# Robustness and Resilience of cities around the world

**Authors:** Sofiane Abbar, Tahar Zanouda, Javier Borge-Holthoefer  
**arXiv:** [1608.01709](https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01709)  
**Date:** 2016-08-04  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/paper/1608.01709v1/

## Key points

- The concept of city or urban resilience is important due to challenges and uncertainties faced by cities.
- Initiatives by institutions like the United Nations and Rockefeller Foundation aim to enhance urban resilience.
- Efforts have led to funded programs for implementing actions and developing quantification methods for measuring resilience.
- There is no clear consensus among academics on how resilience should be quantified in urban environments.
- Lack of agreement poses a challenge in effectively addressing urban resilience.
- A proposed method utilizes large-scale publicly available urban datasets from around the world.
- Complexity science techniques, such as percolation theory, are applied to assess vulnerability in complex systems.
- Significant variations exist among different cities regarding infrastructural fragility and distribution of critical services.
- Tailored strategies and interventions are needed to address specific vulnerabilities within each city's context.
- This research contributes to the discourse on urban resilience by leveraging comprehensive datasets and complexity science methodologies.

## Summary

The concept of city or urban resilience has become increasingly important in recent years, as cities face numerous challenges and uncertainties. In response to this, institutions like the United Nations and Rockefeller Foundation have taken initiatives to enhance and improve urban resilience. These efforts have led to funded programs aimed at both implementing actions on the ground and developing quantification methods for measuring resilience, often in the form of an index. However, despite these efforts, there is still no clear consensus among academics regarding how resilience should be quantified or what it specifically means in the context of urban environments. This lack of agreement poses a challenge in effectively addressing urban resilience. To bridge this gap between academic understanding and practical implementation, this study proposes a method that utilizes large-scale publicly available urban datasets from around the world. By applying well-established techniques from complexity science such as percolation theory which has proven valuable in assessing vulnerability in complex systems, the researchers aim to provide objective insights into one dimension of urban resilience. The findings of this study reveal significant variations among different cities with regards to their infrastructural fragility and imbalances in the distribution of critical services. This highlights the need for tailored strategies and interventions to address specific vulnerabilities within each city's unique context. Overall, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on urban resilience by demonstrating a practical approach that leverages comprehensive datasets and complexity science methodologies. By gaining a deeper understanding of the factors influencing urban resilience, policymakers and practitioners can make informed decisions and implement targeted measures to enhance cities' ability to withstand future challenges.