Shocks, recovery processes and cultivating urban plasticity: a neuroplasticity-informed perspective on urban resilience

By drawing together two previously disparate literatures – urban resilience and neuroplasticity – a new integrated urban plasticity approach is outlined. Urban plasticity is a fresh perspective through which to ask questions about the city and also, importantly, the people, places and people-place connections that form a city’s identity and which contribute to urban recovery capabilities. Instead of presenting a ‘correct’ approach to recovery, the chapter suggests that attending to the qualities of a particular context is conducive to developing a richer improvisational ability to guide systems of people and structures through crises and subsequent recoveries.