Describes all aspects of sustainable conversion adaptation of existing buildings and provides solutions for making urban settlements resilient to climate change This comprehensive book explores the potential to change the character of cities with residential conversion of office space in order to withstand the negative effects of climate change. It investigates the nature and extent of sustainable conversion in a number of global cities, as well as the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal drivers and barriers to successful conversion. The book also identifies the key lessons learned through international comparisons with cases in the UK, US, Australia, and the Netherlands. Building Urban Resilience Through Change of Use covers the benefits and aspects of sustainable conversion adaptation through the whole lifecycle from inception, planning, and design, to procurement, construction, and management and operational issues. It illustrates and quantifies, through empirical research, the changes that have been achieved or delivered in sustainable conversion adaptation. The book gives an overview of all aspects of performance characteristics and the conversion adaptation of existing buildings. In the end, it enables planners to make more informed decisions about whether conversion adaptation is a good choice—and if so, which types of sustainability measures are best suited for projects. Provides detailed, empirical knowledge based on real-world research undertaken in five countries over three continents on both a citywide scale and on individual buildings Case studies and exemplars demonstrate the application of the knowledge in North and South America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and in Europe Addresses the key themes of technology, finance and procurement, and the regulatory framework The first research-based book to examine how to improve resilience to climate change through sustainable reuse of buildings, Building Urban Resilience Through Change of Use is a welcome book for researchers and academics involved in building surveying, urban development, and sustainability planning.

This handbook is a resource for enhancing disaster resilience in urban areas. It summarizes the guiding principles, tools, and practices in key economic sectors that can facilitate incorporation of resilience concepts into decisions about infrastructure investments and urban management that are integral to reducing disaster and climate risks.

This book explores key theoretical and empirical issues related to the development and implementation of planning strategies that can provide guidance on the transition to climate-compatible and low-carbon urban development. It especially focuses on integrating resilience thinking into the urban planning process, and explains how such an integration can contribute to reflecting the dynamic properties of cities and coping with the uncertainties inherent in future climate change projections. Some of the main questions addressed are: What are the innovative methods and processes needed to incorporate resilience thinking into urban planning? What are the characteristics of a resilient urban form and what are the challenges associated with integrating them into urban development? Also, how can the resilience of cities be measured and what are the main constituents of an urban resilience assessment framework? In addition to addressing these crucial questions, the book features several case studies from around the world, investigating methodologies, challenges, and opportunities for mainstreaming climate resilience in the theory and practice of urban planning. Featuring contributions by prominent researchers from around the world, the book offers a valuable resource for students, academics and practitioners alike.

Drawing on evidence from urban resilience initiatives around the globe, the authors make a compelling argument for a "resilience reset", a pause and stocktake that critically examines the concepts, practices and challenges of building resilience, particularly in cities of the Global South. In turn, the book calls for the world’s cities to alter their course and "pivot" towards novel approaches to enhancing resilience. The book presents shifts in ways of acquiring and analysing data, building community resilience, approaching urban planning, engaging with informality, delivering financing, and building the skills of those running cities in a post-COVID world grappling with climate impacts. In Resilience Reset, the authors encourage researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to break out of existing modes of thinking and doing that may no longer be relevant for our rapidly urbanising and dynamic world. The book draws on the latest academic and practice-based evidence to provide actionable insights for cities that will enable them to deal with multiple interacting shocks and stresses. The book will be an indispensable resource to those studying urbanisation, development, climate change and risk management as well as for those designing and deploying operational initiatives to enhance urban resilience in businesses, international organisations, civil society organisations and governments. It is a must-read for anyone interested in managing the risks of climate impacts in urban centres in the Global South.

This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.

Urban Resilience is seen by many as a tool to mitigate harm in times of extreme social, political, financial, and environmental stress. Despite its widespread usage, however, resilience is used in different ways by policy makers, activists, academics, and practitioners. Some see it as a key to unlocking a more stable and secure urban future in times of extreme global insecurity; for others, it is a neoliberal technology that marginalizes the voices of already marginal peoples. This volume moves beyond praise and critique by focusing on the actors, narratives and temporalities that define urban resilience in a global context. By exploring the past, present, and future of urban resilience, this volume unlocks the potential of this concept to build more sustainable, inclusive, and secure cities in the 21st century.

This edited volume provides a fresh perspective on the important yet often neglected relationship between environmental justice and urban resilience. Many scholars have argued that resilient cities are more just cities. But what if the process of increasing the resilience of the city as a whole happens at the expense of the rights of certain groups? If urban resilience focuses on the degree to which cities are able to reorganise in creative ways and adapt to shocks, do pervasive inequalities in access to environmental services have an effect on this ability? This book brings together an interdisciplinary and intergeneration group of scholars to examine the contradictions and tensions that develop as they play out in cities of the Global South through a series of empirically grounded case studies spanning cities of Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.