2022

Asking what makes a city resilient

This stage established the questions that would guide the later research. It explored why urban resilience cannot be understood through physical infrastructure alone, and why health, access to services, public space, and social relationships must be considered together.

Featured direction

The first research question

Why do similar environmental pressures lead to different outcomes across communities, and what allows some urban systems to respond more effectively than others?

Stage summary

Asking what makes a city resilient

The early research framing treated resilience as a relationship between environmental pressure, urban space, public services, social resources, and people’s capacity to respond. Rather than beginning with a single hazard or method, this stage focused on defining the wider problem: how cities can support healthier and more equitable futures under environmental change.

Publications

No formal publication outputs were produced at this stage. The year established the questions and conceptual foundations for the studies that followed.

Figures and maps

Early frameworks

Initial conceptual diagrams connected environmental pressure, health, public space, access to services, and community capacity. Representative materials can be added when they are prepared for public release.

Datasets

Early research materials

This stage developed preliminary indicator lists, research questions, and exploratory spatial and social data frameworks rather than a formal public dataset.

Notes and updates

What changed in our thinking

Urban resilience is not only a property of buildings or infrastructure. It is also shaped by who has access to services, who can use shared spaces, and who has the resources and relationships needed to respond to change.