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Are you interested in resilience as bouncing forward?
Our summary today works with the article titled Resilience and the Sustainable Development Goals: a scrutiny of urban strategies in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative from 2024, by Elisa Kochskämper, Lisa-Maria Glass, Wolfgang Haupt, Shirin Malekpour and Jarrod Grainger-Brown, published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.
This is a great preparation to our next interview with Sam Kernaghan in episode 362 talking about resilience as bouncing forward based on the 100 Resilient Cities Program.
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how resilience is implemented in reality. This article proves the positive correlation between resilience and sustainable development planning with additional steps to improve on the process.
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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.
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Speaker 1: Our discussion today really centers on the resilient strategies that came out of the a hundred Resilient Cities Initiative, a hundred rc. We’re basically looking at these plans to see how well they managed to weave in the sustainable development goals, the SDGs and the core question, I think is pretty fundamental. Did this whole network actually foster a real transformative shift in how cities plan? A shift that genuinely connects resilience, handling shocks, handling stresses with deep sustainable development, or did the usual suspects like prioritizing economic stuff and just making small tweaks hold things back. So my position is that the evidence points to a pretty clear, measurable, positive trend. There’s a real move toward integrating resilience and sustainability. And interestingly, it seems to be cities in the global south leading the charge,
Speaker 2: right? And I’m looking at the same data, but I see it somewhat differently. The idea of linking resilience and sustainability absolutely crucial. No argument there, but the analysis suggests to me that most cities just didn’t make that radical leap. We needed the overall degree of what we call transformative adaptation is pretty low, and you still see this strong pull towards economic targets. It feels like systemic roadblocks are really limiting how much deep change is possible. Lots of good intentions maybe, but the actions planned often look more preserving what is not fundamentally shifting it.
Speaker 1: That’s one way to frame it, but I think it might underplay the impact of the a hundred RC framework itself. My central argument, and this comes straight from the analysis, is that these strategies show a really clear, statistically significant link between having high transformative potential. Broadly including sustainable development practices. It really validates the systemic thinking that a hundred RC was trying to push. So just to get into the specifics a bit, we use something called the Transformative Adaptation Index, or TAI. It’s designed to measure how radical or systemic a city’s proposed changes are, and we found this really strong connection, a correlation, statistically solid, showing that the higher a city scored on this TAI. The more SDG targets, they just naturally embedded into their resilience plan and crucially, as I mentioned, the global south, the GS cities, they’re clearly out front here. They dominate the top TI rankings suggesting they’re the ones really going for a structural change. They also address more sustainability goals. On average, about 15 out of the 16 we looked at compared to Global North or GN cities, which only hit around 13. And this isn’t just random. It seems like they really embrace that broad 100 RC definition of resilience, identifying not just the obvious ecological shocks. Also those critical societal stresses, things like deep-seated inequality or the housing crisis.
Speaker 2: Okay. That correlation, yes. It’s statistically significant. It shows if you do manage to plan transformatively, sustainability tends to follow. I won’t argue with that specific finding. But, and this is a big, but for me, I just don’t think you can extrapolate from that correlation among the, let’s say, high achievers to say the whole initiative guarantees deep systemic change across the board. Let me explain why I’m skeptical. We have to look at the bulk of the data. So yes, there’s a positive trend for some. The reality is most planned actions across the entire network, they’re heavily weighted towards incremental change. And by incremental we mean tweaks that basically keep the existing city structure intact, maybe building a higher sea wall, reinforcing a bridge, rather than changing the underlying systems that create vulnerability in the first place. Say, tackling housing segregation, or completely rethinking how people move around the city and the numbers back this up. The majority of cities scored below 60 out of a hundred on that TI scale. So if transformation is what’s needed and most cities are scoring less than 60, then transformation isn’t the main story here. It points to a real resistance to radical shifts and then look at what they focused on. The planned actions clearly favor economic targets, about 44% coverage there, and societal targets next at 38%. But the bias for your stuff, environment, water ecosystems. That gets noticeably less attention, only 32% coverage. And what’s really telling is that this economic focus persists even when economic shocks weren’t necessarily identified as the biggest threat by the cities themselves. It suggests this kind of ingrained neoliberal path dependency where cities just default back to protecting the existing economic setup over making truly deep systemic changes for sustainability.
Speaker 1: I understand the focus on the average TAI score, but framing it purely as resistance might be too pessimistic. That correlation we talked about, it proves that when cities manage to adopt these more sophisticated, transformative approaches to governance, things like strong policy coherence, making sure different policies don’t contradict each other, and modes that actively involve the public. Then sustainability integration just happens. It falls naturally. Think about the leaders here. Aada Zaba, a global South City, scored an incredibly high 93.71 on the TAI and what’s important isn’t just the number, it’s how they got there. They went beyond just patching things up. They seem to fundamentally rethink policy coherence, making sustainability the foundation, not just some add-on the fact that incremental change is more common overall, doesn’t invalidate the proof that the mechanism for integrated change works and it’s demonstrated by these top performers. The broad a hundred RC idea of resilience. I’d argue acts as a pathway towards the sustainable future. Not a way to just maintain the status quo,
Speaker 2: but an average score below 60. With most cities clustering there suggest these plans might be more like aspirational documents, vision boards, maybe. Rather than concrete blueprints for deep structural change, incrementalism is politically often the easier path, right? It keeps the existing system working, but it’s just not enough for the kind of massive risks like climate change or the deep vulnerabilities. Many cities, face scholars research and transformation are pretty clear on this. We can’t just point to one or two stars like Addis Ababa and ignore the weight of the evidence showing widespread well inertia. And besides look at the other end of the scale, you have cities like Singapore scoring a really low 9.98 on the TAI or Montreal at 39.24. These are cities with resources, with capacity. They’re in the global north. Yet their plans are overwhelmingly incremental. That tells me it’s maybe less about the framework itself and more about political will or lack thereof. The dominant pattern across the whole network just isn’t deep transformation. It’s resistance to it.
Speaker 1: Okay. I acknowledge we need caution about implementation. Definitely, but we also have to look at how these successful strategies came about. The process matters. These global south cities aren’t just scoring higher by chance. They seem to have a better grasp of the root causes of their problems because they’re prioritizing sustainability through really inclusive processes. The difference in participation levels is quite striking. GS cities had a significantly higher average score for participation in developing their strategies, 9.28 points compared to just six point 17 for GN cities. That suggests a more embedded and community driven understanding of resilience. One that naturally moves beyond just engineering fixes to tackle those broader social and governance issues. And that kind of involvement, I think, is key to ensuring the outcomes are genuinely transformative, not just technical tweaks.
Speaker 2: While higher participation in the global south is definitely a positive sign, we should probably dig into the nature of that participation, especially thinking about that path dependency. I mentioned earlier the strong focus in GS cities on building institutions, both formal and informal, and especially their heavy reliance on partnerships with non-state actors like civil society groups, universities. It could reflect genuine collaboration. Or it could also reflect underlying governance gaps, maybe even a way to shift responsibility away from government onto others. Partnerships are great, but sometimes they can mask a lack of state capacity, or perhaps more cynically, a lack of political appetite for funding and pushing through potentially unpopular structural changes. Speaking of appetite or lack thereof, the weak focus from global North cities on really critical global goals is it’s quite concerning, especially given their historical responsibilities and the expectation they’d lead on mitigation. Take SDG seven, affordable and clean energy. That’s central to decarbonization, right? Only 58% of Global North strategies even addressed it significantly. If the wealthiest cities aren’t seriously tackling energy sustainability in their resilience plans. Then who exactly is gonna drive global climate action? It’s a real gap,
Speaker 1: which brings us right to that imbalance between the sustainability pillars. Definitely a key point of friction here. I’d argue that the strong focus on socioeconomic issues, which you flagged as potentially problematic in terms of partnerships is actually in necessary correction. Think about it, historically, resilience projects often just meant building bigger walls or stronger bridges, physical infrastructure. These a hundred RC strategies, particularly in the GS, clearly recognize social justice dimensions. They have high coverage for targets like inclusive urbanization, target 11.3, and building resilience for the poor and vulnerable target 1.5. This focus shows, I believe. Recognition that tackling those chronic social stresses is absolutely vital for any kind of meaningful resilience. It’s something often missed when you only focus on concrete and steel.
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree that social resilience is critical, but my concern is that this prioritization seems to come at the expense of environmental foundations, which are fundamental to long-term sustainability. The relative neglect of key biosphere targets beyond just the very general SDG 13 on climate action looks like a major blind spot. It could undermine the effectiveness of these plans down the road. Look at Target 15.9, integrating ecosystem and biodiversity values into planning. Coverage is really low, just 8% in the global north, 6% in the global south, or target 6.4. Increasing water use efficiency similarly overlooked. So by leaning so heavily on economic development and immediate social needs, cities risk locking themselves into solutions that are unsustainable environmentally and maybe even economically in the long run. It’s that classic choice. Do you spend big on a massive Seagate and incremental fix? Or do you invest in restoring natural drainage and coastal ecosystems, which is more transformative and potentially more sustainable? The data suggests cities are often opting for the former, potentially compromising long-term environmental health for shorter term stability.
Speaker 1: Look, at the end of the day, this analysis shows that the 100 RC Initiative did provide an institutional framework, a different way of thinking and planning. That led to a measurable uptick in integrating sustainability goals, especially in the global south. The very fact that there’s this strong statistical link between a city’s ambition for transformation measured by the TAI and how well they align with the SDGs suggests that the broad a hundred RC definition of resilience can work when it’s adopted seriously. It serves as a constructive framework for moving towards a genuinely sustainable urban future. It shows a potential path forward. Even if right now maybe only a subset of cities are fully walking it,
Speaker 2: we absolutely have to remain critical and rigorous. Here, though, while aligning the concepts of resilience and sustainability is definitely progress, a positive step, discursively, the hard data shows that the actual planned actions are still mostly incremental. They still disproportionately serve existing economic priorities. So for me, it suggests that the ultimate goal, that deep systemic transformation needed for truly sustainable futures, it still feels more aspirational than guaranteed, at least based on these planning documents. There’s a clear tension between the ambitious rhetoric and the on the ground reality reflected in the plans. That tension, I think, remains the central challenge.
Speaker 1: Indeed, in both that statistical link we found and those really stark differences in which SDG targets get prioritized, they definitely call for more research, right? We need to understand better how local politics, local economies. All those specific contexts shape how these big global ideas actually get translated into real, effective and hopefully transformative action on the ground.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It shows that global frameworks can definitely point the way, provide the concepts, but it’s the local political economy, the local realities that ultimately seem to dictate the pace and the true nature of the change.
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