The Resilient Melbourne experiment: Analyzing the conditions for transformative urban resilience implementation

Abstract

This paper examines the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) initiative in Melbourne and frames this as an experiment in urban resilience governance and planning. We respond to the call from urban resilience scholars to consider the 5Ws (who, what, where, when and why?) of resilience and consider what this means for reframing urban resilience implementation. Melbourne is one of the first wave of 33 cities involved in 100RC and the release of the 2016 Strategy is the first attempt at urban resilience governance and planning in this city. We examine its role in mobilizing urban resilience reflecting on the 5Ws and also the ‘how’, as a governance experiment. With no metropolitan mandate and within a highly fragmented governing context, we develop an analytical framework to assess the 100RC Melbourne initiative identifying a set of conditions for transformative urban resilience implementation incorporating four dimensions – governance and institutional settings (how); inclusions/exclusions (who); framing and purpose (why and what); and system boundaries and interventions (where and when). We reflect on how urban resilience has been framed and adapted within this initiative and the extent to which this process of urban resilience implementation may have the capacity to influence, disrupt or change mainstream urban policy and planning frameworks. We highlight the institution building role the 100RC is playing by mediating between, and connecting, actors, sectors, and interests. We discuss the prospects for shaping a more integrated and inclusive mode of urban governance and resilience planning, a need which has become particularly acute in the context of the shock and ongoing stressor of COVID 19. We conclude by arguing that while experiments such as the 100RC initiative can demonstrate new ways of working collaboratively, explicit attention must be paid to the sets of conditions required to mobilize transformative change in urban resilience implementation.