Building Spatial Resilience in Urban Communities

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Background

With the increase in communication and activities with human society, there are risks associated with the growth of the world economy. Earthquakes, floods, major infectious diseases at sea level, and other disaster risks are frequent. For example, the new crown epidemic of 2020 has caused a global economic shutdown and social disruption. and the earthquake in Turkey which has hit its economy and people hard. Accelerating the building of resilient cities enhances their ability to prevent and adapt to disasters and improves their emergency management capabilities. Building urban resilience is an important way for cities to develop sustainably.

Resilience

The concept of resilience comes from the physics of ‘elasticity’. UNISDR defines community resilience as “the ability of a community exposed to a disaster to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt, transform and recover in a timely and effective manner”.

Resilient space creation

The community is the basic unit of urban composition and the spatial carrier of the urban public realm. Its core value is commonality. It can do so by promoting cultural integration and meeting the interaction needs of residents in modern society. It exists to improve the urban environment and enhance the quality of life. The resilience of community public space is closely related to the environmental pattern, spatial form, functional organization, and the degree of perfection of facilities. In this context, the public space of a community should consider both the needs of residents for living space in normal times and the need for space in emergency situations. The concept of a disaster-proof community should be developed. Set up places for emergency medical care, security, etc. Adopt a multi-functional mixed-building site approach to construction.

In the specific urban design process, the actual needs of different communities are combined with the specific layout of urban space in a community-based process. The public space is used as an interactive living circle in normal times, while in times of disaster, it forms a disaster-proof living circle for disaster response. Reasonable distribution sites are provided to enhance the walkability of the nearby evacuation areas.

Future and Vision

As the basic unit of urban resilience, the community should pay attention to the construction of a resilient system in its creation. Improve resilience to disasters. To achieve the goal of building urban resilience and improving the resilience of cities in the face of disasters.

References

1. David, and Xu Chan. “Urban Disaster Reduction: Creating Resilient Cities.” International Urban Planning2 (2015): 22-29.
2. Jing Xiao, Songping Li, and Shan Liang. “Building Models and Strategies for Healthy and Resilient Urban Planning.” Planner6 (2020): 61-64.