Contents Executive Summary
5
1.0 Introduction
6
1.1 What is Resilience? 1.2 Defining a Physical Resilient City 1.3 Defining a Socially Resilient City 1.4 Difference to Sustainability
2.0 Stockholm Context
7 8 9 10 12
2.1 Background 2.2 Stockholm Action Plans
Stockholm City Plan 2020-30 Climate Action Plan 2020-23 Environment Action Plan 2020-23
2.3 Resilience in Stockholm
3.0 Framework
13 14 14 14 14 15 16
3.1 What is a Framework? 3.2 Sustainable Development Goals 3.3 Resilient SDGs 3.4 Pillars, Drivers & Indicators 3.5 Existing Framework Analysis
17 18 19 20
The City Resilience Index (CRI) Resilience Cities Measurement (RCM) CityRAP Tool Arctic Resilience Analysis Framework (ARA)
22 22 24 25 26
4.0 Developing an Original Framework
28
4.1 The Framework 4.2 Scoring System
29
5.0 Critical Evaluation
31
6.0 Conclusion
32
7.0 Bibliography
34
8.0 Figures
36
29
3
Executive Summary This report sought out to evaluate the sustainable development within Stockholm. The report focusses on resilience as a method of achieving sustainability, as outlined by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Resilience is introduced and defined by referencing academic literature before being broken down into categories of physical and social resilience. These categories are then elaborated upon through examples of cases where a lack-of their presence has shown the effects they have, highlighting the importance of each in a city context. It is also important to differentiate resilience and sustainability, which is carried out at an early stage in the report. The report settles on treats each goal as two sides of the same coin and highlights the subtle differences and similarities. To effectively evaluate the resilient development in Stockholm, an original critical evaluation framework was developed by dissecting four existing resilience frameworks (CityRAP Tool, Resilient Cities Index, Resilient Cities Measurement & Arctic Resilience Analysis). This allowed me to break down the pillars which produce city resilience, into drivers and indicators. Each of these were then scored according to sources found in my initial research into Stockholm. The report concludes through the evaluation table that Stockholm is a resilient city. The development plans identified, showed good actions in place for city governance, societal and infrastructure. However, economy and health & well-being pillars could use some more actions to create a more well-rounded resilience strategy for the city.
5
1.0 Introduction
1.1 What is Resilience? Defining resilience is a topic which is often discussed within urbanism today.1 If we think of it in terms of an object: the object receives a pressure to the point that it is deformed but not broken before returning to its original shape. This ability to adapt to a pressure, then quickly return to its original shape and strength is what we would call a resilient object.2 This is an accurate metaphor to describe the pressures applied to urban realms we see happening today, more and more often due to the climate crisis. “Resilience is the answer to the question: how can things change and persist at the same time?” – Steve Carpenter, Professor of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison We can break-down some of the factors highlighted through the above analogy, into 3 distinct features;
Persistence
This is sometimes referred to in literature as a “buffer capacity”3. This is when a system shows an ability to maintain its function when confronted with sudden change. In a sense, it is a shock absorber for a change (e.g a flood defence stopping an oncoming storm from reaching people’s homes).4
Adaptability
Adaptability is being able to act to cope with change. It allows the system to stay operating in a desired state during change by bending around the difficulties faced (e.g Using more of a different water source as the other is struggling to cope with demand).5
Transform-ability
Being a good example of a transformable system is one which allows itself to change partly or entirely. This is important at the point when we must create a new system to cope better with new requirements. Flipping a crisis into an opportunity for example (e.g using the financial crisis to change the global economy system to a better one).6 Each of these defining factors can be applied to multiple scales, from global to intimate levels of physical and social resilience. Two other types of resilience are commonly discussed throughout urban resilience literature (Economic & Governance Resilience). However, this report will only briefly discuss them in relation to Stockholm.
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1.2 Defining a Physical Resilient City Physical resilience within a city is typically the one which immediately springs to mind when discussing resilience. The effect of its presence, or lack of, can be seen or felt immediately and has an easily measurable and quantifiable effect. Bilbao in Spain has an excellent example of physical resilience with regards to it’s flood defence systems. The city is currently undertaking extensive works along the river-front. The Nerbioi valley which Bilbao is located has flooding as it’s primary threat. Over the past 600 years, the city has been flooded over 40 times, with the frequency of them occurring nearly two-fold in the last century. (fig.1)
Figure 1: Areas prone to flooding in Bilbao (Territorial Plan for Rivers and Streams, Basque Government, 2000)
The city is tackling the problem through several interventions, the largest being the Zorrotzaurre redevelopment. The proposal turns the peninsula into an island and creating a canal which is lined with green banks, serving as both social infrastructure and as a physical flood defence. This will increase the buffer capacity by over 1 meter. In the event that a flood did occur, the buildings close to the river have been designed with ‘floodable’ ground floors, using water-proof materials and non-perishing furniture, which can quickly and easily be re-occupied and dried out once the flood water reseeds. RESIN, carried out an independent flood research and found that the city could see a 100% reduction in costs for flood damage over 10 years and a 95% reduction in costs over 100 years where extreme events may cause minor damage, resulting in €162m predicted savings.7 Using this example, we can see that physical resilience is a built intervention which increase the buffer capacity of existing systems while allowing for quick repair/adaptation in extreme circumstances. 8
1.3 Defining a Socially Resilient City Social resilience within a city is often under-estimated as its effects are not always easy to quantify. This is because we do not immediately feel or see the impact of it. It is often a slower decay rather than a sudden failure, with subtle warning signs which are difficult to identify. The importance of social resilience is most evident when it is absent during a time of crisis. Eric Klinenberg’s book “Heat Wave”8 highlights the importance of social resilience during an extreme weather event. Within the book, he investigates the Chicago heat wave of 1995 where 739 people perished.(fig.2) When comparing two neighbourhoods with similar demographics, he noted that there were more than double the deaths per 100,000 in one compared with the other. This statistic rang true for much of the rest of the city – neighbourhoods which were similar ‘on paper’, had huge disparities in the numbers of casualties. Chicago officials quickly jumped to put the deaths down to lack of social capital, even going as far as to blame people of the neighbourhoods who suffered the most casualties for not helping their fellow neighbours. Kilnenberg opposes this, pointing out that there are no moral differences between neighbourhoods. It was in fact a lack of physical conditions and places which promote people developing strong supportive connections which lead to isolation and abandonment of the neighbourhoods which suffered the greatest loss of life. He coins these places of “social infrastructure”.9
Figure 2: News excerpts from ‘Heat Wave’ by Eric Klinenberg
Klinenberg, having identified the dramatic impact of social infrastructure in an epidemic situation, stipulated that it must transcend beyond just heat and health. How deep are these systems to all aspects of collective society? This is what he sought out to answer in the book “Places for People: How to build a more equal and united society”. He points out at the beginning of the book that we are at a point where the climate emergency, the pandemic and the digital era are fragmenting our physical societies around the world. Even the internet, which was advertised as the epitome of democracy and communication has changed to an echo-chamber where you only hear what you want to listen to. “Our social glue has unstuck”10 Using this research by Eric Klinenberg, we can define a resilient city as one which creates physical spaces which generate social capital, promote well-being and are inclusivity for its citizens. All of which encourage a society which is able to respond, adapt and recover from a change. 9
1.4 Difference to Sustainability Although resilience may share many traits with sustainability, the two are different concepts. It is sometimes referred to as different sides of the same coin.11 Sustainability in reference to urban systems has been the goto phrase since the late 1980’s, though ‘resilience’ is now becoming a more prominent figure in seeking a path for our future cities. Sustainability can be described as a ‘balance’. It is a state where no change occurs as we have the systems in place to deal with all eventualities. It is understandably a very difficult thing to achieve, maybe even impossible as it is ridged and solid. This is where resilience has come into its own in recent years. Resilience offers a degree of flexibility. As described by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, resilience is the ability to “deal with change and continue to develop”.12 In short, sustainability entirely avoids the problem, but is incredibly difficult to achieve entirely, whilst resilience offers a buffer capacity, adaptability and repair-ability in the face of change.
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2.0 Stockholm Context
2.1 Background Stockholm is located where the Malaren Lake spills into the Baltic sea and spans over 14 islands, making it the largest in Sweden. Being the capital, it is a hub for economics, media, culture and politics, accounting for over 1/3 of the countries total gross domestic product (GDP). In the European GDP rankings, it is in amongst the top 10 and has an alpha-global city rank. Interestingly, it has consistently ranked amongst the top 10 cities in the world for happiness since the report’s inception. There are a host of high-ranking universities, world class museums and a concert hall where the Nobel Prize is awarded annually.13 Sweden takes the on-going climate crisis very seriously, giving it significant public and political attention. Their 219 nature reserves and 1000+ green spaces cover 30% of the cities area, aiding in Stockholm having the best rankings in terms of air pollution in Europe. In 2010, Stockholm set itself as a ‘role-model’ for other cities, inviting leaders in politics and research to study its success. Stockholm has a target of 2050 for producing net zero greenhouse emissions, resulting in Sweden being ranked the best Green Economy Index in 2014 & 2016. Through a combination of natural science and social science as main research methods, Stockholm have published extensive quantities of publications on the subject of resilience and sustainability. Many of these documents have gone on to influence many cities in the rest of Europe.14
Figure 3: Stockholm Timeline (Stockholm City Plan, p11)
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2.2 Stockholm Action Plans Stockholm City Plan 2020-30 Published in 2020, the Stockholm City Plan incorporates several documents such as “The Climate Action Plan” and “The Environmental Plan” into a combined strategy for the city looking towards 2030 (fig.3), with a brief glimpse at goals for 2040. In the summary of the action plan, it outlines that they intend for the city to be climate-smart and resilient, in a bid to cope with the changes and stresses applied by climate change and continue to ensure the smooth operation of their highly technical systems. The city plan is seen as a tool for city planning authorities to use and aid with the planned expansion of the city, steering it towards a direction which is sustainable. Staying dense and cohesive in their future developments is how they hope to keep the identity Stockholm has formed for itself, maximising greenspace which works in parallel with buildings to enable good living environments and promote social infrastructure. Along with the smart & resilient city actions, they also have the following goals: a growing city, a cohesive city and good public spaces. Each of these goals aid in the steps towards a resilience city.15
Climate Action Plan 2020-23 The ‘Climate Action Plan’ was published in 2020 as document to support the overall Stockholm City Plan. It is the tenth in a succession of documents which seen the city achieve the first European Green Capital in 2010. This award was due to the cities incredible district heating developments and well places transportation systems. The current climate action plan has been developed in collaboration with a broad spectrum of professionals from different zones of the city, with direction from the City Executive Board. Work was performed by experts in various fields that are relevant to developing resilience within the city. The cities highest priority future and current climate challenges objectives have been identified with actions to prepare or adapt to them.16 The goals focussed on in this action plan are; • A fossil-free and climate-positive Stockholm by 2040 • A fossil-free organisation by 2030
Environment Action Plan 2020-23 This ‘Environmental Action Plan’ is developed in conjunction with the Climate Action Plan to aid the overall City Plan. In order to achieve the goals, the plan has employed the following strategies in generating the action plan; Collaboration, Purchasing, Communication, Influence and Innovation.17 Some of the long-term goals it hopes to outline are; • A fossil-free and climate-positive Stockholm by 2040 • A fossil-free organisation by 2030 • A climate-adapted Stockholm • A resource-smart Stockholm • A city with biodiversity in well-functioning and cohesive ecosystems • A city with clean air and a good sound environment • A toxin-free Stockholm
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2.3 Resilience in Stockholm The Stockholm Resilience Centre has had a major influence on the city’s development, with the Stockholm council using their research to influence the Stockholm City Plan. It was formed originally in 2007 as a collaboration between ‘Stockholm University’ and the ‘Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics’ at the ‘Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’. It is an international research and collaboration hub for resilience and sustainability. The centre predominantly focusses on social-ecological system. These include social actions and social infrastructure. The social-ecological systems they study are complex and adaptive.18 Goals; •Advance the scientific understanding of the complex, dynamic interactions of people and nature in the biosphere •Train the next generation of sustainability researchers and leaders •Engage in collaborations with change agents Values; •People and nature are deeply intertwined, co-evolve, and behave as complex adaptive systems •Many patterns, processes and dynamics of the Anthropocene are novel and must be better understood •Biosphere stewardship can enable transformation towards resilient, sustainable, and just futures
3.0 Framework
3.1 What is a Framework? “Resilience is a critical urban development agenda. Building resilience in cities requires an understanding of both what contributes to resilience and how it can be measured” – ARUP, Resilient Cities Index Critical evaluation frameworks are essential for understanding how a city has performed: a benchmarking tool which aids in spotting strengths and weaknesses in the current action plan. It is a common practice in modern city planning, giving us the ability to compare and share analytics. Some successful actions may then be taken on-board or developed further by cities with common goals whilst poorer performing areas are identified, and their actions and goals re-evaluated. A typical framework will consist of qualitative and quantitative indicators, each of which are scored using a pre-defined scoring system. This is then tallied up into drivers and pillars, combined to give an aggregate score of the overall resilience of that city. Measuring resilience, especially social aspects of resilience, is extremely difficult as it is often not visible or quantifiable. There are various existing approaches which have been taken to assess resilience. These typically focus on physical urban structures or systems. Physical infrastructure, nature, and human behaviour are often referenced in these. The existing asset-based approach tends to focus too much of the physical instead of qualitative systems which influence social behaviour. These include belonging, culture, social capital, and identity. They may also miss assets which aid the city from the surrounding hinterlands such as a hydro-dam or freshwater reservoir. By comparing and combining some of these existing frameworks, I will be able to create a boutique framework which will suit my evaluation of Stockholm. These reference frameworks include ‘The City Resilience Index’19 by ARUP in collaboration with Rockefeller (CRI), OECS’s ‘Resilient Cities Measurement’ (RCM) and the UN-Habitat’s CityRAP Tool (CityRAP). I have also identified a paper by the Stockholm Resilience Centre titled ‘Arctic Resilience Assessment’20 (ARA) which highlights several indicators towards resilience in Sweden’s Arctic climate. Developing on Berkes et al21 research, these indicators are predominantly on a social level. By blending these frameworks together, I will be able to make a well researched and relatable framework which evaluates Stockholm’s unique situation. I can then use this to compare and analyse other cities comparatively. UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which outline 17 goals for a sustainable future alongside 169 future targets through 6,015 actions will also be analysed in relation to resilience. ‘What is badly defined is likely to be badly measured’ - (Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicator, 2008, p.22.)
17
Figure 4: Action Plan & SDG Relationship
3.2 Sustainable Development Goals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the 193 UN countries in 2015. This is an agenda for 2030, to aid the involved countries step closer to social, environmental, and economic sustainability. All countries who are participating must show movement towards this ideal of sustainable, equal, and fair futures for all, free from hunger and poverty. Cities must attempt to become sustainable through resilience, inclusivity, and safety. Stockholm has a select delegation which seeks to support SDG implementation in the city. (fig.4) There are 17 SDGs, developed in 5 categories of sustainability. These are; • • • • •
People Prosperity Partnership Peace Planet
Some of these development goals are not directly targeted at a city like Stockholm where critical human needs such as water and food are plentiful, unlike in some developing countries. More relevant topics to Stockholm are ones such as resilience, well-being, and climate change, some of which are very challenging to even begin tackling. Although these goals are implemented by individual cities or countries, they can in-directly influence and improve the situation in other countries, especially with goals such as climate action, responsible consumption, and life below water.
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Figure 5: Pillars of CityRAP
3.3 Resilient SDGs It is difficult to disregard any SDG as not being related to resilience. As such, I have instead split the SDGs into categories, Physical and Social as a spectrum. (fig.5)
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3.4 Pillars, Drivers & Indicators Resilience can be broken down into a handful of pillars which are essential qualities for resilience to be achieved in a city. We can then break these qualities down into drivers which aid in supporting these pillars. For each driver, we are able to imagine it’s qualitative or quantitative impact, both positively in the event of its successful implementation or the weakness it causes by improper implementation or absence. These can also be referred to as characteristics of the city, for example: if Stockholm was to have social conflict, poor governance, inadequate infrastructure, or high poverty rates, we would not call it resilient. These drivers can be used to explain an example of resilience in action such as New York after the 9/11 attacks. The city showed an ability to quickly adapt and bounce back. This was partly down to the prosperity witnessed in the city. However, it was also due to a collective identity and effective governance. These high performing drivers meant that citizens were willing to help each-other more, uniting around a common goal of getting the city back on its feet. Plans for such eventualities meant that complex urban systems and critical infrastructure was promptly back to normality, and civil order was maintained. Indicators are segments of a driver which give us data that ‘indicates’ whether resilience promoting actions are performing as intended, or not. This is particularly important in instances where there is no way to gather hard information on the subject, as is the case with much of resilience. There is no standardised set of indicators for measuring resilience, so I will develop my own from an analysis of pre-determined indicators in the example frameworks and an analysis of the actions Stockholm intended to take. This long-list will then be refined into a final set of indicators and split into drivers and pillars. I will then need to set a base-line to score each one on its implementation and success. These 3 layers of resilience – pillars, drivers, and indicators – combine to make a better understanding of resilience. “In order to get a grip on it, one must be able to relate resilience to other properties that one has some means of ascertaining, through observation.” 23 20
Figure 6: CRI Circular Evaluation
3.5 Existing Framework Analysis The City Resilience Index (CRI) This framework was formed by ARUP in collaboration with Rockefeller and sought to create a way to measure cities resilience for the ‘100 Resilient Cities’ campaign. They did not see this as a competition, but rather a way to understand why certain cities are resilient. CRI begins by defining the ‘qualities of a resilient city’ which guide their framework structure; • • • • • •
Reflective Robustness Resourcefulness Inclusivity Redundancy Flexibility
The framework itself uses three scales of scoring, these are for the 4 qualities, 12 indicators and the categories which define these indicators. This is then mapped out as a circle chart to reveal the overall score.(fig.6) This framework has now been applied to over 12 cities. When applied, the statistics it generated are based on qualitative resilience. A questionnaire is sent to 150+ city stakeholders. These questions delve into the systems of that city, informally find out about the performance of indicators and sub-indicators. The responses are then scored from 1-5: 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. These scores are then listed for each sub-indicator which informs the indicators score, then the overall qualities score. 22
23
Figure 7: RCM 4 main drivers and measures (OECD)
Figure 8: RCM list of Drivers and Indicators
Resilience Cities Measurement (RCM) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) created the Resilience Cities Measurement (RCM) to aid governments of the United Nations investigate several cities with the intended purpose of this data to further resilience thinking in poorer performing cities. The aim is to assist countries in meeting the 2030 UN Agenda commitments. “We work on establishing evidence-based international standards and finding solutions to a range of social, economic and environmental challenges. From improving economic performance and creating jobs to fostering strong education and fighting international tax evasion, we provide a unique forum and knowledge hub for data and analysis, exchange of experiences, best-practice sharing, and advice on public policies and international standard-setting” 24
There is a big emphasis within this evaluation framework for energy resilience. They highlight key themes in developing energy resilience such as “Ensuring the access and continual provision of energy is critical for resilience in cities”. This framework is broken down into four drivers; Economy, Governance, Society and Environment.(fig.7) These each have four indicators which are analysed quantitatively with data from respective city councils and scored, before being tallied up to a total for each driver. (fig.8)
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CityRAP Tool The United-Nations Human Settlement Programme set out the CityRAP Tool in order to set out a guide to train authorities, stakeholders and communities how to develop resilience in their city. They teach through 4 phases (fig.10) and end by developing an example framework which we will be looking at in this report. (fig.9) This is more commonly used on less developed cities, targeting smaller communities with little outside assistance. The evaluation framework revolves around 5 pillars. These then funnel down to 3 priorities. • • •
Figure 9: Pillars of CityRAP
Climate Change Adaptation & Mitigation Sustainable Urban Growth Inclusive and safer cities
Figure 10: Phasing of CityRAP
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Figure 11: ARA Scoring Wheel, 1-5
Arctic Resilience Analysis Framework (ARA) Developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. They use a “leverage comparative analysis” to analyse how Arctic communities can develop resilience to social and environmental change. The Arctic hosts some of the harshest environmental conditions for human occupation, making resilience paramount. The research found that the ability for a community to organise themselves and promote diversity are prominent themes found in most resilient Arctic communities. These are very difficult social systems to analyse, hence why they have relied on extensive research into existing literature and developed their own framework to accommodate the unique evaluation. The main topic within resilience analysed by this framework was “Adaptive Capacity”. This was then split into four first tier then 12 second tier indicators using Berkes’ 21 existing research on the subject. The ARA team manager to split this down further into a fourth tier of 70 indicators. These could then be measured as having been implemented (True) or lacking (False). This was then combined to give an overall percentage of resilience in the evaluated community. The researchers could then use this to identify weaknesses in certain communities and advise on appropriate action with relevant examples of successful implementation. “Communities with high capacities to self-organized, to combine multiple sources of knowledge, or who nurture diversity are more likely to maintain their livelihoods or transform towards new social-ecological configurations…. ….our methodological approach complements existing quantitative methods such as early warning signals to approximate resilience, and encourage the community to test and improve our coding approximation in other social-ecological systems” - ARA Report
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Figure 12: ARA Indicators
4.0 Developing an Original Framework
4.1 The Framework I have created my own framework by using the CRI framework as a base. It was chosen as it has the most detailed selection of indicators which are relevant to Stockholm’s resilience strategy. I have modified this framework by blending in some of the drivers and indicators from the ARA, CityRAP RCM frameworks. The ARA offers deeper social and ecological indicators which suit Stockholm’s arctic climate. CityRAP has a good pillar structure which is relevant to Stockholm and can be blended in well with the CRI framework. RCM breaks down similar pillars to CRI into slightly different drivers, these have been merged into my framework where appropriate. This circular CRI style layout, allows me to break resilience down into pillars, drivers, and indicators. I can then tally the scores and give a conclusion for each action plan this evaluation is applied too. I will then be able to combine both action plans create an aggregate score for the overall resilience within Stockholm. This detailed breakdown of indicators will also let me conclude with an evaluation of where the strengths and weaknesses are in the city. I will also split the indicators into social and physical categories and score them separately during the conclusion. My original evaluation framework will include 5 pillars, 17 drivers and 61 indicators. (fig.13)
4.2 Scoring System I will be employing a scoring system to rate each indicator. This will be a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being excellent implementation of proposed action and 1 being no implementation of the action. I will score according to data gathered through quantitative and qualitative means. These are the two main ways used to gather data in evaluations of urban sustainability. Each of these methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, that is why is it important to blend both data gathering methods. - Quantitative data is factual, using hard data to outline the performance. This approach may seem superior; however, it misses out on the over-seen aspects of the city life. We cannot always quantify feelings, social factors, or character in a place, often the most important parts of a city. - Qualitative data is difficult to record. It is best found through personal accounts of the people who inhabit the areas we wish to research. Over or under-exaggeration may occur in this situation, so it is important that the opinions recorded are genuine. This can be done by asking for evidence which helped form this opinion, then taking an average of the results remaining. Stockholm’s action plan does not prioritise one method over another, they are treated with equal importance. Therefore, I will not be employing a weighting system to each indicator. However, as some pillars have more drivers and indicators than others, giving an inherent weighting to the score. For this reason, I will employ a percentage-based score for the final circular scoring diagram and conclusion.
Figure 13: Original Framework breakdown
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Figure 14: Critical Evaluation of Stockholm’s Resilience
Figure 15: Critical Evaluation Circular Scoring
5.0 Critical Evaluation It is clear from this evaluation that Stockholm has a good understanding of resilience and has applied measures to ensure the city becomes a more resilient city. The city scored particularly well in the governance pillar due to the governments pro-active approach to sustainability. They source robust data from a multitude of stakeholders and promote research-based policies. They also have an excellent leadership structure which allows the public to air their thoughts on governance through their communities. This is especially effective as there is a good structure for education on sustainable topics. This takes us onto the society pillar which also scored well. The cities approach to promoting Swedish culture aides in giving sense of belonging and part of a collective community. The importance of diversity and equality is also highlighted. However, there was distinct lack of evidence to support competent policing and criminal justice. With these, the society pillar could have achieved a very high score. Health and Well-being was clearly important to Stockholm in terms of preventing vulnerability to human occupants. However, there was only brief mentions of emergency health initiatives, access to healthcare and adaptability following shock, which are all especially relevant in the current climate of the covid-19 pandemic. Infrastructure makes up for this with the climate action plan clearly identifying the importance of flexibility in these critical systems. The access to affordable transportation, energy and electricity were all very important within the action plan. This mainly being down to developing on from the existing world class district heating and movement strategies from previous action plans. There is clearly a strong argument to protect existing ecosystems as well, with the huge about of nation parks being a common theme throughout. The only weakness within the infrastructure pillar was continuity for critical assets and services. A resilient economy was the poorest scoring pillar, however there were some good actions identified. The incentive for placing a business within the city was obvious, with great connections to a more global audience. What let it down was also what let the society pillar down – lack of evidence for police resilience and anti-corruption. Through the even spread of indicators between social and physical resilience, with social resilience seeming to have slightly more emphasis within Stockholm’s action plan. This is possibly due to the interest in socio-ecological factors the Stockholm Resilience Centre has, who have aided the government in developing the action plans. 31
6.0 Conclusion This report sought out to evaluate the sustainable development within Stockholm. The report began by outlining the definition of resilience. Resilience is introduced and defined by referencing academic literature as having Persistence, Adaptability and Transform-ability, before being split into categories of physical and social resilience. These categories are defined through examples of cases where a lack-of resilience has highlighted their importance in a city context. It was also important to differentiate resilience and sustainability, treating them as two sides of the same coin and highlighting the subtle differences and similarities. To effectively evaluate the resilient development in Stockholm, I employed an original critical evaluation framework. This was developed by dissecting four existing resilience frameworks (CityRAP Tool, Resilient Cities Index, Resilient Cities Measurement & Arctic Resilience Analysis). I picked indicators and themes from these and refined them to a framework which suited the evaluation I wished to conduct. In doing so, I broke down resilience into 5 pillars, 17 drivers and 61 indicators. These were then scored according to action plan sources found in my initial research into Stockholm. From the evaluation framework, we can conclude that Stockholm is a resilient city. The city development plans identified showed good actions in place for city governance, societal and infrastructure. However, economy and health & well-being resilience could use some more goals to create a more well-rounded resilience strategy for the city.
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7.0 Bibliography 1. Bhamra, Ran & Dani, Samir & Burnard, Kevin. (2011). Resilience: The Concept, a Literature Review and Future Directions. International Journal of Production Research.
12. 2017. Stockholm Resilience Centre’s (SRC) contribution to the 2016 Swedish 2030 Agenda HLPF report. 13. En.wikipedia.org. 2022. Stockholm - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm> [Accessed 30 March 2022].
2. Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T. and Rockström, J., 2010. Resilience Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability. Ecology and Society, 15(4).
14. Stockholmresilience.org. 2022. About us. [online] Available at: <https:// www.stockholmresilience.org/about-us.html> [Accessed 30 March 2022].
3. Ifejika Speranza, Chinwe. (2013). Buffer capacity: Capturing a dimension of resilience to climate change in African smallholder agriculture. Regional Environmental Change
15. Stockholm Stad, 2020. Stockholm City Plan.
4. Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T. and Rockström, J., 2010. Resilience Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability. Ecology and Society, 15(4).
16. Stockholm Stad, 2020. Stockholm Climate Action Plan. 17. Stockholm Stad, 2020. Stockholm Environmental Action Plan.
5. Ibid
18. Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2016, Resilience Report 2010
6. Ibid
19. ARUP, City Resilience Index, 2014. City Resilience Framework. p.8.
7. Resin-cities.eu. 2022. RESIN. [online] Available at: <https://resin-cities. eu/cities/tier1/bilbao/> [Accessed 12 March 2022].
20. Rocha, J., Lanyon, C. and Peterson, G., (2022). Upscaling the resilience assessment through comparative analysis. Global Environmental Change, 72.
8. Klinenberg, E. (2002). Heat wave: A social autopsy of disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
21. Berkes, F., Colding, J. & Folke, C. Navigating Social-Ecological Systems. (2003)
9.Ibid
22. Martin-Breen & Andries (2011) Resilience: A literature review. The Rockefeller Foundation: New York City, p. 11
10.Klinenberg, E. (2018). Palaces for the people: How social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life. New York, NY: Crown
23. Arup.com. 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.arup.com/projects/city-resilience-index> [Accessed 23 March 2022].
11. G., 2022. Sustainability and resilience refer to two different concepts BCFN Foundation. [online] Barillacfn.com. Available at: <https://www.barillacfn.com/en/magazine/food-and-sustainability/sustainability-and-resilience-refer-to-two-different-concepts/> [Accessed 30 March 2022].
24. Oecd.org. 2022. About Us - OECD. [online] Available at: <https://www. oecd.org/about/> [Accessed 23 March 2022].
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8.0 Figures Figure 1: Areas prone to flooding in Bilbao (Territorial Plan for Rivers and
Streams, Basque Government, 2000) ������������������������������������������������������������� 8 Figure 2: News excerpts from ‘Heat Wave’ by Eric Klinenberg ���������������������� 9 Figure 3: Stockholm Timeline (Stockholm City Plan, p11) ������������������������ 13 Figure 4: Action Plan & SDG Relationship ������������������������������������������������ 18 Figure 5: Pillars of CityRAP ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 19 Figure 6: CRI Circular Evaluation �������������������������������������������������������������� 22 Figure 7: RCM 4 main drivers and measures (OECD) ������������������������������� 24 Figure 8: RCM list of Drivers and Indicators ���������������������������������������������� 24 Figure 9: Pillars of CityRAP ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 25 Figure 10: Phasing of CityRAP �������������������������������������������������������������������� 25 Figure 11: ARA Scoring Wheel, 1-5 �������������������������������������������������������������� 26 Figure 12: ARA Indicators ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27 Figure 13: Original Framework breakdown ������������������������������������������������ 29 Figure 14: Critical Evaluation of Stockholm’s Resilience �������������������������� 30 Figure 15: Critical Evaluation Circular Scoring ���������������������������������������� 31
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Word Count - 4,297
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