Spatial scenarios for urban neighbourhoods: Deliverable 3.4 of the TURAS Project

Deliverable 3.4 “Spatial scenarios for urban neighbourhoods” marks the culmination of the research phase of Work Package 3 and the commencement of the next demonstration phase. Within Work package 3 (WP3), tasks 3.2 to 3.9 have contributed to Deliverable 3.4, via the stages of the four milestones detailed in Section 3 of this report. Work Package 3 concludes with Milestone 18, an inventory of demonstration sites in the partner cities where transition strategies emerging from the research work in Work Package 3 will be trialled in Task 3.9. Impacts and results of pilot actions on demonstration sites will be measured in Task 3.10, which will act as the link between the output of Work Package 3 and Work Package 7 “Integrated Transition Strategies”.

Key high-level findings and conclusions are summarised as follows:

• Urban resilience precipitates a paradigm shift from command and control processes to adaptive and flexible approaches that recognise that change is the only constant and respects that citizens have knowledge of systems and their own actions.
• Urban resilience is not a new or abstract idea. There are examples of urban resilience in practice existing within the TURAS partner cities and regions, although the language of resilience thinking may not be referenced.
• Urban resilience promotes the use of systems thinking in relation to cities, highlighting that all systems are interconnected and interdependent, and emphasising the import of a synoptic view and layering of datasets in GIS in order to make connections and identify opportunities and vulnerabilities.
• Urban resilience requires the active engagement of citizens with their place and one another in order to build awareness and participation in effecting change.
• Urban resilience is operationalised through a continuous process of learning, adapting and adjusting generally referred to as adaptive co-management.

For further information on this deliverable please email Karen Foley at Karen.Foley@UCD.ie.

For additional information on the TURAS project see here, or email marcus.collier@tcd.ie.