Social Sustainability, Climate Resilience and Community-based Urban Development ― What About the People?

Urban communities around the world face increased stress from natural disasters linked to climate change, and other urban pressures. They need to grow rapidly stronger in order to cope, adapt, and flourish. Strong social networks and social cohesion can be more important for a community’s resilience than the actual physical structures of a city. But how can urban planning and design support these critical collective social strengths?

This book offers blue sky thinking from the applied social and behavioural sciences, and urban planning. It looks at case studies from fourteen countries around the world – including India, USA, South Africa, Indonesia, UK, and New Zealand – focusing on initiatives for housing, public space, and transport stops, and also natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes. Building on these insights, the authors propose a "gold standard": a socially-aware planning process and policy recommendation for those drawing up city sustainability and climate change resilience strategies, and urban developers looking to build climate-proof infrastructure and spaces.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban studies, resilience studies, and climate change policy, as well as policymakers and practitioners working in related fields.

Cathy Baldwin is an Applied Social and Behavioural Scientist and Public Health Consultant, Research Associate at the University of Oxford, and Visiting Researcher at Oxford Brookes University, UK.

Robin King is Director of Knowledge Capture and Collaboration at the World Resources Institute (WRI), and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, USA.