Cities are nowadays faced with an unprecedented crisis, due above all to the impacts of climate change and the increasing social inequalities, which require innovative approaches and more effective tools. Resilience is widely interpreted as a key principle to re-frame urban policies, paving the way to cross-sectoral urban strategies capable of better coping with contemporary challenges. This contribution focuses in particular on the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) Initiative, launched by the Rockefeller Foundation and addressed to support cities all over the world in developing and implementing strategies capable of increasing urban resilience in the face of multiple shocks and stresses, including climate change. In detail, based on the comparative analysis of two case studies, Rome and Athens, this paper aims at providing insights on the main strengths and weaknesses of cities’ resilience-building processes developed under the 100RC Initiative and at deeply analyzing the contribution of the delivered Resilience Strategies to the improvement of cities’ capacities to cope with contemporary challenges and above all with the increasing impacts of climate change.

Although the increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters assigns a key role to disaster risk management in current debate on sustainable development, the efforts of national and local authorities to develop risk-informed planning strategies and increase disaster preparedness are still limited. In multi-hazard urban environments, the main criticality to support risk-informed planning strategies is the persisting lack of effective knowledge bases focused on the vulnerability of exposed assets to different hazards. Hence, this contribution, according to the first priority of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction—understanding disaster risk—and by tidying up methods and indicators developed in both EU research projects and scientific studies devoted to multi-risk and vulnerability assessment, aims at better using available knowledge to guide risk-informed spatial planning. In detail, an indicator-based method to carry out a comprehensive exposure and vulnerability analysis has been outlined and tested on a case study area, the multi-hazard urban area of Campi Flegrei, located in the western part of the metropolitan city of Naples in the South of Italy. The proposed method may contribute to the building up of an effective risk knowledge base, enabling planners to easily access information on exposure and vulnerabilities to different hazards, and to differently combine them into output maps capable of supporting risk- informed planning strategies.

Campi Flegrei (Southern Italy) is the largest volcanic caldera in Europe and one of the most densely inhabited all over the world. The Campi Flegrei region has been populated for millennia and has been well known for the episodic periods of uplift, subsidence and seismicity since Roman times. Nevertheless, also due to the long time that has passed since the last eruption, the population’s awareness of living in a high-risk area is quite limited. Furthermore, spatial and emergency planning in this area has been long neglected and often ineffective. Hence, following a brief description of the most recent volcanic events occurred in Campi Flegrei, this paper provides an overview of the emergency and spatial plans and of the risk communication activities so far implemented. Then, the results of a survey carried out in the last year highlight the main gaps in hazard and risk awareness as well as in the knowledge of the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) system. A comparison of the survey’s outcomes with those of a previous one, published in 2013, allows for the understanding if residents’ risk perception and awareness have changed due to the still on-going unrest phase. The outcomes of the survey may be useful to drive local authorities towards more integrated policies to improve resilience to disasters and implement holistic DRM at all levels, in line with goal 11, target 11.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The paper aims at providing a methodological path to improve local communities’ ability to re-discover the value of their local, natural, and cultural capital, and outline shared strategies for its enhancement. The defined methodological path, addressed to knowledge co-creation and co-design of visions and strategies for future development, has been tested on selected case studies in Southern Italy, both of them characterised by high levels of marginality. Preserving local identities and increasing the sense of belonging of communities to their living places are, indeed, crucial for ensuring a sustainable and shared development process in marginal areas.

Fifteen years later, this contribution revisits Simin Davoudi’s article, “Resilience: A bridging concept or a dead end?”, focusing particularly on its impact and subsequent debates in urban planning, disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. Beginning with an analysis of the aims and content of Davoudi’s work, it illustrates how papers published between 2012 and 2026, which explicitly refer to her essay, build upon and expand the notion of evolutionary resilience. The gradual spread of this concept within the theoretical sphere is evident, as is the persistent gap between theory and practice. It also notes the difficulty in providing effective answers to the numerous questions posed by Davoudi and taken up by scholars in subsequent years regarding issues, such as social justice and equity, which are often raised by the application of the concept of resilience.