Sara Meerow

Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why?

ABSTRACT In academic and policy discourse, the concept of urban resilience is proliferating. Social theorists, especially human geographers, have rightfully criticized that the underlying politics of resilience have been ignored and stress the importance of asking “resilience of what, to what, and for whom?” This paper calls for careful consideration of not just resilience for whom and what, but also where, when, and why. A three-phase process is introduced to enable these “five Ws” to be negotiated collectively and to engender critical reflection on the politics of urban resilience as plans, initiatives, and projects are conceived, discussed, and implemented. Deployed through the hypothetical case of green infrastructure in Los Angeles, the paper concludes by illustrating how resilience planning trade-offs and decisions affect outcomes over space and time, often with significant implications for equity.

Generating resilience: exploring the contribution of the small power producer and very small power producer programs to the resilience of Thailand's power sector

“Resilience thinking” is an increasingly popular approach among scholars and policymakers, with advocates heralding it as the successor to the dominant sustainable development paradigm. Resilience refers to the ability to handle unforeseen changes and the capacity for adaption and self-improvement as a result. This article examines two programs for renewable, distributed power generation in Thailand from a resilience perspective. The research contributes to the existing literature by applying the resilience concept to electricity generation and governance in the Thai power sector. The case is interesting because of the vulnerability of Thailands current electricity system and the fact that the programs are prototypical among developing nations. A conceptual model is constructed from the literature and used to analyze the programs based on information from expert interviews and other sources. Results suggest that the programs are increasing the resilience of the system, but their contribution is limited by barriers related to governance.

Weathering the storm: The politics of urban climate change adaptation planning:

On 17 August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in East Texas. Over a four-day period, catastrophic flooding displaced 30,000 people and led to at least 50 deaths. While much of the media coverage of this extreme weather event was concerned with immediate impacts (see, for example, Sanchez et al., 2017), there were also rumblings about the role of city planning, or lack thereof, in the devastating floods experienced in Houston (Boburg and Reinhard, 2017). City officials’ resistance to enacting more stringent building codes; stalled progress on flood-control projects; city residents’ rejection of city-wide zoning; the paving of coastal and prairie wetlands; lack of comprehensive flood planning across the 34 municipalities of Harris County, which includes Houston; and other aspects of physical geography collectively may have facilitated the perfect storm (Boburg and Reinhard, 2017). Houston, however, is not alone in its zeal for rapid, unregulated, urban development. The shunning of state regulation and public sector-led planning in favor of ‘‘neoliberal urbanism’’ is underway globally, albeit in different forms (Harvey, 2011; Peck et al., 2009; Theodore et al., 2011). Scholars have explored this urban phenomenon in American cities for decades (see, for example, Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Hackworth, 2007; Smith, 2002). We see similar political economy patterns internationally. A defining characteristic of contemporary urban development in many Asian cities, for example, is the relative power of the private sector in urban and regional planning and the weakening of existing land development codes (Marks and Lebel, 2016; Shatkin, 2008). Take, for example, the Indonesian property developer, Ciputra, who built a 1200 hectare upscale waterfront development in an area specified in Jakarta’s land use plan as ‘‘protected green zone’’ and ‘‘off-limits’’ for development (Leaf, 2015). In Thailand, weakening of existing land development codes has enabled the overbuilding of Bangkok, particularly in ‘‘green zones’’ and in floodways, with serious implications for urban flooding (Marks and Lebel, 2016). Interestingly, the field of climate change adaptation has, for the most part, developed independently of critical urban studies scholarship and planning theory, despite the placebased nature of adaptation actions. This disconnect may stem from the fact that climate change adaptation research evolved out of studies of the biophysical impacts of

Double exposure, infrastructure planning, and urban climate resilience in coastal megacities: A case study of Manila

Coastal megacities pose a particular challenge for climate change adaptation and resilience planning. These dense concentrations of population, economic activity, and consumption—the majority of which are in the Global South—are often extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea level rise and extreme weather. This paper unpacks these complexities through a case study of Metropolitan Manila, the capital of the Philippines, which represents an example of “double exposure” to climate change impacts and globalization. The city is experiencing tremendous population and economic growth, yet Manila is plagued by frequent natural disasters, congestion, inadequate infrastructure, poverty, and income inequality. The need for metro-wide planning and infrastructure transformations to address these problems is widely recognized, but governance challenges are a major barrier. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews, and other primary and secondary sources, I argue that climate change and globalization, in combination with Manila’s historical and physical context, critically shape metro-wide infrastructure planning. Focusing on electricity and green infrastructure, I find that the largely decentralized and privatized urban governance regime is perpetuating a fragmented and unequal city, which may undermine urban climate resilience. This study extends the double exposure framework to examine how global processes interact with contextual factors to critically shape urban infrastructure planning, and how the resulting system conforms to theorized characteristics of urban climate resilience. In doing so, I help to connect emerging literatures on double exposure, urban infrastructure planning, and urban climate resilience.

Linking Green City Politics with Green Business

In the light of cumbersome national energy transitions, cities across the world are increasingly taking the lead in promoting renewable energy on the municipal level. Whereas cities in Europe and the United States are the most prominent pioneers of this trend, the need for renewable energy in Western cities is in fact less urgent. Energy savings often have a much greater priority for these city leaders. This is in contrast to cities in emerging markets, which are on a fast trajectory to become the megacities of tomorrow. Where population growth is imminent and economic development unimpeded, the living standards for many will increase. As a consequence, cities in many developing economies face the growing challenge to meet rising energy needs. For these cities, it is crucial to find adequate solutions for this additional demand despite the major costs involved. This chapter examines cities in developing countries to try to determine which of them have been able to stimulate green growth, in which the development of green energy businesses and green energy policies are mutually reinforcing. The authors assess current renewable energy trends across 36 cities and show that until today only a few cities have been able to create such synergies.