URBAN RESILIENCE: DEFINITIONS, UNDERSTANDING AND CONCEPTUALIZATION

Abstract

Sustainability and resilience are the two main paradigms of planning and policy making in the past decades. Fostering resilience in the face of environmental, socio-economic and political uncertainty and risk has captured the attention of academics and decision makers across disciplines, sectors and spatial scales. Urban resilience has become an important goal for cities, especially from the point of view of adapting to climate change and reducing their ecological footprint. Urban resilience is conventionally defined as the measurable ability of any urban system, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses while positively adapting and transforming towards sustainability. However, in theory and practice there are different definitions that are often in conflict. This paper first provides an overview of existing definitions of urban resilience and highlights their main determinants. Then, the paper discusses definitions from the perspective of ways of incorporating key concepts found both in resilience theory and urban theory. In the following, similarities and mutual tensions are recognized between the key concepts. Finally, the paper concludes that a clearer conceptualization is needed to improve this developing field and create conditions for its further operationalization.