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.
Residential energy use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. Using data on 93 million individual households, we estimate these GHGs across the contiguous ...United States and clarify the respective influence of climate, affluence, energy infrastructure, urban form, and building attributes (age, housing type, heating fuel) in driving these emissions. A ranking by state reveals that GHGs (per unit floor space) are lowest in Western US states and highest in Central states. Wealthier Americans have per capita footprints ∼25% higher than those of lower-income residents, primarily due to larger homes. In especially affluent suburbs, these emissions can be 15 times higher than nearby neighborhoods. If the electrical grid is decarbonized, then the residential housing sector can meet the 28% emission reduction target for 2025 under the Paris Agreement. However, grid decarbonization will be insufficient to meet the 80% emissions reduction target for 2050 due to a growing housing stock and continued use of fossil fuels (natural gas, propane, and fuel oil) in homes. Meeting this target will also require deep energy retrofits and transitioning to distributed low-carbon energy sources, as well as reducing per capita floor space and zoning denser settlement patterns.
•Green infrastructure in Detroit is not being sited to maximize ecosystem services.•A Green Infrastructure Spatial Planning (GISP) model is developed and applied to Detroit.•The GISP model provides ...an integrated, stakeholder-driven approach to maximize ecosystem services.•The model reveals tradeoffs, synergies and hotspots for future green infrastructure.•The model and planning approach can be readily deployed for other cities.
Cities are expanding green infrastructure to enhance resilience and ecosystem services. Although green infrastructure is promoted for its multifunctionality, projects are typically sited based on a particular benefit, such as stormwater abatement, rather than a suite of socio-economic and environmental benefits. This stems in part from the lack of stakeholder-informed, city-scale approaches to systematically identify ecosystem service tradeoffs, synergies, and ‘hotspots’ associated with green infrastructure and its siting. To address this gap, we introduce the Green Infrastructure Spatial Planning (GISP) model, a GIS-based multi-criteria approach that integrates six benefits: 1) stormwater management; 2) social vulnerability; 3) green space; 4) air quality; 5) urban heat island amelioration; and 6) landscape connectivity. Stakeholders then weight priorities to identify hotspots where green infrastructure benefits are needed most. Applying the GISP model to Detroit, we compared the results with the locations of current green infrastructure projects. The analysis provides initial evidence that green infrastructure is not being sited in high priority areas for stormwater abatement, let alone for ameliorating urban heat island effects, improving air quality, or increasing habitat connectivity. However, as the Detroit GISP model reveals, it could be developed in locations that simultaneously abate stormwater, urban heat island, and air pollution. Tradeoffs exist between siting to maximize stormwater management versus landscape connectivity. The GISP model provides an inclusive, replicable approach for planning future green infrastructure so that it maximizes social and ecological resilience. More broadly, it represents a spatial planning approach for evaluating competing and complementary ecosystem service priorities for a particular landscape.
•Urban green space promotes physical activity and public health.•Many US minority communities lack green space access, an environmental injustice.•US and Chinese cities have developed innovative ways ...to create new green space.•Urban greening can, however, create paradoxical effects such as gentrification.•Urban green space projects need more integrative sustainability policies to protect communities.
Urban green space, such as parks, forests, green roofs, streams, and community gardens, provides critical ecosystem services. Green space also promotes physical activity, psychological well-being, and the general public health of urban residents. This paper reviews the Anglo-American literature on urban green space, especially parks, and compares efforts to green US and Chinese cities. Most studies reveal that the distribution of such space often disproportionately benefits predominantly White and more affluent communities. Access to green space is therefore increasingly recognized as an environmental justice issue. Many US cities have implemented strategies to increase the supply of urban green space, especially in park-poor neighborhoods. Strategies include greening of remnant urban land and reuse of obsolete or underutilized transportation infrastructure. Similar strategies are being employed in Chinese cities where there is more state control of land supply but similar market incentives for urban greening. In both contexts, however, urban green space strategies may be paradoxical: while the creation of new green space to address environmental justice problems can make neighborhoods healthier and more esthetically attractive, it also can increase housing costs and property values. Ultimately, this can lead to gentrification and a displacement of the very residents the green space strategies were designed to benefit. Urban planners, designers, and ecologists, therefore, need to focus on urban green space strategies that are ‘just green enough’ and that explicitly protect social as well as ecological sustainability.
•Bibliometric analysis reveals the influential literature on urban resilience.•The concept of resilience is beset by six conceptual tensions.•Urban resilience has been inconsistently defined.•The ...paper proposes a new, inclusive definition of urban resilience.•The paper asks us to consider resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why.
Fostering resilience in the face of environmental, socioeconomic, and political uncertainty and risk has captured the attention of academics and decision makers across disciplines, sectors, and scales. Resilience has become an important goal for cities, particularly in the face of climate change. Urban areas house the majority of the world's population, and, in addition to functioning as nodes of resource consumption and as sites for innovation, have become laboratories for resilience, both in theory and in practice. This paper reviews the scholarly literature on urban resilience and concludes that the term has not been well defined. Existing definitions are inconsistent and underdeveloped with respect to incorporation of crucial concepts found in both resilience theory and urban theory. Based on this literature review, and aided by bibliometric analysis, the paper identifies six conceptual tensions fundamental to urban resilience: (1) definition of ‘urban’; (2) understanding of system equilibrium; (3) positive vs. neutral (or negative) conceptualizations of resilience; (4) mechanisms for system change; (5) adaptation versus general adaptability; and (6) timescale of action. To advance this burgeoning field, more conceptual clarity is needed. This paper, therefore, proposes a new definition of urban resilience. This definition takes explicit positions on these tensions, but remains inclusive and flexible enough to enable uptake by, and collaboration among, varying disciplines. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the definition might serve as a boundary object, with the acknowledgement that applying resilience in different contexts requires answering: Resilience for whom and to what? When? Where? And why?
Essential for society to function, the production and consumption of food, energy, and water (FEW) are deeply intertwined, leading to calls for a nexus approach to understand and manage the complex ...tradeoffs and cascading effects. What research exists to date on this FEW nexus? How have scholars conceptualized these interactions at the urban scale? What are some promising approaches? Where are the research gaps? To answer these questions, we conducted a quantitative review of the academic literature on the FEW nexus (1399 publications) over more than four decades (1973-2017), followed by in-depth analysis of the most influential papers using an evaluation matrix that examined four components: 1) modeling approach; 2) scale; 3) nexus 'trigger'; and 4) governance and policy. Scholars in the fields of environmental science predominated, while social science domains were under-represented. Most papers used quantitative rather than qualitative approaches, especially integrated assessment and systems dynamics modeling although spatial scale was generally recognized, explicit consideration of multi-scalar interactions was limited. Issues of institutional structure, governance, equity, resource access, and behavior were also underdeveloped. Bibliometric analysis of this literature revealed six distinct research communities, including a nascent urban FEW community. We replicated the analysis for this urban group, finding it to be just emerging (80% of papers have been published since 2010) and dominated by scholars in industrial ecology. These scholars focus on quantifying FEW flows of the urban metabolism in isolation rather than as a nexus, largely ignoring the political and socio-economic factors shaping these flows. We propose the urban FEW metabolism as a boundary object to draw in diverse scholarly and practitioner communities. This will advance research on complex FEW systems in four key areas: (1) integration of heterogeneous models and approaches; (2) scalar linkages between urban consumption and trans-boundary resource flows; (3) how actors and institutions shape resource access, distribution and use; and (4) co-production of knowledge with stakeholders.
Summary
Resilience is an increasingly popular concept in academic research and public discourse and is closely connected to complex systems theory. This article reviews research on resilience and ...complexity in industrial ecology and the broader academy by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the academic literature over a 40‐year period (1973–2014). The review revealed a large body of scholarship composed of five clearly identifiable intellectual communities, with resilience theory from ecology especially influential. Based on the study of ecosystems, these scholars conceptualize resilience as a dynamic and adaptive property of systems with multiple stable states that evolve over time. In comparison, resilience research in industrial ecology is limited and underdeveloped. Bibliometric analysis of this literature yielded just 37 publications and a scholarly network with no well‐formulated research communities. This contrasts with industrial ecology scholarship on sustainability; a similar search yielded 1,581 publications. Given the emerging importance of the resilience concept and its relevance for sustainability issues, industrial ecology should expand research efforts in this area. The growing body of industrial ecology scholarship on complex systems provides a foundation to do so, as does the field's long‐standing practice of using ecological principles to inform the study and design of industrial ecosystems. The article concludes by discussing how industrial ecology would benefit from incorporating principles of dynamic resilience and, conversely, how industrial ecology approaches could advance broader resilience scholarship.
Using data from Twitter (now X), this study deploys artificial intelligence (AI) and network analysis to map and profile climate change denialism across the United States. We estimate that 14.8% of ...Americans do not believe in climate change. This denialism is highest in the central and southern U.S. However, it also persists in clusters within states (e.g., California) where belief in climate change is high. Political affiliation has the strongest correlation, followed by level of education, COVID-19 vaccination rates, carbon intensity of the regional economy, and income. The analysis reveals how a coordinated social media network uses periodic events, such as cold weather and climate conferences, to sow disbelief about climate change and science, in general. Donald Trump was the strongest influencer in this network, followed by conservative media outlets and right-wing activists. As a form of knowledge vulnerability, climate denialism renders communities unprepared to take steps to increase resilience. As with other forms of misinformation, social media companies (e.g., X, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok) should flag accounts that spread falsehoods about climate change and collaborate on targeted educational campaigns.
Abstract
The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) will impact the climate, the environment, and society in highly significant ways. This study compares EVs to vehicles with internal combustion ...engines for three major areas: greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), fuel costs, and transportation energy burden (i.e. percentage of income spent on vehicle fuels). Excluded in the analysis is the purchase cost of the vehicles themselves. The results reveal that over 90% of vehicle-owning U.S. households would see reductions in both GHGs and transportation energy burden by adopting an EV. For 60% of households these savings would be moderate to high (i.e. >2.3 metric tons of CO
2
e reduction per household annually and >0.6% of energy burden reduction). These reductions are especially pronounced in the American West (e.g. California, Washington) and parts of the Northeast (e.g. New York) primarily due to a varying combination of cleaner electricity grids, lower electricity prices (relative to gas prices), and smaller drive-cycle and temperature-related impacts on fuel efficiency. Moreover, adopting an EV would more than double the percentage of households that enjoy a low transportation energy burden (<2% of income spent on fuel annually). This equates to 80% of all vehicle-owning U.S. households. Nevertheless, over half of the lowest income households would still have a high EV energy burden (>4% income spent on fuel annually), and if at-home charging is unavailable, this rises to over 75 percent. Addressing this inequity hinges on three major interventions: 1) targeted policies to promote energy justice in lower-income communities, including subsidizing charging infrastructure; 2) strategies to reduce electricity costs; and 3) expanding access to low-carbon transport infrastructure (e.g. public transit, biking, and car sharing).
•We develop a social-ecological approach to enhancing urban landscape connectivity.•We assess landscape connectivity in Detroit and find highly fragmented habitat.•We identify 27 corridors to ...increase connectivity in Detroit using vacant land.•Green corridors are prioritized using a gravity model and network analysis.•We develop site-scale design typologies for multifunctional corridors.
Landscape connectivity is critical for ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation, yet urbanization is increasing habitat fragmentation. Green corridors that connect isolated remnant habitat patches (e.g. parks) can increase connectivity and provide ecosystem services in cities. Vacant land, especially prevalent in shrinking cities, presents a unique opportunity to reconnect these landscapes. This paper provides a practical and replicable approach for assessing landscape connectivity patterns and identifying priority locations for green corridors. The methodology integrates social and ecological factors coupled with site-scale multifunctional greenway designs and is applied to the city of Detroit as a proof of concept. First, we use FRAGSTATS to evaluate structural landscape connectivity patterns at a census tract scale. A functional connectivity assessment based on graph theory and Conefor software is used to validate the results, which indicate that habitat is highly fragmented in Detroit. To identify opportunities to reduce this fragmentation, we use a least-cost path approach to map potential green corridors linking city parks through vacant parcels, alleys, and smaller green spaces, and prioritize these corridors using a gravity model and network analysis. To make the model more concrete and useful for decision-makers, we develop site-level multifunctional corridor design typologies. This study presents a novel approach to assessing urban connectivity and a multi-scalar, systematic methodology for planning urban green infrastructure networks that connects landscape ecology with practical planning and design considerations to maximize social and ecological functions.
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