Afterword: Transformation Pathways Within Urban Climate Resilience

Abstract

AbstractThis last section of the book summarises and invites reflection on the limitations and potentials of both institutional and grassroots initiatives included in this book to build transformational processes when planning and implementing urban resilience (top-down and bottom-up) strategies towards climate change. After briefly reviewing the concepts related to transformation and learning commonly used in the urban (climate) resilience literature, with a focus on environmental justice and social equity, I highlight the main ideas and perspectives for critically approaching urban resilience and transformation that are developed through the case studies presented and discussed in previous chapters. In doing this, I try to encapsulate and reflect on the main challenges and opportunities for more transformative ways of building urban climate resilience from both government-led interventions and bottom-up efforts or through co-production schemes, considering factors and conditions shaping power dynamics and exacerbating social vulnerabilities in the different cities analysed throughout the book. I also rely on the compiled knowledge and experience from the presented case studies to envision and reflect on the ways forward to foster urban climate resilience from a transformational perspective, without overlooking inherent power issues.KeywordsCo-productionEquityGrassrootsLearningTransformative governance