12: Urban resilience to environmental challenges

There are two terms that have come to define the 21st century: the ‘urban age’ and the ‘age of man’. The former reflects the fact that more than half of the world’s population live in cities. The latter indicates the cost of this urbanisation and the impact of human activities on the creation of a new geological epoch, now known as the Anthropocene. Many cities around the world are acknowledging this and are competing with one another to become not only the cleanest, greenest and healthiest city, but also the safest. In this context, resilience is a concept which is spreading fast.
We will discuss the assumptions inherent in the ideologies and rationalities of ‘resilience’, its inscribed meanings and values, social, political, moral and ethical implications. What pitfalls and opportunities can be found in different understandings of the resilience paradigm? Participants will be asked to select a city from the 100 Resilient Cities and use that as a case study throughout the seminar.