BUILDING URBAN RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE FOR URBAN POOR

Abstract

The urban poor are quite vulnerable groups because of the difficult and poor living conditions as well as their exposure to the increasing risk of climate change and its negative impacts. Increasing the resilience of the urban poor to climate change is one of the adaptation policies, but the studies on this issue are limited. These studies emphasize increasing the institutional capacity, integrating risk reduction into urban planning, local participation, community partnerships with local governments, adaptation of community’s assets, etc. to reduce the vulnerability of the urban poor to climate change.
This article assesses the vulnerability of the urban poor from the urban planning window. The slums of the urban poor have high vulnerability and low adaptation capacity due to being located in vulnerable and dangerous areas, intensive settlement structure, inadequate infrastructure, narrow and irregular street networks, substandard and poor quality housing, precarious property. This article is emphasized that a plan should be made with local participation in the framework of a planning approach based on "resilience thinking" which aims to reduce the vulnerabilities of the urban poor, increase their vulnerability or adaptation capacity, and "local resilience action plans" and resource management should be integral parts of this plan.