Tsunami warning signs are scattered around the city, a sinkhole caused by the construction of another tower brings an entire country to a standstill, local resilience centers are opened in the cities to provide relief for anxiety victims, and city shelters are opened and closed down every summer. Unease and anxiety manifest and reflect in urban spaces, seeping into our consciousness, influencing perceptions of personal, community, and urban resilience.
When we talk about urban resilience, what are we talking about? Urban resilience from what? The point of departure of this text is that space, specifically its planning and management, plays a significant role in establishing urban resilience, and influences our quality of life.
Israel is the most “crowding” country in the world. More than 93% of the population dwells in urban-type settlements, and this trend is expected to increase. Accelerated development and auto-oriented planning trends are already leading to a reduction of natural areas, in favor carpets of asphalt roads and store fronts, and to the emergence of an urban space afflicted with traffic congestion, air pollution, reduced open public spaces and access to nature – and, more than anything, to an experience of being bombarded with annoyances, and a sense of insecurity about walking the city streets. Add the climate crisis and its harsh implications, and we find ourselves living in a tough, gray city seasoned with a blend of pollution, alienation, crowding, and anxiety.
Resilience and Agility in an Urban Era, or All Roads Lead to the City
The planning, design, and management of urban spaces directly impact the quality of our everyday life, and the patterns we choose to adopt – whether we walk or drive to pick up the children from daycare, who we meet on our way to work, and whether we can stop and sit down on a shaded bench, or have to make our way on a narrow sidewalk, whether I buy an apple in the neighborhood grocery store, or in a country-wide supermarket chain? The spatial expression of these questions manifests in various criteria – from the shaded bench on the street (that enables to rest and meet people), to how employment is incorporated into the urban fabric, which influences everyday life – will I work from home, in the neighborhood, or will I have to commute to a distant hub of employment, which may not be connected to the public transport system.
Many cities around the world, in which quality of life is a guiding value and vision for policymakers, promote a people-centered agenda. In other words, urban spaces that are planned from, and in light of, the experiences and usage patterns of diverse users. The outcome is a city that encourages encounters and spending time in public spaces (streets, public open spaces, and public institutions), expands the foundations for building communities around shared hubs, and enriches the city’s natural infrastructures (trees, watercourses, biodiversity, and more) as an inseparable part of the urban experience, and within walking or cycling distance. Thus, in Seoul, almost two decades ago, a huge highway that had been built over a stream was transformed into a linear park featuring diverse activities and vegetation, in the middle of which the stream flows. This bold move reduced traffic congestion, encouraged physical activity over driving, and contributed to the local economy by the very act of walking and spending time in the public space. In Israel, the Ayalon Roofing Project, which was to transform the Ayalon Highway into a linear park constituting an urban connector and green infrastructure, was reduced to merely widening the intersections, and is still a long way from realization. The thought of restoring the river to its natural appearance, and creating a recreational space along its banks, like in Seoul, will become even less feasible once construction begins on a fourth railway track, the support towers of which are planned to be built inside the watercourse itself – like in Seoul, only 180 degrees in reverse.
The planning and management of public spaces directly influences our activity patterns, so when we speak of resilience in an urban era, we mean resilience against human behavior; against planning that does not take into account existing natural resources, and their inherent opportunities; against violent and militaristic human behavior; against economic and political interests that promote polluted, controlled, and supervised urban spaces that do not favor the local residents’ quality of life; against bad habits, and activity patterns that can be changed on the fly.
Consequently, the way I see it, agility in an urban era means going back to basics, to connections between people, and between people and their natural environment, and promoting beneficial, people-centered urbanism. Nature-based solutions, planning safe streets that encourage walking and lingering, with plentiful tree shade, combined with local vegetation, and coupled with urban leadership that encourages diverse people to dwell, work, and live in shared, green, and just spaces.