Barbara Martini (p)

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu

The 2007 economic shock has affected Italian regions strongly, nevertheless with remarkable differences among them. The aim of the paper is not to analyses the economic impact of the crisis on regions but to investigate the determinant of regional resilience using a holistic approach and by exploring regional specialization, economic structure and human capital. Moreover, a spatial analysis will be carried out in order to explore the relationships among regions. Resilience is not only a regional attribute but can be influenced by spill-over effects. Following this approach resilience emerges also as result of spatial effects. Among spatial units there may be a spatial dependence i.e. a functional relationship between what happens at one point in space and what happens elsewhere. Spatial effects such as spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence should be taken into consideration in order to include the spatial spill-over into the analysis and exploring resilience not only as a regional attribute but also as a consequence of geographic localization. This contribution innovatively contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, according to Martin et al., (2016), resistance and recovery are part of an evolving dynamic and changes occur slowly. Choices made in the past affect the resilience ability today. In exploring Italian regional resistance and recoverability, we highlight not only the post-shock impacts but also the situation before the shock. In doing so we will investigate the Italian regional structure and the regional specialization. Moreover, we will use the Multi-Factor Partitioning (MFP) (Ray et al., 2012, Gardiner et al., 2013) to decompose the regional employment change and to investigate how the different components influence the resilience. Second, using literature regarding the social resilience, we will investigate the relationship between human capital and resilience looking at the determinant of resilience in a holistic way. Finally, a spatial analysis will be taken into consideration. The interactions among spatial units and resilience are still unexplored in literature.

Daniela-Luminita Constantin (p), Cristina Serbanica (p)

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu

See extended abstract.

Kamila Borsekova (p), Peter Nijkamp

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu

Disruptions of the stable growth path of a city (or urban agglomeration) may come from different origins, in particular, a collapse of the local economy due to malfunctioning of economic actors in the city concerned, a deterioration of the urban system concerned due to severe governmental or public policy failures, or a disastrous decay of the complex urban fabric due to external devastating forces (such as a banking crisis, natural disasters or political conflicts). If such disruptions occur, two major issues arise: (i) what are the broader or system wide impacts (socio-economic, spatial-morphological, ecological etc.) of an unanticipated event, and (ii) what are appropriate policy measures so as to cope effectively with these disruptions?
This concern brings us into the realm of vulnerability and resilience analysis for cities. Each complex system that is susceptible to drastic changes (often in a downward direction) will try to recover from the consequences of its vulnerability. This prompts the question on the resilience conditions after an (internal or external) disruptive development of the urban system. And in particular on the role of governance in order to restore the balance for a city finding itself in a downward transition, which needs a radical recovery policy.
Against this background, the present paper aims to analyse the interrelationships between resilience and vulnerability and to depict and assess feasible or desirable concerted resilience strategies for a disrupted urban socioeconomic system. In order to cover this broad topic, in the present paper both qualitative and quantitative research in several stages of an urban systems analysis, is undertaken. The explanatory and exploratory study of the connectivity between resilience and vulnerability analysis is supplemented by cluster and correlation analysis of a broad range of urban data.
Different patterns of the complex interaction between resilience and vulnerability are clearly influenced by various drivers and linkages among them. It is noteworthy that cities vary enormously in their adaptive capacity to new or unexpected challenges, due to several crucial factors such as governance, institutions, cultural habits, technology, wealth, urban planning, and their ability to respond to such challenges. This calls for so-called concerted urban resilience strategies based on balanced multi-stakeholder strategies. The urban resilience increases when cities have more adaptive capacity, and decreases when they are more vulnerable. Reduction of vulnerability through deliberate actions, such as concerted strategies, may increase the resilience of the socioeconomic system concerned.