Resilient cities in practice

Abstract

In the focus of sustainable development, resilience is one of the main characteristics that modern and liveable city should have in the 21st century. Currently, we are facing serious global problems, including climate change, social inequalities, resource scarcity, pandemics and related healthcare system challenges, cyber insecurity, etc. All those problems are representing complex risks and require complex system solution approach. Even if Europe is not the most vulnerable region in the globe, consequences of our changing climate are significant and new challenges emerge constantly. As core components of the current system, cities represent major contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and they serve as centres of population, decision-making and institutional power. For these factors, cities have a special role in sustainable development processes. Despite a wide range of sustainability approaches and solutions, there are still plenty of obstacles that slow down the process of development. These obstacles are especially peculiar in cities, as a consequence of high population density, limited space and limited availability of affordable housing, dependency on external food supply and water supply etc. The aim of the paper is to highlight the differences between the theoretical and the practical approach in the case of closing the gap between expectations and achievable development. It follows a practice-oriented approach to examine whether a locally, well-planned complex development chain could achieve a significant improvement in the inhabitants’ life, according to social, economic and environmental indicators. The purpose of the study is to provide potential good practice examples to the recent field of smart solutions, related to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Trough specific small-scale solutions the involved fields and the smart, complex system-oriented modifications and their effects will be presented. The applied methodology is case study analysis, which aims to assess the resilience of an 8000 inhabitants’ settlement in Europe. Results of the paper show that with a determined, multidisciplinary, complex, solution-oriented approach an appreciably higher resilience can be achieved, by affecting different fields of challenge (such as energy sector, heating, social awareness) and simultaneously target climate adaptation and mitigation. Contribution of the paper to its field, is the approach that the analysed case represents and the evidence that even a small city’ effort can be resilient and contributes to tackling climate change and sustainability challenges.