The technology resilience challenge

Foundational technologies for cities, which include cloud computing, data analytics, mobile communications, and social applications, have a critical role in supporting urban resilience. Without the deliberate use and integration of technology in approaching resilience, cities will be ill-equipped to address the shocks and stresses that are rising with the phenomena of rapid urbanization, climate change, and globalization.

Rapid Urbanization

The population growth and land expansion of cities requires technology infrastructure to grow along with them. One of the most important technology areas for cities to consider with urbanization is ubiquitous coverage of affordable, high-speed internet to ensure the deployment of smart connected solutions citywide and to all residents.

Climate Change

Technology makes an important contribution to preparing for and monitoring the local impacts of climate change through the use of sensors to collect data and the use of applications to analyze and share data and the analysis to help guide action.

Globalization

The ability to collaborate and learn globally is both enhanced by technology and an important way for cities work together to develop and share best practices. Perhaps the biggest connection between resilience, technology and globalization is the ability to identify and source products and services from around the world to solve local needs.

100 Resilient Cities (100RC) defines urban resilience as the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. The need for resilience in cities is heightened every day by the growing and dynamic effects of climate change, rapid urbanization, and globalization. These and other global demographic, technology, and political trends together expose cities to an increasingly complex set of shocks and stresses.

Building urban resilience begins with a comprehensive assessment of the evolving risks facing a city considering past or potential future shock events and existing chronic stresses. These risks cannot be fully understood in isolation. Cities are a complex aggregation of interconnected social, built, and natural systems. Understanding a city’s risks and the unique vulnerabilities of different groups and systems requires consideration of the interaction between acute shocks and chronic stresses. The exploration of these interactions across the 100RC network of cities and partners has highlighted a key principle for those who seek to build resilience, no matter what the focus or sector: managing the risks of future shocks requires efforts to reduce today’s chronic stresses. Reducing stresses increases the ability of local communities, businesses, infrastructures, and institutions to adapt and thrive in the face of change and unexpected events. The design of a resilience initiative or investment includes the pursuit of “resilience dividends,” that is, efforts to manage the risks of shocks in a way that also reduces the chronic stresses in the city. In other words, resilient cities better manage both chronic stresses and acute shocks so that people in those cities, especially the poor and vulnerable, are safer, healthier, and have increased livelihood options. In looking for solutions to resilience challenges, it is clear that the ability of technology to play a meaningful role in both better understanding and mitigating shocks and stresses is increasing every day as new products and services are brought to market and mature. The relatively recent evolutions in cloud computing, data analytics, mobile communications, and social applications are making a whole host of innovative products and services possible in ways they weren’t even a few years ago. All of these technologies are coming together to define and usher in the digital transformation of city operations and service delivery.

source :

https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/downloadable_resources/UR/Resilience-Point-of-View-Technology.pdf