Enhancing City Resilience Through Urban-Rural Linkages

Urban communities in developing countries fail to collect resources to withstand a shock, and stresses slowly erode resilience and increase the vulnerability of the population over time. At the same time, villages are becoming vulnerable due to their lack of infrastructure, scattered populations, lack of disaster management capabilities, and limited livelihood opportunities. Additionally, a city is resilient only if most of its residents can withstand and recover from the effects of a disaster. Similarly, a region is resilient if all its residents (whether they live in urban, peri-urban, or rural areas) are able to face the negative consequences of disasters and return to predisaster status in a minimal period of time. There is much evidence from developing countries proving that these areas are mutually dependent on each other for natural resources, raw materials, finished products, waste disposal, employment opportunities, and social interactions. These linkages elements provide an opportunity to plan for enhanced resilience of cities through policies which can contribute towards urban and rural resilience both. However, this resilience enhancement should not be achieved at the cost of other spatial areas. Urban governments in major Indian cities have recognized the importance of urban-rural linkages. The model of development authorities (namely, local governments planning for urban areas along with the catchment rural areas) has been adopted by many cities. This chapter discusses the interdependency of cities over villages, and vice versa, and how these urban-rural linkages can be utilized to build the resilience of cities. It also takes up case studies from the development authority areas in India.