Urban resiliance

My brother Mike brought this topic up; we have been email on how to measure this quantity for several weeks. My best conclusion was that cities are social constructs, so resiliance is best measured in terms of the community spirit of a place. As long as the spirit survives, the city will be rebuilt.

Turns out "urban resiliance" is its own scientific discipline, branching off from ecology (and specifically the study of ecosystem resiliance). Stockholm University has a center dedicated to the topic.

"Urban Transitions: on urban resilience and human-dominated ecosystems" by Ernstson et al (2010, AMBIO) had some interesting notes.

Cities exist as part of networks involving other cities, linked by dynamic social and technical networks that sustain energy, matter, and information transfer.

He suggests we continue our move from an industrial to a knowledge to an ecological economy. In the ecological economy, competiveness also lies in how effectively one uses/supports the generation of ecosystem services.

Another new buzzword: Panarchy, the title of a book by GUnderson and Holling (2002). A panarchy replaces a hierarchy by allowing the different processes to operate on different time scales. Interactions across these different time scales then become of interest
Looks like wikipedia gives it an older origin and broader meaning.

I should perhaps also read "Superlinear scaling for innovation in cities", Arbesman et al 2009 Physical Review E 79