructure 121, 122, 123, 125; and extreme
heat-related weather events 106, 109, 111; and
general resilience 27, 32; and socio-ecological
resilience 200, 200, 201–202, 207, 212;
488
Index
technological 86; and urban resilience planning
36, 39, 40
adaptive cycle, Holling’s 37
adaptive governance 123
adaptive resilience 9, 112, 113, 174, 281, 284, 294;
and universities 176–180, 177, 178, 179
administrative boundaries 68, 202, 236, 346–347,
384, 436
administrative proficiency 378
adversity 41, 49, 50, 53, 71, 173
affordability, to alternative water and sanitation
systems 358–359
AFL see Action at the Frontline
agency 257, 274, 360, 480, 482; aboriginal 451;
distributed 11–12, 446, 447, 449, 450, 454,
483–484; and urban resilience planning 37, 39,
40, 42, 43
agency collaboration, components of 448, 449
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
(ATSDR) 102–103, 103
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry Social Vulnerability Index (ATSDR
SVI) 102–103, 103
air pollution 2, 59, 75–76, 97, 207, 350, 419, 462
alcaldías, of Mexico City 147
alert systems 325
Alexander, Frank 190
alternative resilience discourses 43, 43
alternative water supply systems 351, 352, 354–356,
355, 358–360
American Planning Association 233, 241n7
American Rust Belt 174
AMUCH see Association of Municipalities
of Chile
Analytic Hierarchy Process 132
anchor institutions 7–8, 172–173, 176–178, 177,
178; see also universities, and adaptive resilience
ANT see Actor Network Theory
antecedent conditions 12, 111–113, 112, 463–465,
465, 468, 469–470, 469

anticipatory risk reduction 50
anxiety 11, 49, 52, 413–414, 415, 416
APIP see Action Plan Implementation Project
areal units 275
ART see Attention Restoration Theory
assets, application of 49, 50
Association of Municipalities of Chile (AMUCH)
367, 377, 377, 378
ATSDR see Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry
ATSDR SVI see Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry Social Vulnerability Index
attention, and restorative quality 420–426, 421,
422, 423, 424, 425
Attention Restoration Theory (ART) 419, 426
Auckland, New Zealand blackout (1998) 304
Augustenborg EcoCity, in Malmö 432, 433, 437,
438, 439, 440
automotive cluster 279, 279, 283, 283, 286, 291
banking and finance 117, 299
basin of Mexico 145, 146, 147–148
BCIPN 401–404, 403, 404
Beijing flood (July 2012) 136
benchmarks 77, 174
Bharatpur, Nepal 9, 261–262, 262, 263, 264, 265,
266, 270; and neighbourhood groups 266, 267;
and women’s groups 268, 269
biology 185, 478
biophysical vulnerability 86, 101, 101
blackouts 304–306, 323
blight, urban 5, 8, 9, 39, 188, 188, 192; Latino
revitalization as 243–258, 244, 248, 250
bounce back xxx, 2, 9, 35, 50, 173, 199–200, 222,
480; and energy dimensions 305, 306, 307; and
pathways for resilience 274, 275, 284, 285; and
urban sustainability 17, 18
bounce forward 2, 8, 18, 36, 173, 199–200, 274
boundaries 44, 153, 303, 332; administrative 68,
202, 236, 346–347, 384, 436; ethnic 247, 269,
270; municipal 174, 175, 272, 449; urban system
198, 202
boundary concept, resilience as 124
bridged resilience 346–347
British Columbia 11, 445, 447
Buenos Aires, Argentina blackout (1999) 304–305
buffer capacity 199–200, 200
buffer zones 74, 437
building codes, in Nepal 398, 401–404, 403, 404, 406
building infrastructure 71, 385
bureaucracy 190, 315, 316–317, 335, 347, 389, 398
CAI (Community Action Initiative) 447, 451, 453
California wildfires (2017) 232
capacity, civic 39, 184–193, 187, 188, 191
capacity building xxi, 67, 77, 150, 166–168, 169,
246; for social resilience 445–455, 447, 449, 450
Index
capacity gap 405
capital improvements program (CIP) 239
capitalism 49
cascading effects 7, 20, 118, 127, 232, 383
case study methodology 431
catastrophic events 2, 20, 40, 72, 74, 201; and
resilience in Chile 321, 326, 366, 370
CBDMC see community-based disaster
management committees
CCA see climate change adaptation CCF see
Community Capitals Framework
CDC seeUS Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention
Cebu city, Philippines, urban water system in 158,
159–169, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167
CENAPRED see National Center for Disaster
Prevention of Mexico
Census tract level variables, used to construct
SoVI 105
Center for Community Progress 190
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) 102, 113
centralized management framework 126
centralized water supply systems 351
Chengdu Urban Rivers Research Group
(CURRG) 140
Chicago heat wave (1995) 100, 113
Chile: earthquake and tsunami (2010) 322–323;
municipal resilience in 364–380, 365, 368,
369, 371–374, 375, 377, 378; reconstruction
programs in 320–326
Chilean Commission for Resilience to Disasters of
Natural Origin 321
Chilean communes: classification of 369; risk
drivers in 370–375, 371–374
China, urban resilience in 130–141, 133, 134, 135,
137, 139
chronic stressors 2, 3, 233, 240
CIP see capital improvements program
cities: livable 71; shrinking 38, 41–42, 172–181,
175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180; socio-ecological
resilience in 209; sustainable 71, 270; see also
resilient cities
City of Muncie, Indiana 8, 184, 187–193, 187,
188, 191
City of Seoul, South Korea 411–412, 413,
417–420, 418, 419, 420
City Resilience Framework, developed by
The Rockefeller Foundation and Arup
231, 477
city streets, restorative quality of 417–420, 418,
419, 420
CityRAP 64, 67
civic capacity 39, 184–193, 187, 188, 191
civil protection systems 143, 151, 154, 321
civil society organizations 140, 185, 324, 357; and
land use planning 467, 472, 473; and municipal
489
Index
resilience 375, 376; and urban seismic resilience
400, 404
Clean Water Act (2004) 162, 229
cleavage 459, 466, 470–471
climate adaptation 5, 40–41, 42, 50, 335, 438, 439
climate change: building urban resilience to
143–155, 146, 147, 150, 151; critical urban
infrastructure and 117–127, 119–120,
120, 122
climate change adaptation (CCA) 5, 7, 10, 50,
240, 351, 470, 485; in African cities 335, 336;
and climate justicescape 86, 91, 95; and critical
infrastructure 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127; and
extreme heat-related weather events 102, 108,
109, 111; in Iraq 310–313; in the Mexico City
Megalopolis 143–155, 146, 147, 150, 151; and
nature-based solutions 430, 438–439, 441; in
Nigeria 313–315, 317; and urban resilience 37,
42, 143–145, 149e151, 150, 151, 153–154
climate change vulnerabilities 121, 148, 313
Climate Justicescape 85–95, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94
climate mitigation 23, 54, 127
climate resilience 117, 236, 237, 310–318, 331, 432
clusters 9, 87, 131; in Duluth, Minnesota 275,
276, 278, 279, 279–282, 281; in Grand Rapids,
Michigan 282–284, 283; in Racine, Wisconsin
284–289, 285, 286, 287; in South Bend, Indiana
290–294, 291, 292
coalition-building 449
coastal erosion 317
coevolution 294
collapse: structural 138, 139, 188, 189, 193, 334,
373; system 28, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 315
collective action 186, 269, 345
commercialization 350, 356, 358, 359
Communal Index of Underlying Risk Factors
(ICFSR) 368, 375, 378
communal level resilience, after Chilean 2010
earthquake 367–369
communal plan of development (PLADECO)
366, 379
communities of color 41, 245, 255
Community Action Initiative (CAI) 447, 451, 453
Community Capitals Framework (CCF) 9,
243–244, 250–251, 257
community infrastructure 47
community resilience 6, 8–9, 11, 42, 123, 268,
376, 482; and disaster volunteerism 218, 222,
224, 225; green infrastructure for 231, 232,
233–240, 235; and socio-ecological resilience
200, 208
community visioning 233, 234, 236, 240
community-based disaster management
committees (CBDMC) 337, 337, 338
community-based disaster preparedness 37–38
community-led mapping 65, 340, 343
compassion 50, 52–53, 54, 482
comprehensive plans 74, 234–236, 438
490
consumerism 49
context resilience 131
CORPOCALDAS see environmental authority of
the Department of Caldas
corruption 7, 164, 165, 169n3, 193, 313,
315, 316
critical infrastructure 6–7, 41, 114, 470, 478, 481;
and climate change 117–127, 119–120, 120,
122; definitions of 299; and energy resilience
299–300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306
critical infrastructure risk 300–301
critical infrastructure systems 41, 118,
123, 126
critical junctures 459, 460, 463, 466–467, 469, 471,
472, 480
critical urban infrastructure: climate change
impacts on 117–118; vulnerability of 118–121,
119–120, 120, 122
culture, Latino 9, 245–246, 247, 251, 253, 254, 255,
256, 257
cultural resiliency 243, 246, 257
CURRG see Chengdu Urban Rivers Research
Group
cyber-physical attacks, on critical infrastructure
systems 41
damage mapping 387, 391
data gaps 59–68, 61
decarbonization, of energy systems 306
decentralization 20, 125–126, 166, 306, 326, 335,
351, 353; of disaster risk management 337, 337,
339, 346
decision-making xxxi, 326, 406, 441, 453, 459,
472, 480; compassionate 53; democratic 139;
evidence-based 467; by homo economicus 41;
local 68, 140, 266; and MANDISA 63; and
municipal resilience 368, 375, 376; planning
profession influence on 240; political 298;
processes for 21, 22, 65, 66–67, 246, 447, 459,
466; and risk accumulation 339; and short-
termism 305; and sustainability 19; tools for
442n1
deindustrialization 3, 5, 7, 8, 39, 174, 193, 285
demand management 124, 159, 162
democracy/democratisation 306, 313
demographic dependencies 368
demonstrations, violent 41
Department of Disaster Management Affairs
(DoDMA), Malawi 335, 336
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 37,
299, 301
dependencies 118, 126, 340, 481; demographic
368; inter- 6, 37, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127,
302, 359–360; intra- 118, 120; municipal 376,
377; path see path dependencies
deregulation 306
desertification 311, 312, 317, 373
DesInventar 61–63, 61, 65, 68n3

Detroit Strategic Framework 39
developed countries 3, 131, 477
development: land 74, 140; low-impact (LID)
74–75; re- see redevelopment; suburban 3–4,
230; sustainable see sustainable development;
uneven 315; urban see urban development
DHS see Department of Homeland Security
digitalization 9, 287, 306
disadvantaged groups 124
disaster exposure 110
disaster governance 152
disaster impacts 49, 52, 387–391, 388–389, 392
disaster life cycle 8, 217, 222
disaster management 10, 47, 52, 152, 321, 336;
capacities for 384; cycle of 123, 127; formula
for 100–101; planning for 168, 399; and social
resilience 445–446, 449, 454
disaster management committees 337, 338
Disaster Management Department, Sierra Leone
(DMD) 336
disaster mortality 99, 99
disaster preparedness 7, 37, 102, 217, 378, 448;
community-based 37–38; and urban risk 335,
336; and urban seismic resilience 399–400, 401
Disaster Preparedness and Relief Act 335
disaster prevention 7, 62, 143, 151, 153; and urban
resilience in China 131, 136, 139, 141
disaster resilience of place (DROP) model 111,
112, 113
disaster risk management (DRM) 7, 12, 18,
59, 67, 104, 311; in African cities 336, 338,
339–340; in Chile 366, 367; and climate change
adaptation 144, 151, 153, 154; decentralization
of 337, 337; institutionalization of 461–463,
462; and intensive risks 331; land use planning
for 458–473, 460, 462, 464, 465, 468, 469; in
large urban areas 383, 392; in the Mexico City
Megalopolis 151; in Nepal 394, 399, 401, 402
disaster risk management governance 333,
336–337, 339, 347
disaster risk management risk wheel 340, 341
disaster risk reduction 48, 50–51, 59, 67, 104, 124;
in African cities 335, 336; and climate change
adaptation 144, 149, 150; in Chile 321, 365–366,
369, 370, 371–374, 376, 377, 379; and nature-
based solutions 430; in Nepal 394, 398–399,
400–401, 403
disaster survivors 219, 382, 386, 387, 389, 390,
391, 482
disaster volunteerism 217–225
disaster vulnerabilities 147–148
disaster-resistant settlements 130
disempowerment 41, 483
disinvestment 248, 249, 250, 254
distributed agency 11–12, 446, 447, 449, 450, 454,
483–484
Distribution and E-commerce cluster 281, 285,
286, 287, 288, 290, 292
Index
disturbances 477, 478, 479, 481, 482, 483; and
climate justicescape 85; and energy resilience
306; and general resilience 26, 27, 29, 31, 32;
and planning discourses 39; rapid-onset 198,
203, 207–208, 210; and roof gardens 414; slow-
onset 203, 207–208, 212; and socio-ecological
resilience 197, 199, 200, 201, 205, 206, 207, 210;
and urban resilience and sustainability 17, 18,
19–20, 21, 23
diversification 248, 294
diversity 8, 20, 302, 482, 484; ecological 412;
economic 9; and effects of climate change on
critical infrastructure 123, 124; and Latino
revitalization 252–253, 256; and pathways
for resilience 276, 281–282, 294; and socio-
ecological resilience 208, 209, 210, 211
DMD see Disaster Management Department,
Sierra Leone
DoDMA see Department of Disaster Management
Affairs, Malawi
Downstream Chemicals cluster 279, 283, 285,
286, 291
Downtown Development Plan Update 254
drainage 357, 357, 470; and climate change 148,
149, 150; and open space systems 72, 74; and
urban resilience in China 130, 135, 136, 137;
and urban risk 334, 343; and urban water
services 158, 159–160, 162, 162, 164, 167, 168,
169
DRM see disaster risk management
DRM risk wheel 340, 341
DROP model (disaster resilience of place model)
111, 112, 113
Duluth, Minnesota 275–282, 277, 278, 279, 281
early communication systems 325
earthquake, Chilean (2010) 322–323, 364, 365,
367, 368–369, 380
earthquake risk 4, 139, 398, 399–401, 406, 407
earthquake-resilient cities 138–140, 139
eco-gentrification 76
ecological resilience 8, 27, 35–36, 123, 131, 132;
see also socio-ecological resilience
ecological systems/ecosystems 17–18, 30, 178, 209,
350, 357, 364, 484; and climate change 145, 151;
in equilibrium 76–77; green 230, 231, 241n1,
433, 436, 441; and open space systems 73, 74;
and planning 35–36, 37, 74; trauma 185, 478;
vulnerabilities of 86, 87; see also socio-ecological
systems
Ecological Vulnerability Index (EVI) 6, 87–88, 92
economic crisis (2008–2012) 20, 274, 280, 285,
293, 479
economic dynamics 201, 279–280, 279
economic growth 39, 123, 145, 159, 178, 315, 316
economic loss, and hazard events 90
Economic Modelling Statistic International
(EMSI) 275
491
Index
economic vulnerabilities 41
ecosystems see ecological systems/ecosystems
ecotherapy 11, 414, 415
Education and Knowledge Creation cluster 280,
281, 281, 285, 287, 292
educational attainment 178, 179, 211, 293
Electric Energy Generation and Transmission
clusters 282
electricity grid 117, 300, 301, 304, 306, 317
emergency housing 324, 325
emergency management 5, 37, 42, 133, 237,
376, 379, 380; and disaster volunteerism 217,
218–219, 221–223, 224; and energy resilience
299, 301, 303
Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis Toolkit
(EMMA) 390, 392n10
emergency personnel 223
emergency response 113, 130, 365–366, 377, 379;
and urban seismic resilience 396, 399, 403
emergency services 117
emission reductions 23, 54, 127
EMMA see Emergency Market Mapping and
Analysis Toolkit
empathy 50–51, 52, 53, 482
EMSI see Economic Modelling Statistic
International
energy dimensions, of urban resilience
298–307, 303
energy infrastructure 9, 39, 118, 298, 304–306
energy justice 306
energy poverty 343
energy system resilience 9, 238, 298–307, 303
engineering resilience 27, 35, 131, 132, 199, 209,
350–351
entrepreneurship 247, 256, 293
environmental authority of the Department of
Caldas (CORPOCALDAS) 463, 470, 471
environmental hazards 100, 104, 111, 113, 331,
416, 480
environmental resilience 265, 266, 268
epistemology 27, 30, 31, 32, 51, 151–152
equal opportunity 121, 411, 416
“equilibrium” view, of resilience 35, 38, 76–77,
199–200, 200, 274, 320, 480
equity 3, 5, 8, 20, 43, 51, 304, 368, 479; and climate
change 124, 126; planning for 85, 95; and socio-
economical resilience 197, 198, 203, 206; see also
social equity
equity indicators 203, 206, 210, 211, 212, 481
ESAs see external support agencies
ethnic boundaries 247, 269, 270
ethnic cultural resilience 256, 257
everyday risks 10, 59, 60, 64, 68, 263, 267,
334, 338
EVI see Ecological Vulnerability Index
evolutionary economics 294
evolutionary resilience 2, 10, 36, 42, 131, 274,
282, 320
492
exposure, hazard see hazard exposure
extensive risks 331, 337
external support agencies (ESAs) 332, 338,
346, 347
extraction, of water 148, 160–162, 162, 349
extreme heat-related weather events, in urban areas
97–114, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,
110, 110, 112; vulnerability framework for 108
eye-tracking 421
Failed State Index 315
“fail-safe” environments 20, 476
failure, predictability of 20
fast-burn disasters/fast-burn hazards 2, 6, 10
FDI see foreign direct investment
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
37, 222, 237–238
FEDURP see Freetown Federation of the Urban
Poor
feedback loops 8, 101, 101, 158–159, 168
FEMA see Federal Emergency Management
Agency
Fifth Assessment Report, of Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change 118
financial crisis (2008–2012) 20, 274, 280, 285,
293, 479
financial mechanisms, for nature-based solutions
440–441
financial resilience 265, 268, 270
financial security 265
fire risk 63, 232, 233, 236
First National Conference 399
First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) 447,
449, 451
first responders 52, 53, 220, 223, 306
Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne 434
“five Ws”, of urban resilience 124, 198, 198,
202, 477
flexibility 7, 20, 40, 52, 125, 201, 472, 477, 484
Flight–Fight–Freeze response 51
flood risk 150, 154, 237, 239, 340, 341, 343–345
flood risk management 149–152, 150, 151, 152,
154, 438
floods: in Freetown 340, 341; in Mexico City
Megalopolis 147–148, 149, 152–153, 154
FNHA see First Nations Health Authority
Fondo de Solidaridad e Inversión Social
(FOSIS) 323
Food Processing cluster 279, 279, 282, 283, 284,
286, 291
food riots 41
foreign direct investment (FDI) 316
FOSIS see Fondo de Solidaridad e Inversión Social
Foxconn 289, 293
Freetown, Sierra Leone 10, 67, 333, 336–345, 337,
341, 342, 344, 346, 347n3
Freetown Federation of the Urban Poor
(FEDURP) 337, 338, 339, 343, 345, 346

Freetown Urban Slum Initiative 339, 343, 345
Frontline methodology 65
fuel poverty 2
functional plans 234, 236, 237
functionalism 39, 41, 43
Furniture cluster 283
gendered resilience 260–270, 262, 263
general adaptive capacity 26, 27
General Plan for Post Lushan Earthquake
Reconstruction 139
general resilience 26–33
generative placemaking 243, 244; Latino 245–246,
247, 249–251, 250
generative planning 246
generative revitalization 9, 243, 250, 252
gentrification 76, 247
geographic context 86, 101
geographic information systems (GIS) 74, 87, 203,
205, 206, 390
geologic hazards 72, 74
GIS see geographic information systems
Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for
Disaster Reduction (GNDR) 65
Global North 289, 483
Global South 6, 9, 349, 350, 477, 481, 483; and
gendered invisible urban resilience 260, 262,
265, 269, 270
global warming 49, 476
globalization 173, 279
GLR see Great Lakes Region
GNDR see Global Network of Civil Society
Organisations for Disaster Reduction
goal setting 233, 234, 240
“good enough” data 67
good governance 77–78, 190, 193
Gorkha earthquake, Nepal (2015) 261, 394, 395,
402, 404–406, 407
governance 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 303, 335, 445, 466;
adaptive 123; and climate resilience 313, 314,
316, 317; decentralized 335; disaster 152;
disaster risk management 333, 336–337, 339,
347; and future of urban resilience 478, 480,
481, 483, 484; and gendered invisible urban
resilience 260, 266, 268, 269; good 77–78, 190,
193; institutional 352, 375, 375; and municipal
resilience 367, 368; and nature-based solutions
431, 436, 437, 441; new forms of 125–126;
networks of 201; representative 313; of resilience
338; risk 68, 300, 340; self- 31; and socio-
ecological resilience 201, 207, 208, 210, 211;
water 158, 165–166, 168, 311
governance resilience 123
Grand Rapids, Michigan 9, 272, 273, 275–282,
277, 278, 279, 281
granting agency case study 445–455, 447, 449, 450
Great Lakes legacy cities 9, 90, 272–294, 273, 277,
278, 279, 281, 283, 285, 286, 287, 291, 292
Index
great recession (2007–2009) 272, 274, 275,
282–283
green infrastructure: and adaptation 86, 95; and
resilience 8–9, 42, 74, 75, 78, 229–241, 230, 235;
and technological vulnerability 6, 87
Green Roof System Architectural Graphic
Standard 413
green spaces 411–427, 413, 414, 415, 415, 418,
419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425
group lending 265
growth machine 186
Haima, typhoon 1–2
hard surfaces 3, 164–165
Harvard Clusters 275
hazard analysis 60
hazard risk exposure 18, 41, 72, 85, 90, 240n3,
339, 364, 481; and effects of climate change on
critical infrastructure 118, 122, 123, 124, 125;
and data gaps and resilience metrics 60, 61, 64;
and individual wellbeing 48–50; and land use 72,
458, 463; and nature-based solutions 430, 437;
flood 135; and urban resilience 49, 50; weather-
related 99, 107, 108, 109, 110, 149, 159
hazard risks 101, 101, 232, 236, 394–395; geologic
72, 74
hazard vulnerabilities 72
hazards, natural see earthquake risk; fire risk; flood
risk; landslide risk; seismic hazard risks
Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute, The
102, 104, 106, 113; see also Social Vulnerability
Index (SoVI)
hazards-of-place model, of vulnerability 101
healing gardens 414
health services/Health Services cluster 118, 282,
284, 285, 299, 462
heat vulnerability 100–102, 101, 106–111, 107,
108, 110, 110
heat waves 97–114, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104, 105,
106, 107, 108, 110, 110, 112
heterogeneous water supply systems 349, 357, 360
higher education 78
high-rise buildings 406, 462
historic preservation 9, 481; and Latino
revitalization 244, 246, 249, 251–253, 254,
255, 256
homo economicus 41
Hospitality and Recreation cluster 275, 280, 281,
285, 286, 287, 292
Hot Spot Analysis 87
household composition and disability 102, 103
housing and transportation 103
human–nature interdependencies 37
100 Resilient Cities Programme 42, 144, 369, 369
Hurricane Katrina xxx, 1, 38, 87, 117, 300, 414;
and climate injustice 85, 232, 241n5
Hurricane Sandy 87, 231, 240, 300
hybrid water supply systems 357
493
Index
hydraulic works 147–148
hydrological basin of Mexico 145, 146, 147–148
hydro-meteorological risk 149
Hyogo Framework 59, 335
ICFSR see Communal Index of Underlying Risk
Factors
IDNDR see International Decade for Natural
Disaster Reduction
index systems 131–134, 133, 134, 141
Indiana state property tax cap 188
individual resilience 49, 50, 52, 54, 332
individual risk reduction 53
individual wellbeing 47, 48–50, 53
industrialization 131, 284, 385; de- 3, 5, 7, 8, 39,
174, 193, 285
inequity 3, 158, 159, 168
informal areas 350
informal businesses 243, 249–250
informal housing 324, 468, 468
informal settlements 6, 10, 303, 351, 472; and data
gaps and resilience metrics 60, 63, 64, 66, 68; and
urban risk 334–335, 336, 337, 338, 340, 345, 346
infrastructure: building 71, 385; decentralized 125;
energy 9, 39, 118, 298, 304–306; multifunctional
71–78; open space 71, 75, 77, 78; public 73, 124,
238, 351; social 331, 334, 382–387, 388–389,
391; transportation 71, 131; utility 71, 73; see
also critical infrastructure; green infrastructure;
physical infrastructure
infrastructure resilience 7, 9, 124, 133, 301–302,
305, 306, 385–386
infrastructure security 299–300
infrastructure systems: alternative water supply
351, 352, 354–356, 355, 358–360; centralized
water supply 351; critical 41, 118, 123, 126;
green 95; heterogeneous water supply 349, 357,
360; hybrid water supply 357; integrated 71;
management of 125; urban 117, 118, 302; water
supply 349–361, 355, 357, 358–360
infrastructure vulnerability 86, 87, 118–124,
119–120, 120, 127, 299, 301–302
injustices 263
innovation, and universities 178–180, 179, 180
innovative products, and manufacturing legacy
reinvention 289–293, 291, 292
insecure tenure 165, 167, 334, 483
instabilities 17, 19–20, 23, 313; political 10, 310,
312, 313, 317
institutional coping capacity 124
institutional governance 352, 375, 375
institutionalization 358, 402; of disaster risk
management 461–463, 462
integrated infrastructure systems 71
integrated spatial social-ecological-technological
vulnerability assessment 86–87
intensive risks 68, 331
494
interagency collaboration, components of
448, 449
interdependencies 6, 37, 302, 359–360; and critical
infrastructure and climate change 118, 120, 121,
122, 123, 127
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) 118, 121
International Decade for Natural Disaster
Reduction (IDNDR) 398, 400, 401
International Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI)
Code 238
intra-dependencies 118, 120
invisible urban resilience, gendered 260–270,
262, 263
invisibility: social 9, 260; women’s 268–269, 481
IPCC see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
Iraq, climate change adaptation strategy in
310–313, 317–318
Isar Plan 431, 434–436, 435, 437, 439
ISDR see United Nations International Strategy
for Disaster Reduction
justice: climate 85–95, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94;
inter- and intragenerational 19, 22; and
Hurricane Katrina 85, 232, 241n5
Kampala, Uganda 10, 349, 351–354, 357,
358–360
Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) 352, 353,
358, 359
Karonga, Malawi 10, 333–334, 336, 338, 339–340,
343, 344, 346
Kathmandu Valley, Nepal 263–264, 394–395, 396,
397, 399–400, 404–406
Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management
Project (KVERMP) 399–400
Katrina, Hurricane xxx, 1, 38, 87, 117, 300, 414;
and climate injustice 85, 232, 241n5
KVERMP see Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk
Management Project
La Niña 470
LA RED see Network for Social Studies on
Disaster Prevention in Latin America
land bank formation 39, 184–193, 187, 188, 191
Land Banks and Land Banking 190
land development 74, 140
land planning 74–75
land suitability 73, 139
land use 73–74, 233, 237–238, 239, 240, 396,
465, 469
Land Use Law 388 (1997) 463, 465
land use planning, for disaster risk management
458–473, 460, 462, 464, 465, 468, 469
landbanking 38, 42
landscape restructuring 42

landslide risk 149, 150, 462, 465, 467
large urban areas, understanding the fabric of
382–392, 388–389
large-scale disaster events 59, 60
Latino culture 9, 244, 245–246, 247, 251, 253, 254,
255, 256, 257
Latino placemaking/Latino revitalization 243–258,
244, 248, 250
leadership 123, 177, 187, 240, 252, 266, 366,
442n1; and pathways for resilience 282–283,
292, 293, 294
legacy cities 3, 8, 186, 272; see also Great Lakes
legacy cities
legislation 7, 125, 165, 187, 251, 365, 438; land
banking 190–191, 192; and urban seismic
resilience 399, 401, 403
LID see low-impact development
Little Flower Women’s group 264, 265
livable cities 71
livelihood capitals 387, 388–389
local decision-making 68
Local Health cluster 280, 281, 282, 285, 285,
287, 292
local resilience 11, 201, 338
local sustainability 22, 78
long-term resilience 126, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203,
208, 234, 479
low-impact development (LID) 74–75
low-income countries 59, 62, 394
low-income groups 232, 240, 245, 248,
316, 334, 359; and land use planning
462–463, 468
low-income vulnerability 42
mainstream resilience discourse 43
Making Cities Resilient campaign (UNISDR) 18,
63–64, 369, 369, 458
Malmö, Sweden 11, 431, 432, 433, 436, 437–438,
439, 440
management framework, centralized 126
Manizales, Colombia 458–473, 460, 462, 464, 465,
468, 469
“man-over-nature” paradigm 74
MANDISA 61, 63
manufacturing clusters 276, 279, 279, 282–286,
283, 286, 290–292, 291
manufacturing legacy 282, 287, 289–293,
291, 292
mapping: community-led 65, 340, 343; damage
387, 391; spatial 390
market mechanisms 40, 41, 43, 274, 302, 483
mathematical modelling vulnerability analysis
120, 121
MCM see Mexico City Megalopolis
MCWD see Metro Cebu Water District
meaning making process, in policy discourses 152,
153, 154
Index
measurement, of risk 6, 60–61, 61, 63–64, 123; and
socio-ecological resilience 198, 200, 202–208,
203, 204, 205
Medical Devices cluster 284, 290
Melbourne, Australia 431, 433–434, 434, 436,
437–438, 439, 440
mental stress 52, 413–416, 414, 415, 415
mental well-being/mental wellness 47, 48, 49, 50,
449, 453
methodology: action research 66, 187; Actor
Network Theory 446–447, 447, 454; AFL
65; case study 431–436, 433, 434, 435;
DesInventar 61–63, 61, 65, 68n3; Frontline
65; integrated spatial vulnerability assessment
86–87; multihazard risk probabilistic assessment
471; ReMapRisk 65, 66, 68n10, 340–343, 342;
social constructionist approach 151–154; urban
resilience assessment 205–210, 205, 209
methods, risk measurement see measurement,
of risk
Metro Cebu, Philippines, urban water system in
158, 159–169, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167
Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) 160
Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) 234,
237, 239
metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) 174, 176, 272,
273, 275
Mexico City Megalopolis (MCM) 143–155, 146,
147, 150, 151
migration 3, 18, 28–29, 272, 312, 334, 465; and
gendered invisible urban resilience 261, 263,
264; and Latino revitalization 243, 247, 248, 255,
256; and shrinking cities 175, 176; and urban
seismic resilience 395, 396
Mindful Risk Reduction/mindfulness 6, 48, 49,
50–54
Ministry of Housing (MINVU) 323, 325, 326, 369
minority communities/minority populations 232,
240; see also Latino revitalization
minority status and language 102, 103
MINVU see Ministry of Housing
mitigation, risk 101, 339, 375, 461, 470
modernization risks 300
monism 29
Monitoring, Mapping and Analysis of Disaster
Incidents in Southern Africa 61, 63
MPO see Metropolitan Planning Organization
MSAs see metropolitan statistical areas
multifunctional infrastructure 71–78
multihazard risk, probabilistic assessments of 471
Muncie, Indiana 8, 184, 187–193, 187, 188, 191
Muncie Land Bank 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193
municipal boundaries 174, 175, 272, 449
Municipal Land Use Plan (2001) 461, 463–471,
464, 465, 468, 469
Munich, Germany 11, 431, 434–436, 435,
438, 439
495
Index
municipal dependencies 376, 377
municipal resilience, in Chile 364–380, 365, 368,
369, 371–374, 375, 377, 378
NACADIA (Healing Forest Garden Nacadia) 414
NAICS see North American Industrial
Classification System
NAP see Nepal Action Plan for Disaster
Management
National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action on
Climate Change, Nigerian 314
National Building Code (NBC) 396–399, 400,
401, 402
National Center for Disaster Prevention of Mexico
(CENAPRED) 149
National Disaster Preparedness and Relief
Committee (NDPRC) 336
National Infrastructure Council 301, 302
National Office for Emergencies (ONEMI) 322,
325, 366, 367, 368, 375, 377, 380
National Platform (NPF) for DRM and CCA
336–337
National Platform for Disaster Risk
Reduction 321
National Protected Area Authority (NPAA) 345
National Society for Earthquake Technology
(NSET), Nepal 398–399, 400, 401, 402, 403
National Water and Sewerage Company (NWSC),
Ugandan 352, 353, 355, 356, 358, 359
natural disasters xxx, 10, 41, 48, 49, 77, 320,
321; and green infrastructure 232, 233, 240;
and urban resilience in China 130–131, 135,
140–141
natural hazards see environmental hazards; geologic
hazards
nature conservation/nature protection 19,
435, 438
nature-based solutions (NBS), resilience through
430–442, 433, 434, 435
nature-based therapy (NBT) 11, 414, 415
NBC see National Building Code
NBS see nature- based solutions, resilience through
430–442, 433, 434, 435
NBT see nature-based therapy
NDPRC see National Disaster Preparedness and
Relief Committee
neighborhood disaster risk management
committees (NDRMCs) 336, 339–340, 346
neighborhood groups 260, 263–269, 270
Nepal, urban seismic resilience in 11, 394–407,
395, 397, 403, 404
Nepal Action Plan for Disaster Management
(NAP) 399
Network for Social Studies on Disaster Prevention
in Latin America (LA RED) 62
neuroscience 48, 51, 52, 53
New Urban Agenda 21, 197, 485
496
NGOs see non-governmental organizations
Nigeria, climate change adaptation in 9–10, 310,
313–317
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 66, 67,
140, 166, 376
non-restorative landscape factors 419–420, 420
Norfolk,Virginia, Vision 2100 of 234, 235, 238
normativity, of resilience and sustainability 19,
21–22
North American Industrial Classification System
(NAICS) 275
Notre Dame, University of 290, 292–293
NPAA see National Protected Area Authority
NPF see National Platform for DRM and CCA
NSET see National Society for Earthquake
Technology, Nepal
NWSC see National Water and Sewerage
Company, Ugandan
Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance 400
oil pollution 313
ONEMI see National Office for Emergencies
OnTack Flood and Storm Recovery
Program 50
ontology 51, 482, 483; and general resilience 27,
28, 30, 31, 32; and planning discourses 36, 37,
38, 39, 41, 42–43
open space systems 71–78
open storm water management system, in Malmö
432, 433, 438
open-source mobile phone applications 66
organizational capacity 191–192
panarchy 36, 41, 201–202
paradigm change 77
participation, public 40, 255, 326, 376; and nature-
based solutions 431, 433, 437, 439–440; and
urban resilience policy and practice in China
132, 133, 138, 140
patent counts 179, 180
path dependency 12, 287, 293, 331, 478, 480; and
land use planning 458, 459, 461, 463
pathways for resilience, in Great Lakes legacy cities
272–294, 273, 277, 278, 279, 281, 283, 285, 286,
287, 291, 292
PCA see principal components analysis
PCUN see Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del
Noroeste
Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) 417,
418, 419
performativity 43, 447, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 478
peri-urban development 73
peri-urban floods 152, 153
persistence 18, 35, 122, 200, 201, 351; and general
resilience 27, 28–29, 30
perspectival pluralism 30
perspective taking 50, 52, 54

physical infrastructure 9, 38, 111, 126, 207,
331, 354; and disaster planning and recovery
382–383, 385–387, 388–389, 391; and resilience
267–268, 270, 385–386
physical security 303, 304, 315
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste
(PCUN) 252, 258n3
place inequality 101
place vulnerability 101–102, 101, 121
placemaking, Latino 243–258, 244, 248, 250
PLADECO see communal plan of development
plan making 233, 234–237
planning: action 67, 340, 343, 345; ecological 74;
equity 85, 95; generative 246; land 74–75; land
use 458–473, 460, 462, 464, 465, 468, 469;
post-disaster 37; reconstruction 140, 325–326;
recovery 233, 320; regulative 243, 245–246, 252,
255; spatial 86, 158, 159, 162, 164–165, 463
planning discourses 35–44, 43
pluralism 29, 30, 31, 32, 33n4
policy discourses 153–154
policy trajectories 333, 335–338
political capacity 191–192
political capital 246, 249, 256, 257, 387, 389, 392
political ecology 351, 353
political instabilities 10, 310, 312, 313, 317
political spaces 332, 333, 339–340, 345–347
political transformations 173
political violence 313
political will 91, 317, 380
pollution 265, 416; air 2, 59, 75e76, 97, 207, 350,
419, 462; oil 313; water 162, 165
polycentricity 123
poor, urban see urban poverty
population change 91, 108, 174–176, 175, 176,
177, 185, 187
population decline 172, 173, 174, 175, 175, 176,
243; and land bank formation 184, 185, 187
positive adaptation 36, 40, 49, 173
post-disaster aid 382
post-disaster life-supporting and recovery 391
post-disaster planning 37
post-disaster reconstruction process 140, 326
post-disaster recovery 37, 38–40, 42, 139, 140, 141,
233, 478
Post-Sichuan Earthquake Restoration and
Reconstruction Ordinance
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 11, 414
poverty, urban see urban poverty
power outages 304–306, 323
power dynamics 152, 244, 256, 269, 346, 481
power grid 117, 300, 301, 304, 317
power relations 263, 350, 351, 441, 484
predictability of failure 20
PREMIR see Programme for Prevention and
Mitigation of Risks
preparedness, disaster see disaster preparedness
Index
PRES see sustainable reconstruction plans
principal components analysis (PCA) 103,
104–106; see also Social Vulnerability Index
probabilistic assessments, of multihazard risk 471
Production Technology and Heavy Machinery
(PTHM) 279, 283, 285, 286, 286, 291
Programme for Prevention and Mitigation of
Risks (PREMIR) 369, 370
property abandonment 8, 184, 186, 187–189, 187,
188, 190, 192, 193
property market conditions, and land banking 191
PRS see Perceived Restorativeness Scale
PRU see Urban Regeneration Plans for Inner
Cities
PSPP see Pull Slum Pan Pipul
psychological benefits, of green spaces 11, 412,
416–417, 418
psychological trauma 2, 20, 29, 102, 414; and urban
resilience 49, 50, 52, 53, 54
PTHM see Production Technology and Heavy
Machinery
PTSD see post-traumatic stress disorder
public accountability 349
public infrastructure 73, 124, 238, 351
public investments 233, 239–240
public participation 40, 138, 140, 255, 326, 376,
431, 439–440, 467
public risk reduction 53
Pull Slum Pan Pipul (PSPP) 339, 343, 345
QCEW see Quarterly Census of Employment and
Wages
qualitative data 63, 108
qualitative research 65, 205, 206, 261, 302,
304, 321
qualitative scenario models 205
quantitative data 67, 108, 109
quantitative research 65, 205, 249, 301–302
quantitative scenario models 205
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
(QCEW) 275
racial conflict 246, 247, 248, 253, 254, 257
Racine, Wisconsin 284–289, 285, 286, 287
racism 246, 247, 248, 253, 254, 257
radical surprises 20
rapidity 385
rapid-onset disturbances 198, 203, 207–208, 210
reconstruction programmes 140, 320–326
recovery planning 233, 320
Red Cross 8, 50, 54, 217, 218, 219, 322,
338, 366
redevelopment 38, 186, 238–239, 291, 300, 432;
and Latino revitalization 245, 253, 255, 257; and
open space systems 73, 77
redundancy 20, 122, 123, 125, 301, 385, 484
reflexivity 52
497
Index
Regional Development Undersecretaries
(SUBDERE) 325, 367, 369, 370, 375,
378, 378
regional economic change 272
regional plans 8, 236–237
regulative planning 243, 245–246, 252, 255
regulatory regimes 335, 366
reindustrialization 174
ReMapRisk 65, 66, 68n10, 340–343, 342
representative governance 313
research and development 7, 289–293, 291, 292
research methods, for measuring risk see
measurement, of risk
rescue services 299, 304, 305
resilience: of alternative sanitation and water
systems 359; as boundary concept 124;
bridged 346–347; civic capacity for 39,
184–193, 187, 188, 191; climate 117, 236,
237, 310–318, 331, 432; communal level
367–369; context 131; environmental 265,
266, 268; definitions of xxxi, 19–20, 26, 131,
206, 416; energy system 9, 238, 298–307,
303; engineering 27, 35, 131, 132, 199, 209,
350–351; financial 265, 268, 270; gendered
260–270, 262, 263; genealogy of 35–36;
general 26–33; governance 123; and green
infrastructure 8–9, 42, 74, 75, 78, 229–241,
230, 235; and hazards 48; individual 49, 50,
52, 54, 332; of infrastructures 301; invisible
urban 260–270, 262, 263; long-term 126, 198,
199, 200, 201, 203, 208, 234, 479; through
nature-based solutions 430–442, 433, 434,
435; physical infrastructure 385–386; seismic
11, 394–407, 395, 397, 403, 404; short-term
198, 199, 201, 305; societal 48, 50, 335, 482;
specific 5, 26, 27–28, 32, 198, 206; system
39, 301, 302; transformative 282, 294; and
transition 306–307; tsunami 325; urban
ecological 123; urban economy 123; urban
hazards 123; and vulnerabilities 111–113,
112; see also adaptive resilience; ecological
resilience; social resilience; urban resilience
Resilience Alliance 28, 32, 36, 131
resilience assessments 200, 201, 202–205, 204,
210, 212
Resilience Cities 91, 95
resilience governance 480, 483
resilience metrics 59–68, 61
resilience spatial patterns 206
resilience theory xxx–xxxi, 4, 39, 47, 54, 85, 122,
123, 484
resilience thinking 11, 32; and future prospects for
urban resilience 477, 482, 483, 484–485; and
planning discourses 36, 37, 38, 39, 41–42
“resilience” turn 20, 333, 476
resilience-seeking practices 331–347, 337, 341,
342, 344
498
resilient cities 7, 18, 42, 71, 95, 123; in China 130,
138–140, 139, 143; see also 100 Resilient Cities
Programme; resilient shrinking cities
resilient communities 29, 138, 140, 222, 288, 477
resilient shrinking cities 172–181, 175, 176, 177,
178, 179, 180
resistance 18, 35, 49, 122, 260, 262, 301, 401
ReSource Project 52
resourcefulness 385, 482
resources, application of 49, 50
restorative landscape factors 419–420, 420
restorative quality: and attention 420–426, 421,
422, 423, 424, 425; of roof gardens/urban
parks/city streets 417–418, 418, 419
“return to the city” 176, 180
revitalization: generative 9, 243, 250, 252; Latino
243–258, 244, 248, 250
reworking 9, 260, 262–263, 267, 268, 269, 270, 481
“right-sizing” 38, 42, 173
rising sea levels 72, 75, 317
risk: earthquake 4, 139, 398, 399–400, 406;
everyday 10, 59, 60, 64, 68, 263, 267, 334,
338; extensive 331, 337; flood 150; hazard 72,
74, 232, 236, 394–395; hydro-meteorological
149; intensive 68, 331; landslide 149, 150, 462,
465, 467; measurement of 60; seismic hazard
394–395; social construction of 60;see also
urban risk
risk accumulation 10, 65, 458, 472, 479–480, 482;
and urban risk 331–332, 333, 334, 338–339, 340,
343, 345, 346, 347
risk factors 100, 159, 162, 430, 484; and municipal
resilience 367, 368, 375, 375
risk frameworks 121, 300–301, 305
risk governance 68, 300, 340
risk information 59, 60, 63, 67, 91
risk management: earthquake 398, 399–400, 401,
406, 407; flood 149–152, 150, 151, 152, 154,
438; in Metro Cebu 168; see also disaster risk
management
risk management frameworks 121, 300–301, 306
risk profiles 63, 64–65, 66, 340, 341
risk reduction: anticipatory 50; earthquake 398,
399–401, 406, 407; individual 53; public 53;
science of 54; see also disaster risk reduction
risk trajectories 331, 332, 338, 346
risk traps 10, 59, 60, 64, 68, 263, 267, 334, 338
risk wheel, disaster risk management 341
robustness 20, 200, 303, 304, 306, 385
roof gardens, as alternative urban green spaces
411–427, 413, 414, 415, 415, 418, 419, 420, 421,
422, 423, 424, 425
root causes 4, 23, 61, 63, 168, 270, 453, 484
rule of law 313, 316, 442n1
RUPP see Rural Urban Partnership Project
Rural Urban Partnership Project (RUPP) 266
Rust Belt, American 174

“safe-to-fail” strategy 20
salinization 160, 162, 163, 311
Sandy, Hurricane 87, 231, 240, 300
sanitation systems 349, 350, 352, 353, 356–358,
357, 360
scalability, of alternative sanitation and water
systems 359–360
scanpaths, of study participant attention 422,
424, 425
scenario modelling 205–206, 207, 210
scenario-specific assessment, of vulnerabilities
118, 120
School Earthquake Safety Program (SESP) 400
SDGs see Sustainable Development GoalsSDI see
Slum and Shack Dwellers International
sea levels, rising 72, 75, 317
sectarian relations 317
seismic damage statistics 138, 139
seismic hazard risks 394–395
seismic resilience, in Nepal 11, 394–407, 395, 397,
403, 404
self-awareness 52
self-governance 31
self-organization 31, 39–40, 41, 43, 43, 266,
351, 483
self-provisioning 351
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
(2015–2030) 321, 335
Seoul, South Korea, roof gardens in 411–427, 413,
414, 415, 415, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423,
424, 425
service clusters 278, 294; Duluth 280, 281, 281;
Grand Rapids 284, 285; Racine 285, 287; South
Bend 290, 291, 292, 292
SES see socio-ecological systems
SESP see School Earthquake Safety Program
SETS see social–ecological–technological systems
shocks: acute 3, 240; sudden 38, 39, 476, 482
short-term resilience 198, 199, 201, 305
shrinking cities 38, 41–42, 172–181, 175, 176, 177,
178, 179, 180
Sierra Leone 10, 333, 334, 335–338, 337
Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC)
333, 339, 345
simulation 120–121
slow burns 3, 38, 39, 478
slow-onset disturbances 203, 207–208, 212
Slum and Shack Dwellers International (SDI)
65, 66
SLURC see Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre
small-scale events 60, 334
social cohesion 8, 12, 303, 454, 484; and municipal
resilience 368, 375, 376; and socio-ecological
resilience 208, 209, 211; and urban resilience
132, 133, 138, 139, 140
social constructionism xxxi, 40, 61, 300, 472, 479;
and climate change 144, 151–152, 152–153, 154
Index
social efficiency 121
social fabric 101, 101
social inequality 37, 42, 43, 101, 430
social infrastructure 331, 334, 382–383, 385–387,
388–389, 391
social innovation 445, 446, 447, 448, 451,
452, 453
social invisibility 9, 260, 268–269, 481
social justice 4, 5, 39, 43, 206, 482
social mobilization 270
social neuroscience 51, 52, 53
social relations xv, 185, 186, 263, 351, 356, 478
social reproduction 260, 481
social resilience 11–12, 19, 132, 133, 264, 268;
capacity building for 445–455, 447, 449, 450;
and extreme heat-related weather events 111,
114; and large urban areas 383, 384, 385–386;
and urban infrastructure gap 351, 359, 360
social stratification 11, 232, 384, 481
social systems 18, 36, 39, 383, 385, 452; and
extreme heat-related weather events 111, 112;
and general resilience 27, 28, 30, 32; and urban
infrastructure gap 350, 351
social theory 37, 39, 185, 476, 478
social vulnerabilities 39, 41, 232, 458; and climate
justicescape 86, 88, 91, 95; and extreme heat-
related weather events 100–111, 101, 103, 104,
105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 110; and urban seismic
resilience 396, 407
Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) 6, 102–106, 103,
104, 105, 106, 107
societal resilience 48, 50, 335, 482
societal self-organization 43
socio-ecological resilience, in cities 197–212, 198,
200, 203, 204, 205, 209, 211
socio-ecological systems (SES) 8, 36, 122, 197, 199,
201, 212, 480
social–ecological–technological systems (SETS)
85–86, 95
social-ecological-technological vulnerability
assessment, integrated spatial 86–87
socio-economic disenfranchisement 41, 483
socio-economic status 100, 102, 104, 131, 411,
416, 426
socio-structural resilience 41
socio-technical networks 123, 200, 384
socio-technical systems 121, 446
South Bend, Indiana 9, 272, 273, 275–276, 277,
278, 289–293, 291, 292, 294
SoVI see Social Vulnerability Index
spatial mapping 390
spatial patterns, resilience 206
spatial planning 86, 158, 159, 162, 164–165, 463
spatial stigma 172
specific resilience 5, 26, 27–28, 32, 198, 206
sponge cities, urban flooding and 7, 135–138,
135, 137, 138
499
Index
Sponge City initiative 136, 137, 137, 138
start-up funding 293
state legislation, and land banking 191
strategic action-planning 67, 340, 343, 345
strategy-specific assessment, of
vulnerabilities 120
stress, mental 52, 413–416, 414, 415, 415
structural inequality 270
Sub Saharan Africa, urban infrastructure gap in
349–361, 355, 357
subarea plans 233, 234, 236, 237
SUBDERE see Regional Development
Undersecretaries
subdivision regulations 238
suburban development 3–4, 230
suburbanization 9, 173, 272, 303
suburban–urban dynamics 174
sudden shocks 38, 39, 476, 482
Summit on Environment and Development
(1992) 19
Survey of Underlying Risk Conditions 367,
368, 369
survivors, disaster 219, 382, 386, 387, 389, 390,
391, 482
sustainability, urban see urban sustainability
sustainable cities 71, 270
sustainable development 10, 158, 270, 320–326,
485; and urban resilience 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 21, 270,
335, 380, 385, 485
Sustainable Livelihoods Framework 387, 392
sustainable reconstruction plans (PRES) 369
sustainable urban development 19, 20, 349–361,
355, 357
system descriptions 29, 30, 31, 32
system resilience 39, 301, 302
systems governance 47
talent 7–8, 225, 282, 290, 293; and shrinking cities
176, 177, 178–180, 179, 180
tax base 38, 42, 173, 193, 272, 288, 316; and land
bank formation 184, 185
TDR see Transfer of development rights
technological adaptive capacity 86
technological vulnerability 86–87
Technological Vulnerability Index 88–90, 93
telecommunication systems 117
temporary housing 324, 325
tenure, insecure 165, 167, 334, 483
therapeutic community 219
Third National Climate Assessment 118
toilets, poor neighborhood 166
Transfer of development rights (TDR) 238
transformative change 125, 333, 338–345, 341,
342, 344
transformative resilience 282, 294
transition, and resilience 306–307
500
Transportation and Logistics cluster 281, 285, 286,
287, 292
transportation infrastructure 71, 76, 117,
131, 138
trauma: ecosystem 185, 478; psychological see
psychological trauma
tsunamis 1, 371–373, 399, 445, 458; Chilean 321,
322–323, 325, 364, 365
2030 agenda (United Nations Agenda for
Sustainable Development) 197, 380
typhoon Haima 1–2
Udaypur earthquake, Nepal (1988) 394, 395, 396
UHIs see Urban Heat Islands
UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC)
302, 305
UN Summit on Environment and Development
(1992) 19
UN World Commission on Environment and
Development (WCED) 18
UNDP see United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP)
uneven development 315
“unforeseen” disturbances 27
unintended consequences, of Iraq’s lack of a
climate change mitigation strategy 312
UN-ISDR see United Nations International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction
UNISDR Making Cities Resilient campaign 18,
63–64, 369, 458
United Nations Agenda for Sustainable
Development (2030 agenda) 197, 380
United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) 266, 310–311, 312, 320, 337, 367,
369, 370
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction 18, 50, 132, 169, 321, 401, 458; and
data gaps and resilience metrics 62, 63–64; and
municipal resilience 369
universities 78; and adaptive resilience 176–181,
177, 178, 179, 180
University of Notre Dame 290, 292–293
University of South Carolina 6, 102–106, 103, 104,
105, 106, 107
university-led development 178
URA see Urban Renewal Agency
Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK)
research project 60, 333
urban blight 5, 8, 9, 39, 188, 188, 192; Latino
revitalization as 243–258, 244, 248, 250
urban climate adaptation plans 40–41
urban critical infrastructure see critical urban
infrastructure
urban decline 172, 184, 480
urban development 59, 108, 131, 239, 321, 334,
407, 485; and climate change 143, 144, 148; and
land use planning 459, 461, 466, 467; and open

space systems 72, 73; peri- 73; sustainable 18,
19, 20, 349–361, 355, 357; university-led 178;
and urban resilience 3–4, 5, 7, 9, 18, 19, 20; and
urban water services 164–165
urban ecological resilience 123
urban ecology 71, 436
urban economy resilience 123
urban energy resilience 298, 302–304, 303
urban flooding, and sponge cities 7, 135–138,
135, 137
urban expansion 49, 323
Urban Forest Strategy 431, 433–434, 434, 436, 437,
438, 439, 440
urban green spaces 411–427, 413, 414, 415, 415,
418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425
urban growth xxix, 48, 78, 118, 360, 430
urban hazards resilience 123
Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) 75, 97, 99, 109, 111,
114, 229
urban infrastructure see critical infrastructure;
infrastructure; green infrastructure; physical
infrastructure
urban infrastructure gap, Sub Saharan Africa
349–361, 355, 357
urban infrastructure systems 117, 118, 302
urban open space infrastructure 71, 75, 77, 78
urban open space systems 71–78
urban parks, restorative quality of 417–420, 418,
419, 420
urban political ecology 351, 353
urban poor see urban poverty
urban population loss 172, 174, 175, 175, 176, 185
urban poverty xxxi, 3, 10, 39, 100, 232, 266,
285, 368; and climate resilience 310, 313, 315;
and land use planning 458, 462; and urban
infrastructure gap 353, 354; and urban resilience
481, 482; and urban risk 331, 332, 333, 335, 345,
346; and urban water services 158, 165, 168, 169
Urban Regeneration Plans for Inner Cities (PRU)
325, 369
urban renewal 244, 245, 251, 252–253, 254, 255,
259, 432
Urban Renewal Agency 251
urban resilience index systems 131–134,
133, 134
urban resilience measurement 61, 63–64, 132, 134,
134, 201, 211
urban risk 4, 47–54, 158, 331–347, 337, 341, 342,
344; and data gaps and resilience metrics 59, 60,
62, 63; and gendered invisible urban resilience
260, 268, 269
urban safety 19–20
urban sanitation coverage challenge 358
urban security 20
urban seismic resilience, in Nepal 11, 394–407,
395, 397, 403, 404
urban shrinkage 42, 173, 174, 175–176, 478
Index
urban sustainability 5, 17–23, 71, 123, 351; and
future prospects for urban resilience 476, 478,
479, 483; and nature-based solutions 431,
436, 437
urban system boundaries 198, 202
“urban turn”, of the sustainability debate 20,
333, 476
urban water services 158–169, 160, 161, 162, 163,
166, 167, 358
urbanization 42, 73, 164, 173, 238, 312, 458,
476; and climate change 148, 151, 153; and
extreme heat-related weather events 108, 109;
and natural hazards 396; in Nepal 395–396,
395, 407; and roof gardens 411, 413; and urban
infrastructure gap 353, 354; and urban resilience
in China 130, 131, 136, 140; and urban risk 331,
333, 334
US Census tract level variables, used to construct
SoVI 105
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) 102, 113
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 37,
299, 301
US National Infrastructure Council 301, 302
US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance 400
US Third National Climate Assessment 118
utility companies 350, 353, 354, 359
utility infrastructure 71, 73
Valparaíso mega fire, Chile (2014) 322,
323–324, 364
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority 447
violence, political 41, 313
Vision 2100, Norfolk,Virginia’s 234, 235, 238
volunteer engagement 217–218, 219–222
volunteerism, disaster 217–225
vulnerabilities: biophysical 86, 101, 101; climate
change 121, 148, 313; disaster 147–148;
ecological 86, 87; economic 41; hazard
72; hazards-of-place model of 101; of
infrastructure 86, 87, 118–124, 119–120, 120,
127, 299, 301–302; place-based 101, 101,
109, 111, 121; and resilience 111–113, 112;
technological 6, 86–87, 88–90, 89, 90, 93;
see also social vulnerabilities
vulnerability analysis 118, 120–121
vulnerability assessment 72, 85, 86, 95, 109,
111, 202
vulnerability indices 86–87, 106; see also Climate
Justice Index; Ecological Vulnerability Index;
Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI); Technological
Vulnerability Index
WASH & RESCUE project 159
waste management 7, 59, 159, 162–164, 162,
163, 166
wastewater treatment 117, 118
501
Index
water crisis, worldwide 158, 159, 160–165, 161,
162, 163, 168, 169
water extraction 148
water governance 158, 311
water infrastructure gap 353
water management 7, 125, 159, 160–165, 161,
162, 163
water pollution 162, 165
Water Research Centre (WRC) 167
water resilience 144, 155n6, 159, 160, 162
water resources 75, 151, 311, 349, 354, 360; and
resilient urban water services 158, 159, 160,
162–164, 163, 165, 167
water supply 117, 118, 119, 126, 138, 239, 304,
312, 317, 478; in Kampala 349–361, 355, 357,
358–361; in Metro Cebu 160, 162, 168
Water Transportation cluster 282
WCED see UN World Commission on
Environment and DevelopmentWDA see
Woodburn Downtown Association
well-being 6, 11, 86, 124, 299, 310; and
nature-based solutions 431, 433, 436,
442n1; and open space systems 71, 72, 77;
and roof gardens 414, 415, 416, 417; and
502
socio-ecological resilience 197, 210; and
urban resilience 47–50, 54
“wicked problem” 121, 126
wildfire risk 232, 233, 236
Winter Emergency Phase, of Chile earthquake and
tsunami recovery 322
women’s groups, in Nepal 260, 262, 263–266, 267,
268–269, 270
women’s invisibility 268–269, 481
Woodburn, Oregon 9, 243–258, 244, 248, 250
Woodburn Downtown Association (WDA) 246,
249, 250, 253, 257
World Commission on Environment and
Development (WCED) 18
World Seismic Safety Initiatives (WSSI) 398
World Urban Forum (2012) 18
worldwide water crisis 158, 159, 160–165, 161,
162, 163, 168, 169
WRC see Water Research Centre
WSSI see World Seismic Safety Initiatives
WUI Code see International Wildland–Urban
Interface Code
zoning 237, 238