The Resilience Concept in the Transition Town Movement: Towards a New Territorial Governance in Urban Development and Spatial Planning?

Abstract

The concept of resilience, typical of natural sciences, is some years joined in the glossary of spatial planning. In particular, in the urban scale, it is usually associated with initiatives of the transition town movement (Hopkins, 2008 and 2011). This movement is one of the recent and bottom-up initiatives led by civil society. The transition towns, better called “urban initiatives for the transition”, are a set of bottom-up practices of urban organization, inspired by the concept of resilience, aimed at achieving a self-sufficient, sustainable and “zero impact” model of urban development. In this perspective, the research question is: are the transition towns model the only possibility to apply the cultural concept of resilience in spatial planning? The paper will explore the ethical dimension of the concept of resilience in spatial planning. The purpose is to understand the real innovation extent in planning practices and territorial governance. The paper will also investigate common elements and characteristics of resilient communities with particular reference to the role of institutions and to territorial governance (North, 1990). As initial hypothesis, the concept of resilience is unexplored in spatial planning. As Walker B. says, resilience is «[…] the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedback» (Walker et al., 2004, p. 5). The resilience is therefore a bottom-up process that could deeply change the role of institutions and the community in the territorial governance. Could this new paradigm of development and spatial organization really be – in what mean and by what tools a new approach in the local governance? The paper will provide first a reflection on the ethical value of the concept of resilience applied to spatial planning. Secondly, the paper will identify a list of elements, common to all resilient communities. The survey will look how the concept of resilience is declined in the main and most significant experiences of the transition town movement. More specifically, it will be referred to a collection of virtuous examples of transition town, belonging to the European and global context. Some elements investigated in empirical analysis are: spatial extent, the role of actors, fields of action, tools and policies. The main outcome aims to reflect on the epistemological dimension of the concept of resilience. In particular, the reflection is about the implications of the concept in spatial planning. The related outcomes aim to reflect the perspective of the institutional innovation. In other words, the paper will demonstrate, starting from the empirical analysis and the comparison between similar experiences of transition town, if could be promoted institutional learning. Finally the paper will attempt a prospect of a new territorial governance.