The spatial development of cities is influenced by a combination of economic, social, demographic and environmental factors, which cause certain vulnerabilities in cities. Vulnerability, in this respect, means “exposure to risk and an inability to avoid or absorb potential harm” (Pelling 2003). It is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, risks. Thus, socio-spatial vulnerability can be defined as the openness of regions, territories, cities, parts of cities, urban-built environments, urban areas, neighbourhoods or places to the risks caused by diverse dynamics, events and impacts. These disturbances can be unexpected or expected, sudden shocks or slowly developing changes and can have different drivers (economic, social, political or ecological). Vulnerability refers to the limited capacity of spaces to avoid or absorb potential harm from diverse risks and includes complex sociopolitical characteristics attached to the spaces that accommodate them. This means that physical capacities as well as social processes attached to these spatial processes need to be addressed here. Socio-spatial vulnerabilities are defined not only in terms of path-dependent characteristics of space but also their exposure to major pressure/damaging phenomena and economic pressure, particularly in periods of change in economic and political regimes, while also discussing modes of regulation.

The very features that make cities feasible and desirable – their architectural structures, population concentrations, places of assembly, and interconnected infrastructure systems – also put them at high risk to floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and terrorist attacks (Godschalk 2003).

This chapter aims to explore the historical roots of the concept of resilience in the context of urban planning. The simplest definition of resilience in this case is the capacity of a system to undergo change and still retain its basic function and structure after facing an external disturbance. In other words, it has the capacity to change into a different system regime without crossing a certain threshold. This basic definition has its roots in applied sciences. In engineering, for instance, resilience refers to the capacity of a structure to withstand an impact without being permanently deformed (Callister 2000) while, in ecology, resilience is defined as the amount of disturbance that an ecosystem can withstand without changing its self-organised processes and structures (Holling 1973). Resilience has been used in wide range of areas, such as ecology, environmental and social sustainability, environmental sciences, hazard planning, ecosystem management, and even in supply chain risk research.