Planning For Resilient Cities: Theory And Methods

Urbanization is occurring at an unprecedented rate; half of the Chinese people have lived in urban environments by 2011. There is consensus in literature that urban areas in China have become increasingly vulnerable to the outcomes of rapid economic development in recent years. The increased frequency and widening diversity of problems have made it evident that a new planning perspective is needed. It should focus on alternate means of addressing the need for a more adaptive and re-organisational capacity in urban systems. In other words, there is near consensus on the need to change not only the focus, but also the way of thinking in planning.In this paper, it was argued that resilience thinking can form the basis of an alternative planning approach. The applicability of resilience thinking in Chinese cities was judged by the methods that combine the theoretical thinking and practical research. In addition, the connotation of resilience was explained based on the combination of social-ecological theory and the traditional urban planning theory. Furthermore, the epistemology and methodology based on urban resilience were discussed and key characteristics of resilient cities were analysed, as well as the frameworks of resilience planning were explored.Through the analysis of materials, it was pointed out that the attention on resilience is on the rise. And urban resilience is becoming a new research field of urban planning. Moreover, the aim of a new theoretical approach to planning is to assist in the creation of resilient cities that are able to adapt to both slow changes and major pressures.This paper illustrated seven qualities of urban resilience and then outlined the epistemology based on resilience thinking:to assume socio-ecological system thinking in understanding the system’s structure and dynamics; to scan for vulnerabilities in order to avoid collapse and to keep resilience; to deal with uncertainties, disturbances and thresholds in complexity contexts; to increase the system’s capacity to adapt or to transform itself when crucial.Then, three key focus areas toward resilient cities were pointed out in Chinese context: shifting the economic paradigm; creating imaginative, integrated visions, plans and indicators; inspiring technological and social innovation. Based on these, three essential dimensions of the methodology were argued:metabolic flows sustaining urban functions and quality of life; social-ecological systems connecting people with nature; adaptive governance enabling learning and planning under uncertainty. Furthermore, climate resilient city and resilient urban transport were put forward and validated by two cases.Finally it was explored resilience as a concept and as a framework for promoting innovative urban planning in China. Consequently, a new perspective for urban planning, referred to as’resilience planning’ was introduced. This paper introduced the major principles of the resilience planning paradigm and made a comparison with rational and communicative planning paradigms. Adaptive capacity, self-organisation and transformability are the core of resilience planning. And the aim of resilience planning is to define priorities that ensure a no-regret situation and create a system that is not only adaptive to slow changes but also to major expected and unexpected disturbances. At last, this paper discussed how to improve the methods of urban planning. The purpose was to set the foundations, offered reference frameworks and supported methodological proposals for resilience planning in Chinese context.