Building Community Resilience

Building Community Resilience

In the face of today’s complex urban challenges, the whole of society must work together to adapt and find ways to thrive. Lessons learnt through responding to shocks and stressors have shown that community resilience—built upon social infrastructure and social capital—drives recovery. So how can we build community resilience within our cities? What is the role of community engagement and participatory design in strengthening social infrastructure and building social capital? How might we give form to and enhance the invisible sense of community resilience in the built environment?

This playbook documents research undertaken by the Centre for Liveable Cities to measure and strengthen social capital and community resilience through a co-creation journey. It showcases how a multi-stakeholder framework nurtures citizen-initiated projects that can not only address local challenges but also support broader national efforts. The research also demonstrates how a range of indicators offer insights into the state of community resilience and enables communities and policymakers to track progress as well as identify strengths and areas for improvement. We hope that the insights captured in this playbook will inspire cities to work with their citizens to develop a comprehensive strategy for resilience—which involves not only improving its hardware but also enhancing its software. Ultimately, there can be no resilient city without a resilient community.

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