Building resilient cities is becoming increasingly vital due to the rise in urban challenges such as climate change, socioeconomic disparities, and pandemics. While the concept of resilience is gaining popularity, many scholars argue that existing resilience plans do not adequately address social equity issues. Therefore, this study investigates the incorporation of equity into resilience planning by conducting a case study analysis of ten European resilience strategies. The employed methodology is summative content analysis, and the approach is inductive. For each resilience strategy, the incorporation of three equity dimensions—distributional, procedural, and recognitional—is examined. The results show significant variation in addressing equity dimensions across the case studies. Although some plans do not effectively address equity, others integrate it more comprehensively and successfully. Thus, we argue that resilience planning can potentially contribute to social equity issues, although currently, this contribution is not sufficient. We recommend a number of strategies by which future resilience planning can enhance its contribution. These are: promoting structural transformations, considering the political processes of resilience building, adopting participatory approaches to co-create resilience plans, fostering trust and accountability between citizens and governing bodies, favouring a systemic view, and prioritising the upstream inequality factors for building capacity.

Energetic resilience is seen as one of the most prominent fields of investigation in the upcoming years. The increasing efficiency of urban systems depends on the conversion of energetic production of buildings, and therefore, from the capacity of urban systems to be more rational in the use of renewable resources. Nevertheless, the integration of the energetic regulation into the ordinary urban planning documents is far from being reached in most of planning processes. In Italy, mainstreaming energetic resilience in ordinary land use planning appears particularly challenging, even in those Local Administrations that tried to implement the national legislation into Local Building Regulation. In this work, an empirical methodology to provide an overall assessment of the solar production capacity has been applied to selected indicators of urban morphology among the different land use parcel-zones, while implementing a geographic information system-based approach to the city of Moncalieri, Turin (Italy). Results demonstrate that, without exception, the current minimum energy levels required by law are generally much lower than the effective potential solar energy production that each land use parcel-zone could effectively produce. We concluded that local planning processes should update their land use plans to reach environmental sustainability targets, while at the same time the energetic resilience should be mainstreamed in urban planning by an in-depth analysis of the effective morphological constraints. These aspects may also represent a contribution to the international debates on energetic resilience and on the progressive inclusion of energy subjects in the land use planning process.

The Green Transition is the European growth strategy—supported by the European Green Deal (EGD, 2019)—that aims to overcome climate change and environmental degradation, foster climate neutrality by 2050, boost the economy through green technology, create sustainable industry and transport, and cut pollution. EU Member States are requested to implement actions that support the Green Transition, contributing to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. At the same time, the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) is the EU’s instrument to guarantee that the shift to a climate-neutral economy proceeds fairly and leaves no one behind. Turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities implies that the transition must be just and inclusive for all. Even though within the EU policy framework, Green Transition commonly comes together with the justice dimension, the spatial interdependence between these concepts requires more clarification. Therefore, this contribution questions the EU's Just Transition Strategy and addresses its important limitations: Overemphasising the distributive dimension of justice while undermining the procedural one, paying inadequate attention to the spatial dimension of justice, and considering justice as a secondary element of Green Transition. By analysing these constraints, the chapter provides a critical standpoint of the EU's Just Transition Strategy, highlighting significant gaps in its approach to justice. In addition, practical recommendations for policymakers are made to integrate spatial justice into the Green Transition. Some of these recommendations include assessing how environmental policies related to the Green Transition impact different geographies on a local scale; ensuring equitable geographical access to new infrastructures, such as urban green spaces, renewable energy sources, and green jobs across neighbourhood; promoting green job creation in disadvantaged areas; providing fair access to training programmes; empowering the least advantaged groups in decision-making; and, finally, promoting bottom-up decision-making processes that are inclusive, transparent, and focused on addressing structural inequities, rather than solely on immediate economic and environmental impacts.

In contemporary spatial planning, territorial resilience is rapidly gaining relevance, referring to a territory’s capacity to withstand, adapt to, recover from, and transform in response to environmental, social, and economic pressures. However, several constraints limit its operationalisation in planning. A key element to addressing this gap is to investigate where and which interventions are most urgently needed to tackle the impact of hazards on territories. This can be achieved by understanding and localising the vulnerabilities of territorial systems, thereby enabling the definition of appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures. This paper presents the application of R3C-GeoResilience, an open-source GIS tool and its methodological framework, which allows mapping territorial vulnerabilities across different geographical contexts and spatial scales. The methodology is applied to the Italian case of the Union of Bassa Romagna (UBR), aiming to build capacity for local practitioners to implement resilience thinking in decision-making processes. Findings underscore the potential of R3C-GeoResilience to enhance evidence-based planning and policymaking, supporting adaptive and transformative strategies to address territorial vulnerabilities. The application of the research demonstrates the replicability and adaptability of the methodological framework for integrating participatory vulnerability mapping into local governance and urban planning strategies, thereby enhancing the resilience of territories.

Territorial resilience is becoming increasingly recognised in contemporary spatial planning, referring to a territory’s capacity to withstand, adapt to, recover from, and transform in response to environmental, social, and economic pressures. However, several constraints limit its operationalisation in planning. A key element to addressing this gap is to investigate where and which interventions are most urgently needed to tackle the impact of hazards on territories. This can be achieved by understanding and localising the vulnerabilities of territorial systems, thereby enabling the definition of appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures. This paper presents the application of R3C-GeoResilience, an open-source GIS tool and its methodological framework, which enables mapping territorial vulnerabilities across different geographical contexts and spatial scales. The methodology is applied to the Italian case of the Union of Bassa Romagna (UBR), aiming to build capacity for local practitioners to implement resilience thinking in decision-making processes. Findings underscore the potential of R3C-GeoResilience to enhance evidence-based planning and policymaking, supporting adaptive and transformative strategies for tackling territorial vulnerabilities. The application of the research demonstrates the replicability and adaptability of the methodological framework for integrating participatory vulnerability mapping into local governance and urban planning strategies, thereby enhancing the resilience of territories.