'100 Resilient Cities': "Future-Proofing Cities: Bristol Starts Planning for a More Resilient Character"

"Produced by Arup to mark the occasion of the launch of Bristol as one of 100 resilient cities and featuring George Ferguson and others. This video considers the definition of resilience, what it means to be resilient and how cities can move towards this."

"100 Resilient Cities — Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) — is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.

100RC supports the adoption and incorporation of a view of resilience that includes not just the shocks—earthquakes, fires, floods, etc.—but also the stresses that weaken the fabric of a city on a day to day or cyclical basis.

"Examples of these stresses include high unemployment; an overtaxed or inefficient public transportation system; endemic violence; or chronic food and water shortages. By addressing both the shocks and the stresses, a city becomes more able to respond to adverse events, and is overall better able to deliver basic functions in both good times and bad, to all populations.

"Cities in the 100RC network are provided with the resources necessary to develop a roadmap to resilience along four main pathways:

• Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city's resilience efforts;
• Expert support for development of a robust resilience strategy;
• Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public and NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and
• Membership of a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other.

"Through these actions, 100RC aims not only to help individual cities become more resilient, but will facilitate the building of a global practice of resilience among governments, NGOs, the private sector, and individual citizens."  [Link]

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Future-Proofing Cities: Bristol Starts Planning for a More Resilient Character

"Bristol, as its elected mayor George Ferguson is fond of pointing out, is a city that likes to do things differently. One of only a handful of UK cities with an elected mayor, the European Green Capital for 2015, Bristol prides itself on creativity, innovation and sustainability – factors that, presumably, were key to its inclusion as one of Rockefeller Foundation's first tranche of 100 Resilient Cities, a programme intended to help cities "better address the increasing shocks and stresses of the 21st century".

As part of the bid, Bristol committed to developing a resilience plan – the first, tentative formulations of which were discussed at the launch of the city's 100RC project on 4 March. This workshop event brought together local government, the third sector and infrastructure-related businesses to contemplate the concept of resilience for Bristol.

Longer term, this process will be led by a chief resilience officer – a post funded by Rockefeller – with a mandate to build cross-sector partnerships; the city's strong track record in this kind of partnership working, as evidenced by the successful Green Capital bid, seems to have been another factor in its selection.