Urban Resilience as a Mitigating Mechanism of Urban Change: Insights from Two Case Studies

Abstract

Urban change is inevitable and happens in cities and urban centers. Their land use is continuously modernized because of economic, social, political and demographic factors. However, urban resilience can provide opportunities for social interactions and plays a key role in the development of urban spaces and access to high-quality urban spaces. The link between the urban and regional aspects and social, economic, cultural, and political systems is that their characteristics are interconnected with those of urban resilience, and outer urban space can play a role in resilience through its ability to reconstruct a balanced environmental state after human intervention. Thus, urban resilience is one of the most appropriate ways to control the processes of urban change and absorb its consequences. This research examines urban resilience and its role in urban change. Its aim is to study urban resilience and its positive role in urban change, which affects the organization of a city and the lives of the people. The research is based on the premise that urban resilience has a positive and effective role in achieving a balance between continuity and change in space by dispensing some functions and replacing them with others. It examines how urban resilience can help improve the efficiency of urban space and meet the changing needs and desires of residents without significantly changing the urban fabric. The research also examines the external and internal factors that affect the city and strategies for urban resilience and improving urban space. It employs a descriptive and analytical method to review and discuss urban change and urban resilience and deduce the most important indicators. It then applies these indicators of urban resilience to two case studies: the Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. The research substantiated the premise that urban resilience has a positive and effective role in balancing continuity and change in space by dispensing one function and replacing it with another.