Urban resilience: towards a multi-level approach

Abstract 

The study aims to understand the current state of research in urban resilience and to open a discussion about multi-level perspectives for this concept. Starting with the history of the concept of resilience, we identify three main stages in resilience concept’s evolution: conceptualization, contextualization and operationalisation  A confusion occurs between sustainability and resilience, and we clearly separate these two concepts by creating conceptual maps. Such maps also enlighten the specificities of urban and regional resilience discourses. We illustrate that urban resilience research, operating within intra-urban processes, is oriented towards natural disasters, while regional resilience research, operating mostly within inter-urban processes, is oriented towards economic shocks. We show that these two approaches to resilience – urban and regional – are complementary, and we propose to integrate them into a multi-level perspective. By combining these two discourses, we propose a multi-level approach to urban resilience that takes into account both top-down and bottom-up resistance processes. Lastly, we propose to take a panarchy perspective as a theoretical framework for multi-level urban resilience that explains the interactions between different levels through adaptive cycles, relationships between which can help to explain urban resilience.

Le « Trait d’Urbain » est un séminaire proposé par le groupe de recherche en Études urbaines afin de permettre aux chercheuses et chercheurs de présenter leurs travaux en cours.

L'entrée est libre.

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