Small city resilience assessment and planning

In the context of accelerated global change, the concept of resilience has emerged as the favoured framework for understanding and responding to the dynamics of change across so many fronts.
 
Emerging as a more positive approach to vulnerability assessment, resilience assessment looks at strengths, weaknesses, risks, adaptability, and opportunities across a range of domains in the face of changing environments in which a region, place, community, or organization is situated.
 
Strategic resilience planning can help regions, cities, communities and organization prepare and respond to a range of changes from regional to global dynamics.  A good resilience strategy should look at the present and future to not only prepare for riding-out the negative impacts of change but also look to turning threats into opportunities to grow greater resilience into the future.
 
In the context of strategic city planning, small and large cities alike need to be looking at comprehensive resilience planning. Where Australia’s urban strategic planning has tended to be heavily focused on urban growth management in larger urban and metropolitan centres, smaller cities and regional centres are often dealing with very different challenges.  With the pressure on our largest cities, there is a need to consider the capacity of our smaller cities to thrive into the future but understand how this might be possible in a rapidly changing world.
 
A recent example of strategic resilience planning in a city that has faced change head on is Glasgow.  The first city resilience strategy in the UK it is intended to ‘empower, unlock place-based solutions, support fair economic growth, and foster civic participation’.  The latter is essential for developing capacity and resilience across all scales.  Take a look at the 100 resilient cities site for more information about Glasgow.
 
Further Reading:
Want to learn more about resilience concepts across different domains?  Anna is a co-author on the following recently published international journal publication.  So far well received, the paper can be downloaded from Anna's ResearchGate site.

AUTHORS: ANNA LYTH & PIP WATSON
Anna and Pip are part of a network of international and national resilience researchers.  With experience in strategic planning and resilience thinking RED Sustainability Consultants can assist with resilience assessment and strategic planning at city, community, and organizational scales.
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