Urban fragilities and resilience strategies: implementing the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda in the Adriatic Balkan Region

It is recognised that sustainable development, rapid urbanization and climate change are the major global challenges cities are facing, as outlined by international policies, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda, and by an increasing number of international and local initiatives, networks and actions. Furthermore, over the past decade, resilience has been gaining ever-greater prominence in the international development debate, emerging as one of the core principles of sustainable urban development. In particular, the connection between resilience and fragility within a city was illustrated by Muggah, Patel, and de Boer (2016) using the fragility-resilience double helix. Urban resilience, like urban fragility, is dynamic and changing over time; it is an inherently contextual concept, the capacity of which depends on the urban system in its entirety and on the interconnections between city elements and beyond the urban boundaries. Therefore, designing and planning more liveable and sustainable cities in an innovative and effective way provides an opportunity to foster resilience to such an environmental, socio-economic and political uncertainty, through the adoption of a holistic approach, able to better harmonize and integrate policies, strategies and actions across scales, particularly between the national, sub-national and local level. In the light of the scenario described above, where resilience and sustainability are two complementary paradigms of urban development, and with reference to an ongoing research, this paper investigates the Adriatic Balkan Region, a frontier area in which Europe meets the East. Like all frontiers, this is a crossroad of contradictory processes and, at the same time, a laboratory, useful for the whole of Europe, for developing and experimenting with cooperation strategies in order to address major common issues. Worth mentioning are projects such as SEE URBAN, ADRION and the initiative My City is Being Prepared.