From Urban Sustainability to Resilience: Embracing System Theory

Catalina Freixas (Washington University in St. Louis)

In 1798, Thomas Malthus framed a theory of environmental limits by predicting constraints of development as the result of resource limitations. However, it was not until the World Commission on Environment Development that thedefinition of sustainable development as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”highlighted the importance of studying and identifying the impact of human activity on the environment. Since then, the focus has shifted from a static to a dynamic approach to achieve this desirable state, evolving from sustainability to resilience theory.

This presentation attempts to illustrate resilience as an evolution in thinking about sustainability, where the theory of systems contributes to defining the capacity of urban networks in terms of its adaptivility. Although sustainability and resilience both attempt to produce an assessment of the future of mankind, there is a fundamental difference in the manner in which the subject matter is approached.Sustainability, and in particular its earlier definition and approach, tends towards achieving equilibrium under the belief that once stability between economic prosperity, environmental justice and social equity (TBL) is reached, it can be extended from the present to future generations. Meanwhile, resilience is based on non-equilibrium, where unpredictability is inherent, therefore the importance of its adaptive capacity to disturbance (shocks) and change (stresses). While sustainability tends to focus on evaluating systems through a TBL sustainability lens, resilience looks at the capacity of systems to be adaptable and/or recover from adversity. Cities are highly complex dynamic self-organized systems in which various networks include multiple spatial and temporal scales. Therefore it is key to identify processes that affect such capacity, and consequently, imperative of a problem-focused approach that can have real world impact. Last, the presentation explains how a system theory can contribute to this.