A Ladder of Urban Resilience: An Evolutionary Framework for Transformative Governance of Communities Facing Chronic Crises
Dario Esposito ()
Additional contact information
Dario Esposito: Department of Civil, Environmental, Building Engineering and Chemistry (DICATECh), Polytechnic University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy
Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 13, 1-38
Abstract:
This paper explores the concept of evolutionary urban resilience by framing cities as complex, open, and adaptive Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS), shaped by multi-scalar dynamics, systemic uncertainty, and interdependent crises. It challenges the reductionist view of resilience as a fixed capacity or linear sequence of risk management phases, and instead proposes a process-based paradigm rooted in learning, creativity, and the ability to navigate disequilibrium. The framework defines urban resilience as a continuous and iterative transformation process, supported by: (i) a combination of tangible and intangible qualities activated according to problem typology; (ii) cross-domain processes involving infrastructures, flows, governance, networks, and community dynamics; and (iii) the engagement of diverse agents in shared decision-making and coordinated action. These dimensions unfold across three incremental and interdependent scenarios—baseline, critical, and chronic crisis—forming a ladder of resilience that guides communities through escalating challenges. Special emphasis is placed on the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as relational and adaptive tools enabling distributed intelligence and inclusive governance. The framework also outlines concrete operational and policy implications for cities aiming to build anticipatory and transformative resilience capacities. Applied to the case of Taranto, the approach offers insights into how structurally fragile communities facing conflicting adaptive trajectories can unlock transformative potential. Ultimately, the paper calls for a shift from government to governance, from control to co-creation, and from reactive adaptation to chaos generativity, recasting urban resilience as an evolving project of collective agency, systemic reconfiguration, and co-production of emergent urban futures.
Keywords: resilience framework; evolutionary urban resilience; complex socio-technical systems; social-ecological-technological systems (SETS); process-based planning; participatory governance; urban transformation; ICT for resilience; systems thinking; bottom-up innovation; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/6010/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/6010/ (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:13:p:6010-:d:1691195
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().