Resilient cities

This report discusses cities’ resilience from economic, social, environmental and institutional perspectives. Ten case studies, including Antalya (Turkey), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Bursa (Turkey), Cardiff (United Kingdom), Kobe (Japan), Kyoto (Japan), Lisbon (Portugal), Oslo (Norway), Ottawa (Canada) and Tampere (Finland) provide important examples of how cities can promote innovative policy actions to enhance their resilience.

Key lessons from the case studies include:

• Resilient cities can bounce back using the lessons learnt from their past experiences, taking a long term perspective and making the best use of their local resources.
• Cities are taking innovative approaches to respond to challenges on resilience such as open innovation policies, citizen engagement, diversifying industrial structures, undertaking compact city policies and forming alliances with universities.
• Cities are taking a participatory approach, inviting diverse actors on board, such as citizens and universities. They are not only the recipient of public services, but they are the providers of knowledge and experience, to support better public policies.