Reconsidering Urban Resilience Assessments Towards Recovery During Conflict

Abstract

In the face of global crises, resilience is a crucial approach to recovery. Urban resilience frameworks have proliferated in the last three decades, as support for policy-focused guidelines towards sustainable development. However, gaps in the adoption of urban resilience frameworks for local-level urban planning still exist. This study argues whether existing frameworks, despite addressing current global challenges such as climate adaptation or rapid urban growth, are suitable for contexts experiencing conflict. The methodological approach is guided by two themes: 1) How can an urban system be dissected into sub-components, to make it more relatable to resilience approaches? and 2) what qualities of resilience are needed for effective implementation? Both questions support the formulation of a novel urban resilience framework which is integrated into an adaptable digital instrument. A pilot conducted in two Ukrainian cities is presented as the implementation case. The outcome of this study summarises the learnings from implementation and highlights the relevance of integrating resilience assessments into digital platforms focused on local, decentralised planning contexts, to accelerate digital maturity and better prepare against future crises of unprecedented scale.