Urban form resilience: A meso-scale analysis

Impacted by the compounding effects of climate change and urbanization, cities are facing a panoply of risks that threaten their sustainability. Recognizing the potentially catastrophic ramifications of inaction, local governments are increasingly involved in resilience-building activities that are informed by a vast body of research related to different socio-economic, environmental, and institutional aspects of urban planning and design. However, despite its significant impacts on growth and evolution of cities, limited research exists on how urban form can enhance resilience by increasing the abilities to plan for, absorb, recover from, and adapt to adverse events. As a step towards filling this gap, this paper explores how meso-scale urban form elements can affect urban resilience. This is done through synthesizing theoretical and empirical evidence reported in the literature. The focus is on morphological parameters related to the following urban form elements: neighborhoods, blocks, lots, and open spaces. Results show that existing evidence is mainly related to the associations between ‘neighborhood density, size and configuration of open spaces, and land use mix’ and resilience to ‘climate change impacts’, ‘earthquakes’, ‘social issues’, and ‘resource scarcity’. There is also considerable evidence on the association between design of blocks/lots and resilience in terms of climate change adaptation/mitigation and adaptability to changing circumstances. The analysis also shows that each element influences and is influenced by other elements in the urban system and different elements should not be studied in isolation and the interplay between them should be considered. Existing evidence on conflicts is mainly related to density, but measures related to other elements may also involve conflicts. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for future research towards improving resilience of urban form at the meso-scale.