Urban resilience: building sustainable cities through social innovations

An increasing proportion of us are living in cities, an additional 1.4 million every week (1). By 2050, roughly two thirds of the global population will reside in urban environments, double the current number of people in absolute terms (2). For this reason, there is an increasing focus on urban resilience – to protect city dwellers in the face of complex global challenges.

Cities have always been at the heart of cultural and economic progress, and urban life brings opportunities for work and education, along with proximity to social networks and healthcare. But rapid urbanisation also brings sustainability and governance challenges by placing pressure on services, infrastructure and natural environments. Without effective policies and strategies, the number of people exposed to health risks, the impacts of climate change, and other hazards will continue to increase (1).

In Europe and North America, urban food system resilience is particularly relevant because these are the only regions where food insecurity is highest in urban environments (3). Urban planning should ensure that local communities are empowered to be at the centre of change, especially disadvantaged populations most vulnerable to risks. Community-driven initiatives and social innovations can make urban food systems more resilient for everyone.

A commonly used definition of urban resilience is:

In other words, progress towards urban resilience is also progress towards UN sustainable development goals. Shocks and stresses can be natural or human-made and there is growing threat from hybrid disasters such as pandemics and flooding (5).

When attempting to measure the resilience of a city, five characteristics are often assessed: Preparedness; Absorption; Recovery; Adaptation; and Transformability. But cities are not homogenous (6). They are a tapestry of neighbourhoods with diverse socio-economic characteristics, and their vulnerability to shocks and stresses can vary significantly. Disadvantaged groups often bear the worst impacts. In recent years we have seen that high inflation disproportionately affects the poorest in Europe (7), and low-income communities face lasting impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic (8).

Disadvantaged urban populations face compounding challenges. For instance, the influence of food environments on dietary choices (9), and the connections between childhood obesity and socioeconomic status (10). Given the complexity and long-term nature of challenges, it is important to take a ‘systems thinking’ approach to urban resilience (5). That means looking holistically at economics, governments, infrastructure and social factors, and understanding the power relations that underpin inequalities.

For many, food insecurity is an ongoing daily reality. EU households at risk of poverty are more than twice as likely to be unable to afford a proper meal compared to average-income households (19.7% compared to 8.3% in 2022) (11). Food banks and crisis management plans provide essential assistance.

To build longer-term resilience, it is important to boost the capacity for communities to co-develop their own solutions. Ensuring food education is part of school curricula can provide the foundations. Programmes like FoodEducators can support by providing teachers with fun and creative activities for schoolchildren. In 2023 roughly 1500 teachers used the lesson plans, reaching 36,000 students across 8 countries.

Targeted education and training interventions for adults also play a key role. For disadvantaged communities, a lack of access to mentors, networks and capital can present barriers to launching businesses and social innovations. Financial support for European agrifood SMEs is important as the sector been especially vulnerable to inflation driven by rising energy prices in Europe (13).

Environmental resilience projects can bring far-reaching benefits to communities and societies. A good example is community gardens and farms. Research in the UK found that people who grow their own food in gardens and allotments waste an average of just 3.4kg of fruits and vegetables – 95% less than the national average (13). Urban gardens can become community spaces and education hubs, like the Slow Food UK project to transform an underused car park in Birmingham into an urban farm and green space. Larger urban gardens can also reduce flood risk and counter the impacts of the urban heat island effect – whereby cities experience much higher localised temperatures than surrounding rural areas (14).

Shorter supply chains are another route to strengthening urban resilience (15). Commercial urban farms such as Danish startup Nabo Farm can create new jobs and improve the urban integration of food due to their proximity to consumers, supermarkets and restaurants. Learn more on this topic in the EIT Food online course ‘Circular Business Models for Sustainable Urban Food Systems.’

Equally, it will be important to connect urban and rural clusters across Europe to drive economic growth and supply chain stability. One project seeking to protect the balance between urban and rural areas is Terre et Cité, based near Paris. Terre et Cité facilitates dialogues between farmers and city officials, and runs a living lab to explore new relationships between city, nature and agriculture.

Ultimately, where it matters is on the ground. Projects like AMPLE and Gardens4Good illustrate that community-driven resilience initiatives can bring far-reaching benefits. By embracing these social innovations, Europe has an opportunity to redefine urban life – to create future-fit cities that work for people and the planet.

References

1. IFRC: Urban Resilience
2. World Bank: Urban Development
3. WFP: The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) Report - 2024
4. UN-Habitat: Resilience and Risk Reduction
5. UNDP: An Analytical Review: A Decade of Urban Resilience
6. Peihao Tong, Characteristics, dimensions and methods of current assessment for urban resilience to climate-related disasters: A systematic review of the literature. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 60, 2021, 102276. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102276.
7. World Bank: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Cost-of-Living Crisis Dim Growth Prospects in Emerging Europe and Central Asia
8. Economics Observatory: Who suffered most from economic uncertainty early in the Covid-19 pandemic?
9. Pineda et al: Policy implementation and priorities to create healthy food environments using the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI): A pooled level analysis across eleven European countries. Lancet Reg Health Eur. 2022 Nov 16:23:100522. DOI: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100522.
10. Bertomeu-Gonzalez et al. Prevalence of childhood obesity in Spain and its relation with socioeconomic status and health behaviors. Medicina Clínica. DOI: 10.1016/j.medcli.2024.02.016
11. EC: State of Food Security in the EU
12. EC: SMEs and High Inflation
13. Boglarka Z. Gulyas and Jill L. Edmondson: The contribution of household fruit and vegetable growing to fruit and vegetable self-sufficiency and consumption. Plants People Planet. DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10413
14. N Humaida et al 2023 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 1133 012048. DOI:10.1088/1755-1315/1133/1/012048
15. EIT Food: Reducing Risk for a Fair and Resilient Food System: Mission Insights Report