Urban resilience

In a no longer future, cities will be more dense and compact, becoming more populous. According to the United Nations, by 2030 the world is projected to have 41 mega-cities with more than 10 million inhabitants. For example, Tokyo is projected to remain the world’s largest city in 2030 with 37 million inhabitants, followed closely by Delhi where the population is predicted to rise rapidly to 36 million (World Urbanization Prospects 2014). With such large amount of citizens, these metropolis will necessarily have to make infrastructure safer and stronger to face disasters, otherwise any catastrophe could be devastating. In other words, cities will have to be resilient.

The Urban resilience concept emerged as an approach for resilient cities. The term can be defined in several ways, but i will consider the World Bank perspective, which defines it as “the ability of a system, entity, community, or person to adapt to a variety of changing conditions and to withstand shocks while still maintaining its essential functions” (Investing in Urban Resilience 2015, p.19). The idea “that resilience is a positive trait that contributes to sustainability it is widely accepted ” (Leichenko 2011,p.166). It should be noted then, that caring about urban resilience is a key element of sustainable development, hence present development gains are saved for future generations.

While the concept earns increasing public attention, a variety range of institutions worldwide are concerned in addressing it. Some organizations are the following:

• DFID: The Infrastructure Resilience programme.

• ICLEI: Resilient Cities.

• The Rockefeller Foundation: 100 Resilient cities.

• UN-HABITAT: City Resilience Profiling Programme (CRPP).

• World Bank: Resilient Cities Program.

For the purpose of this post, I will focus on the World Bank initiative . In their last report launched in 2015, Investing in Urban Resilience: Protecting and Promoting Development in a Changing World, emphasizes the need for investment in resilience, how cities can take action to build resilience and how the World Bank can help.

In my opinion, the function the WB plays in its contribution financing urban resilience projects is debatable. My objections relate to the corporate role it can apply, and that the help it offers might be contradictory. We must not forget that WB is a commercial institution that makes profit giving loans. To what extent is this ethical? It appears to be totally arguable, because environmental issues, in this case urban resilience as a reaction for climate change, seem to become an additional investment opportunity. As Finger (2008) stated, the environment is being adapted to the needs of the global institutions and not the other way around.