Urban resilience: building sustainable cities through social innovations
With more of us living in cities, community-driven food initiatives should be at the heart of resilience planning
An increasing proportion of us are living in cities, an additional 1.4 million every week (1). By 2050, roughly two thirds of the global population will reside in urban environments, double the current number of people in absolute terms (2). For this reason, there is an increasing focus on urban resilience – to protect city dwellers in the face of complex global challenges.
Cities have always been at the heart of cultural and economic progress, and urban life brings opportunities for work and education, along with proximity to social networks and healthcare. But rapid urbanisation also brings sustainability and governance challenges by placing pressure on services, infrastructure and natural environments. Without effective policies and strategies, the number of people exposed to health risks, the impacts of climate change, and other hazards will continue to increase (1).
In Europe and North America, urban food system resilience is particularly relevant because these are the only regions where food insecurity is highest in urban environments (3). Urban planning should ensure that local communities are empowered to be at the centre of change, especially disadvantaged populations most vulnerable to risks. Community-driven initiatives and social innovations can make urban food systems more resilient for everyone.
What is urban resilience?
A commonly used definition of urban resilience is:
“The measurable ability of any urban system, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses, while positively adapting and transforming toward sustainability.”
In other words, progress towards urban resilience is also progress towards UN sustainable development goals. Shocks and stresses can be natural or human-made and there is growing threat from hybrid disasters such as pandemics and flooding (5).
When attempting to measure the resilience of a city, five characteristics are often assessed: Preparedness; Absorption; Recovery; Adaptation; and Transformability. But cities are not homogenous (6). They are a tapestry of neighbourhoods with diverse socio-economic characteristics, and their vulnerability to shocks and stresses can vary significantly. Disadvantaged groups often bear the worst impacts. In recent years we have seen that high inflation disproportionately affects the poorest in Europe (7), and low-income communities face lasting impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic (8).
Enhancing Social and Community Resilience
Disadvantaged urban populations face compounding challenges. For instance, the influence of food environments on dietary choices (9), and the connections between childhood obesity and socioeconomic status (10). Given the complexity and long-term nature of challenges, it is important to take a ‘systems thinking’ approach to urban resilience (5). That means looking holistically at economics, governments, infrastructure and social factors, and understanding the power relations that underpin inequalities.
For many, food insecurity is an ongoing daily reality. EU households at risk of poverty are more than twice as likely to be unable to afford a proper meal compared to average-income households (19.7% compared to 8.3% in 2022) (11). Food banks and crisis management plans provide essential assistance.
Resilience in action: FOOD BANK IN OLSZTYN
In Poland, the Food Bank in Olsztyn (FBO) helped nearly 70,000 people in 2023 in the Warmia and Mazury provinces while sparing 650 tonnes of food from landfill. An EIT Food partner, FBO also supports disadvantaged groups in gaining skills and finding work. For example, it's Like a Chef project (delivered in cooperation with the Electrolux Food Foundation) where chefs teach catering skills to migrants from neighbouring countries including Ukraine.
Investing in Skills and Competencies for Urban Resilience
To build longer-term resilience, it is important to boost the capacity for communities to co-develop their own solutions. Ensuring food education is part of school curricula can provide the foundations. Programmes like FoodEducators can support by providing teachers with fun and creative activities for schoolchildren. In 2023 roughly 1500 teachers used the lesson plans, reaching 36,000 students across 8 countries.
Targeted education and training interventions for adults also play a key role. For disadvantaged communities, a lack of access to mentors, networks and capital can present barriers to launching businesses and social innovations. Financial support for European agrifood SMEs is important as the sector been especially vulnerable to inflation driven by rising energy prices in Europe (13).
Resilience in action: AMPLE
AMPLE is a two-year project launched by EIT Food in 2023 with $500,000 funding from Citi Foundation to improve food security among disadvantaged communities. By focusing activities on specific locations, AMPLE is creating a template for resilience projects in other cities across Europe and beyond.
AMPLE launched in Madrid with a series of interactive workshops – delivered with local NGOs – on cooking & food handling, regenerative agriculture, and entrepreneurship. Nearly all participants were from low-income backgrounds, of which 71% were women/girls and 80% were immigrants. In September 2024, AMPLE also launched in Warsaw. Early activities in Poland include collaborations with the MOST cooperative urban farm and the CoopTech Hub, which builds communities through digital transformation.
In addition, AMPLE is offering ‘Boost Vouchers’ to 30 SMEs with a value of €2,300.
“AMPLE is a very good initiative and food innovation is critical. Citi and Citi Foundation are always very committed to improving the lives of our communities. Most importantly, to provide value-adding experiences to our communities."
Environmental Sustainability in Urban Resilience
Environmental resilience projects can bring far-reaching benefits to communities and societies. A good example is community gardens and farms. Research in the UK found that people who grow their own food in gardens and allotments waste an average of just 3.4kg of fruits and vegetables – 95% less than the national average (13). Urban gardens can become community spaces and education hubs, like the Slow Food UK project to transform an underused car park in Birmingham into an urban farm and green space. Larger urban gardens can also reduce flood risk and counter the impacts of the urban heat island effect – whereby cities experience much higher localised temperatures than surrounding rural areas (14).
Resilience in action: GARDENS4GOOD
The Gardens4Good project has a mission to promote the multiple benefits of urban food gardens. In a pilot project in Paris, elderly people at the Annie Girardot residence home helped to maintain a rooftop garden for growing fruits and vegetables. Nurses noted significant psychological benefits for residents, many of whom have Alzheimer's disease. Participants often developed healthier eating habits while fostering a sense of connection to the food they helped grow. Since joining EIT Community’s New European Bauhaus (NEB) programme in January, Gardens4Good can now amplify its impact beyond Paris.
Rethinking Food Supply Chains
Shorter supply chains are another route to strengthening urban resilience (15). Commercial urban farms such as Danish startup Nabo Farm can create new jobs and improve the urban integration of food due to their proximity to consumers, supermarkets and restaurants. Learn more on this topic in the EIT Food online course ‘Circular Business Models for Sustainable Urban Food Systems.’
Equally, it will be important to connect urban and rural clusters across Europe to drive economic growth and supply chain stability. One project seeking to protect the balance between urban and rural areas is Terre et Cité, based near Paris. Terre et Cité facilitates dialogues between farmers and city officials, and runs a living lab to explore new relationships between city, nature and agriculture.
Future Challenges and Opportunities in Urban Resilience
Looking ahead, the key to strengthening urban resilience will be integrating community-led innovation with systemic policy change. At European level that requires a well-defined policy mix, a sense of direction with clear signals to all stakeholders. It also requires appropriate financial investments in infrastructure and skills training, consistent local involvement, and international conversations through networks like C40 and 100 Resilient Cities. Within the food system, EIT Food will continue bringing together actors from across the food value chain to co-create solutions – through workshops and our Impact Funding Framework.
Ultimately, where it matters is on the ground. Projects like AMPLE and Gardens4Good illustrate that community-driven resilience initiatives can bring far-reaching benefits. By embracing these social innovations, Europe has an opportunity to redefine urban life – to create future-fit cities that work for people and the planet.
References
- IFRC: Urban Resilience
- World Bank: Urban Development
- WFP: The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) Report - 2024
- UN-Habitat: Resilience and Risk Reduction
- UNDP: An Analytical Review: A Decade of Urban Resilience
- Peihao Tong, Characteristics, dimensions and methods of current assessment for urban resilience to climate-related disasters: A systematic review of the literature. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 60, 2021, 102276. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102276.
- World Bank: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Cost-of-Living Crisis Dim Growth Prospects in Emerging Europe and Central Asia
- Economics Observatory: Who suffered most from economic uncertainty early in the Covid-19 pandemic?
- Pineda et al: Policy implementation and priorities to create healthy food environments using the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI): A pooled level analysis across eleven European countries. Lancet Reg Health Eur. 2022 Nov 16:23:100522. DOI: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100522.
- Bertomeu-Gonzalez et al. Prevalence of childhood obesity in Spain and its relation with socioeconomic status and health behaviors. Medicina Clínica. DOI: 10.1016/j.medcli.2024.02.016
- EC: State of Food Security in the EU
- EC: SMEs and High Inflation
- Boglarka Z. Gulyas and Jill L. Edmondson: The contribution of household fruit and vegetable growing to fruit and vegetable self-sufficiency and consumption. Plants People Planet. DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10413
- N Humaida et al 2023 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 1133 012048. DOI:10.1088/1755-1315/1133/1/012048
- EIT Food: Reducing Risk for a Fair and Resilient Food System: Mission Insights Report