Cities to share best practices in resiliency at Designing City Resilience

Chief Resilience Officers and senior government officials attending Designing City Resilience in London on 16 and 17 June 2015 will work with an international audience of experts to change the way cities are planned, designed and built, making them more resilient.

Many cities face similar physical, economic and social challenges, regardless of where they are located. By sharing these challenges with professionals from design and construction; development and infrastructure; city leadership and governance; insurance and finance; and technology and communications, the path to resilience should become far easier.

Organisations that have confirmed their attendance include: AECOM, Control Risks, Martha Schwartz Partners, Tibbards, Weston Williamson+Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Kano State Housing Corporation, Willis Group, Rockefeller Foundation, Greater Manchester Authority, IBM and the European Investment Bank.

They will hear from Chennai, Glasgow, Barcelona, Melbourne, Bristol, Manchester, Austin (Texas), New York City, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, who will present their challenges, the barriers to overcome them and the plans they have in place to build resilience. These cities will also input to the City Resilience Challenge, the workshop running over both days of the summit.

The workshop will give cities and participants the unique the opportunity to work through these issues, to develop a set of principles that can be applied globally.

Sarah Toy, Bristol’s Chief Resilience Officer will describe how the city is investing significantly in renewing its infrastructure to meet the needs of its growing population.

Manuel Valdes Lopez, Manager of Infrastructures and Urban Coordination, will discuss Barcelona’s plans to address the challenges of high unemployment and a lack of social cohesion. Glasgow faces similar issues and the city’s CRO, Alastair Brown, will outline how the city is creating future opportunities for the city to deal with them.

Physical resilience is a challenge faced by both established and growing cities and will be a particular focus of the summit. Melbourne and Chennai will explain how they are working to reduce the risk of damage from severe flood events and other climate change impacts.

Commenting on the importance of the summit, George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, said: “No one profession can solve the challenges of city resilience. Cross-thinking across service, professional and geographic boundaries is vital and the summit will take a big step towards helping break down these barriers.”

Designing City Resilience will be held on 16 and 17 June 2015, 66 Portland Place, London. For more information and to book a place at the event, visit www.designingcityresilience.com. Visit the Facebook page and follow the summit on Twitter: @rescities; connect via LinkedIn; or see the Youtube channel.