Go from resilient cities conference to bold cities. Focus on policies, actions and hot trends in resilient city development

In recent years, with rapid urbanization, the global landscape of science and technology, industry, energy, and finance has undergone profound changes. Concurrently, emergencies or sudden events including natural disasters, human-induced disasters, and socio-economic crises are posing unrelenting threats to regional environment and security. The concept of “resilient city,” as an important principle in contemporary urban planning, emphasizes that the capacity of urban systems to absorb the impacts and pressures caused by uncertain events while maintaining essential functions, structures, and characteristics.

The Resilient Cities Congress, initiated by ICLEI (International Council for Local Environment Initiatives)–Local Governments for Sustainability in 2010, as the first annual global forum dedicated to resilient cities studies. In 2020, the Resilient Cities Congress was renamed the “Daring Cities,” with the aim of building on the legacy of the Resilient Cities Congress series, enhancing the leadership role of governments, researchers, business leaders, and community organizers in urban decision-making process when responding to emergencies or sudden events, and forming new methods of urban governance and multi-stakeholder partnership models.

Drawing from the materials and scholarly work presented at these congresses, this research comprehensively reviews the evolution of resilient cities over the last decade through the lenses of policies and actions, summarizing the cutting-edge and current trends. Overall, the journey of global resilient cities unfolds in three phases of global commitment and framework establishment, path exploration and action, and experience translation and adaption. And after synthesizing the cases of global pioneering resilient city and regional construction cases from the Daring Cities, the experience of resilience actions can be summarized in five aspects. 1) Multi-level governance and multi-stakeholder collaboration. 2) Developing circular economy, and financing resilience and insuring cities. 3) Nature-based Solutions. 4) Equal opportunities and access to basic services. 5) Open data and strong data governance capability.

Throughout the previous Resilient Cities Congress series, the development of resilient cities in the past decade has evolved from theoretical exploration, framework establishment, and formulation of target strategies towards the implementation of regional and local actions and follow-up assessment, while integrating theoretical research into political decision-making that has in turn driven the progress of urban sustainable development. Nowadays, with the development of big data and analytics technology, the construction of resilient cities not only requires deepening implementation at economic and social aspects, but also necessitates a series of effective measures in the field of cyber resilience to seize opportunities and mitigate risks, where information technology can and will play a vital role. Looking ahead, it is crucial to further promote local resilience actions and practices, and to put more efforts in filling the gaps of empirical research on resilient cities. It is of great practical significance to translate international resilience development results and action experience into localized efforts both in theory and practice at the national, regional, and city scales, so as to promote the full implementation of climate action and resilience building worldwide.

The work entitled “From Resilient Cities Congress to Daring Cities: Policies, Actions, and Hot Trends of Resilient City Development” was published on the journal of Landscape Architecture Frontiers (February 15, 2024).