Social Sustainability
Urban Resilience
Definition
Urban resilience is the capacity of a city's systems — infrastructure, institutions, communities, economy — to absorb, recover from and adapt to acute shocks (floods, heatwaves, earthquakes, pandemics) and chronic stresses (water scarcity, inequality, aging infrastructure). Institutionalised by the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities programme (which created chief resilience officers in cities worldwide) and now embedded in climate adaptation planning, it integrates disaster preparedness with long-term adaptive capacity.
References
This reference provides supporting context for how “Urban Resilience” is defined and used.
Source imported for editorial provenance.
Overview
How it is used
The concept structures city resilience strategies, adaptation planning, the Making Cities Resilient campaign (UNDRR), and climate risk financing.
Why it matters
Cities concentrate people and assets exactly where hazards intensify; urban resilience is the discipline of surviving that concentration.