Mainstreaming resilience in urban policy making? Insights from Christchurch and Rotterdam

Abstract

Despite the burgeoning popularity of resilience as an urban policy narrative, we know little about how policymakers and planners approach the challenge of operationalising urban resilience or what problems they face. Although their ultimate goal is presumably to integrate resilience goals into sectoral policy and decision-making as well as to dissolve policy silos, the concept of mainstreaming has received relatively little attention in urban resilience literature so far. To address this void, we use the concept of mainstreaming to analyse the two cities of Christchurch and Rotterdam, both participants in the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Programme. We identify three main challenges that are apparent in both cities despite their contextual differences. The first is to make resilience a top priority for policymaking and planning because it competes with other urban development agendas for political commitment. Secondly, institutionalising cross-sector governance constitutes a challenge because participation in 100 Resilient Cities brings few incentives for institutional reforms. The third challenge – to actively engage decision-makers from public and private sectors – arises because urban policymakers and planners are not sufficiently equipped to convince them to invest additional resources in terms of personnel, time and money and to dissolve conflicts of interest between them. In the light of these challenges, we argue that participating in 100 Resilient Cities is a relevant but not sufficient first step towards mainstreaming urban resilience in Christchurch and Rotterdam. In addition to developing a resilience strategy and appointing a Chief Resilience Officer, formal changes (for instance in procedural law and national policymaking) are required, to address the challenges identified.