Resilient Cities

Opportunities and Challenges of Urban Resilience in the Transformation Towards Sustainable Urban Development

Platform Project − PP 6.4

People

Today, cities are the central living space for people. They are the hotspots of resource use and emissions. Cities are therefore both the drivers and the main victims of climate change, and are currently facing a triple challenge: to become climate-neutral, to be resilient to multiple crises, and to be liveable for diverse populations and their needs. This requires rapid and far-reaching changes at different levels, innovative approaches and the negotiation of ideas, interests and options for action.

More than half of the world's population now lives in cities, making them the most important places for people to live. Urbanisation and industrialisation have made cities hotspots of resource use, including land, water, ecosystem services and energy. At the same time, cities are also hotspots for the generation of emissions, in particular greenhouse gases, waste and wastewater. As a result, cities are both drivers and victims of climate change. They are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events such as floods, heat and drought. In addition, the conditions for a good quality of life and equitable participation in cities are very unevenly distributed. In short, cities today face a triple challenge: they must become climate-neutral and resilient - able to withstand, adapt and learn - and they must remain liveable. This is the only way they can maintain their functionality and be attractive places for their inhabitants to live. This will require rapid and far-reaching changes in many areas, known as transformations.

In fact, many cities around the world have already set out to become climate neutral and resilient in recent years. It is important to recognise that the necessary transformations are often not progressing sufficiently. In some cases, the threat posed by the climate crisis is not recognised or even questioned; in others, there are conflicting interests and demands for sustainable urban development, and these conflicts are coming to public attention. But there is also a lack of money, resources and, not least, sound knowledge about how to implement sustainable urban development in a way that is fair, understandable and effective for everyone. The goal of transformation is well known: Resilience and climate neutrality - but not the way to get there. Traditional growth targets, incremental approaches and the avoidance of necessary negotiation processes, as still pursued by many cities, run counter to the goals of sustainable urban development, or even jeopardise or make them impossible.

In this context, we observe the emergence of a series of conflicts, often closely linked to the context of multiple crises, which have a decisive influence on the speed and course of urban transformations. It is becoming increasingly clear that transformations are non-linear, marked by crises and ruptures, contradictory and hindered or prevented by unresolved conflicts. Against this background, the project aims to develop a deeper understanding of how crises and conflicts influence urban transformations towards greater resilience and sustainability. The aim is both to understand how these processes are hindered, delayed or prevented, and to recognise their role as catalysts for change or enablers of productive moments that create new opportunities for change and insight. Our mission is to support cities and their stakeholders to constructively and productively addressing the challenges of multiple crises and related conflicts, and to find sustainable solutions for a robust and liveable urban future.

Scheme
We aim to develop solutions for multifunctionality and resilience in the context of participatory design of local transformation, especially with regard to blue-green infrastructure, and to unravel the dynamics of exposure and adaptive behaviour in the face of urban environmental risks. Through our inter- and transdisciplinary research, we will use co-productive and collaborative approaches to generate and test knowledge for resilient and sustainable urban development together with practitioners and policy-makers. A key approach is to bring together different types of research and knowledge. The Leipzig urban area serves as a 'laboratory' for us to develop a long-term perspective on urban change and resilience, leading to overarching, systemic insights.