Equitable Urban Resilience in Theory and Practice

Date: Wednesday, 13 Oct 2021 | 16:00-17:00 CET

Abstract: Urban scholars and policymakers are increasingly focused on enhancing resilience in the face of climate change and other threats, but is the growing urban resilience agenda fostering the transformative changes needed to tackle these challenges in an equitable and sustainable way? In my talk, I will draw on a number of my recent publications to discuss the equity implications of how researchers, practitioners, and the broader public commonly conceptualize urban resilience and how cities apply resilience in practice. While the findings are mixed, overall they suggest that resilience needs to be reconceptualized if it is going to continue to be a major focus for city planning and policy. I propose some general frameworks for integrating justice and transformation into urban resilience.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Sara Meerow is an assistant professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. She is an interdisciplinary social-ecological systems scientist working at the intersection of urban geography and planning. Her work tackles the challenge of how to make cities more resilient in the face of climate change and other social and environmental hazards, while at the same time more sustainable and just. Her publications include more conceptual studies of urban resilience as well as empirical research on city governance of resilience, green infrastructure, and climate change in a range of cities.