City Resilience Framework

Today’s new normal requires models of governance that mitigate risk and respond to evolving challenges.

The Challenge

The City Resilience Framework (CRF) is a conceptual framework, offering a common reference point for understanding what we mean when we talk about cities’ resilience. The CRF was developed alongside Arup in 2014 on the back of extensive research looking at the existing literature, at case studies, and from fieldwork. It offers an evidence-based, holistic articulation of city resilience structured around four categories:

  • Health and wellbeing of individuals (people)
  • Urban systems and society (organization)
  • Economy and society (organization)
  • Leadership and strategy (knowledge)

The framework identifies 12 key indicators that describe the fundamental attributes of a resilient system, whose relative importance is context dependent. It also outlines the seven qualities of resilient systems.

The CRF also offers up case studies of resilient cities from within the R-Cities network which have worked to address the most important shocks and stresses in their context.

Access the City Resilience Framework and Index here

News and Resources

A Guide to Updating Resilience Strategies for Success

A Guide to Updating Resilience Strategies for Success

With climate and other shocks becoming more frequent, severe, and overlapping, there is an urgency to get smarter and faster in building resilience
Urban Ocean: Mumbai

Urban Ocean: Mumbai

Urban Ocean is helping Mumbai identify gaps in its solid waste management system towards advancing zero waste circular solutions in the city.
Episode 22: Future-ready cities: Digital Solutions shaping the urban landscape featuring Cape Town and StateUp

Episode 22: Future-ready cities: Digital Solutions shaping the urban landscape featuring Cape Town and StateUp

Set in the context of our 10-year celebration of urban resilience around the world, Arnoud Molenaar is hosted by Paul Wilson in this candid conversation about the evolution of the resilience ...