New in town? On resilience and “Resilient Cities”: Fid-Bau Portal

New in town? On resilience and “Resilient Cities”

Stumpp, Eva-Maria

Highlights ► Following sustainability now resilience is the new buzzword in spatial planning. ► Sometimes used interchangeably sustainability and resilience might be conflicting. ► The efficiency principle inherent in sustainability shifts to redundancy and caution. ► Shifting paradigms of planning require new approaches in planning practice. ► There is an underused potential in conferences and research projects as test fields.

Abstract Looking at the programme and the range of conferences in spatial planning around Europe in recent years, resilience seems to be the new buzzword in urban-regional matters. As such it is following sustainability, sometimes even used interchangeably. It is argued that, with a sound theoretical framework for an urban regional context still pending, it is difficult to apply resilience as a new paradigm to planning practice. Based on conceptual thoughts on resilience particularly in relation to the concept of sustainability, this contribution suggests that one challenge for urban regional resilience is the need for intensified collaboration between different disciplines as well as between science and practice. It concludes with suggestions on how to approach this challenge using existing platforms such as conferences or collaborative projects.