Mainstreaming resilience into urban planning practices

This note considers the challenges of and rationale for mainstreaming disaster resilience into spatial planning practices in the context of continued urbanisation in South Africa combined with other global and local processes such as poverty, exclusion, unemployment, crime, etc. Addressing the vulnerability of people, places and assets as a complex phenomenon, it provides some commentary on current issues as well as some recommendations for urban planning to consciously reduce vulnerability to everyday risks in South Africa. It is written with policy makers and practitioners in spatial planning, regional planning and disaster management in mind.