^{By Professor Lily Kong, BBM, PMB, FBA,
President, Singapore Management University}

What does it mean for a city to be resilient in today’s world?

In July this year, over 100 city leaders, scholars, and industry partners gathered at City Dialogues in Vienna, co-convened by Singapore Management University and Urban Innovation Vienna, to reflect on the critical question of urban resilience.

Held alongside the Mayors Forum of the World Cities Summit 2025, the dialogue provided a timely opportunity to share how cities can navigate complexity—not only in response to disruption, but also in pursuit of sustainable and inclusive futures. Vienna, with its long-standing commitment to public housing, green infrastructure, and civic inclusion, was a fitting backdrop.

Inspired by SMU City Dialogues, I explore here how cities can bounce back, give back, and bring us back to health—through resilience, regeneration, and restoration.

Revisiting Resilience

Urban resilience is often understood in terms of preparedness and recovery — how cities respond to pandemics, natural disasters, or economic disruptions. These remain essential considerations, but the dialogue in Vienna revealed the need to think beyond reactive paradigms.

At Singapore Management University, we embrace the broader framing of cities as resilient, regenerative and restorative.

Resilient cities anticipate, adapt, and respond effectively to disruptions. This involves not only physical infrastructure, but also social cohesion and institutional foresight. My colleague, Professor Winston Chow—Co-Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II—has advanced important research on urban heat vulnerability and adaptive cooling strategies in Southeast Asia. His work exemplifies the role that place-based, data-informed research can play in shaping policy and public understanding in the making of resilient cities.

Regenerative cities go further. They are concerned with replenishing ecological and social systems that have been depleted. For instance, Professor Archan Misra’s work on ultra-low power sensors and sustainable IoT infrastructure envisages the smart city as not merely efficient but also ecologically responsive and scalable in reducing environmental burdens.

Restorative cities return us to the heart of urban life: its people. These are cities that foreground the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of residents. At SMU’s Urban Institute, our researchers adopt interdisciplinary approaches to understand how different segments of a population – older adults, migrants, caregivers and others – experience and navigate the city. In this framing, restoration is not simply repair; it is about enabling dignity, care, and connection in the everyday fabric of city life.

While distinct in emphasis, resilience, regeneration, and restoration are mutually reinforcing—together, they shape cities that can withstand crisis, sustain life, and nurture the human spirit.

Introducing the Sensitive City

Beyond the 3Rs, a fourth concept emerged in our City Dialogue in Vienna: the sensitive city. This is a city that listens. One that uses data and technology not solely for optimization, but to understand how people feel, experience, and interact in shared spaces. It recognizes that vulnerability is unevenly distributed; and that resilience, without equity, can deepen exclusion.

To that end, sensitivity is not antithetical to resilience; it is its necessary complement. It reflects a posture of humility, reflexivity, and empathy in urban governance. And it resonates with longstanding values in many societies, including Japan, where harmony with nature, attention to place, and respect for the everyday are deeply embedded in the urban experience.

Towards a Collaborative Practice

What emerged strongly from City Dialogues was the recognition that no single institution or sector can address urban complexity alone. The challenges we face – climate adaptation, social fragmentation, infrastructural renewal – are deeply interconnected. Responses must be as well.

At SMU, we believe that knowledge must cross boundaries. Our researchers work alongside policymakers and practitioners, ensuring our ideas do not remain in journals, but shape neighborhoods. Through platforms like our Urban Institute and City Dialogues, we embrace a “triple helix” model – where government, academia, and industry engage in sustained, reciprocal partnership.

In this spirit, City Dialogues is more than just an academic symposium. It is a springboard for real-world collaborations—where knowledge meets policy, where ideas become interventions.

Cities as Communities of Meaning

What then is the value of urban resilience?

Its value lies not only in the ability to recover from crisis, but in the capacity to anticipate with foresight, to adapt with resolve, and to rebuild with care. In this way, resilience enables cities to confront complexity with confidence.

But if resilience is about responding to disruption, regeneration calls on us to replenish what has been depleted—our ecosystems, our resources, our shared futures. And restoration reminds us to care for the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of those who call our cities home.

Together, these orientations offer more than a defensive posture. They invite us to imagine cities not just as engines of growth, but as communities of meaning.

That was the aspiration that brought us to Vienna. It is also the work that lies ahead.

For more information on City Dialogues, please visit: City Dialogues | City Perspectives