As indicated by the previous sections, it is important for settlements to prepare for climate change and peak oil; however it will be difficult to precisely predict their impacts. Both are likely to have pervasive and multiplying effects and economic responses to reduced oil availability may be non-linier with potential for surprise. Cities and towns are in themselves complex with dynamic interactions occurring between their different functions, making it difficult to map linier relationships between cause and effects of extraneous pressures. In addition each settlement will have its own unique combination of vulnerabilities and resources to assess.
An emerging strategy for urban policy decision-making in response to an increasing inability to predict future trends, is the idea of building resilience and adaptive capacity into a settlement’s functions and social fabric in order to increase that settlement’s ability to respond to a range of shocks and change. For example the Auckland Sustainability Framework – a major governmental decision-making framework for the region identifies the need to develop
“a resilient region that can adapt to change by building strong communities and robust ecological systems, and designing flexibility into our economy, infrastructure and buildings”.[1]
Urban resilience is defined in this context as the ability to withstand short term disruptions and adapt to large-scale change with minimum loss of function. Maintaining this ability is an ongoing process, and resilience is not the end goal in itself, rather it enables a settlement to, as Pickett et al (2004) describes, ‘stay in the game’.[2] A strategy based upon resilience must first assess a settlement’s vulnerability and resilience to future change, so that interventions can be prioritized in order to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience.
[1] Auckland Regional Growth Forum. (2007). Auckland Sustainability Framework: an Agenda for the Future. Auckland: Auckland Regional Council.
[2] Pickett, S.T.A, Cadenasso, M.L. and J.M. Grove (2004), Resilient Cities: Meaning, Models, and Metaphor for Integrating the Ecological, Socio-Economic, and Planning Realms. Landscape and Urban Planning 69: 369-384