Adaptive aspects of a resilient city

Abstract

A city’s disaster preparedness can be measured by two aspects; its vulnerability as the negative aspect of resilience, and its adaptability as the positive one. The efforts to improve cities’ resilience around the world mostly focused to reduce their vulnerability, because this aspect of urban resilience is easier to comprehend and then managed compared to the adaptability aspect. The vulnerability is often perceived as a static aspect and pre-existing condition of an urban characteristic. Thus, reducing vulnerability usually is a one-way process, with clear objectives, goals, and methods of how to achieve it. On the other hand, adaptability is something that dynamic that varies in both spatial and temporal dimension. Analysis of existing methods and practices resulted in a formulation of three types of urban adaptability towards a resilient city, which are its Structural, Behavioural, and a new emerging concept, which is its e-Adaptability.