Wits officially launches urban resillience think tool

The report, titled Urban Resilience Thinking for Municipalities is the result of a concept that has rapidly gained a central place in spatial and urban planning policy in South Africa over the past few years. It’s not designed as a manual or toolbox, but rather as a means to promote urban resilience thinking.

Resilience thinking, as the focal point of the City of Johannesburg’s new Growth and Development Strategy, Joburg 2040 (2011), refers to social resilience, environmental resilience and economic resilience.

The urban resilience document was prepared as a contribution to the Department of Science and Technology’s Grand Challenge on Global Change and as a complement to flagship initiatives such as the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas project, recognising both the threats posed by poorly managed urban areas, and of the opportunities that towns and cities offer for greater resilience and sustainability.

The three-year funded programme at Wits is titled Urban Resilience Assessment for Sustainable Urban Development (with Professor Philip Harrison as the lead investigator) and was developed with the specific intention of giving support to local government in South Africa. This was done with the recognition that municipalities have a vital role in proactively managing processes of change.

The programme is a partnership between Wits and the Gauteng City-Region Observatory.

Professor Mark Swilling, Division Head: Sustainable Development in the School of Public Leadership at the University of Stellenbosch and Academic Director of the

Sustainability Institute delivered the keynote address on 16 February, with other speakers including Harrison, professors Barend Erasmus and Alison Todes from Wits.