Topic: The human ecology of urban resilience

Background/Question/Methods

Urban ecosystem resilience (ecological, sociological and design/aesthetical) is based on pattern and process that ranges from bedlam to control. In their elaborated forms, bedlam systems are resilient through organic diversity, overlap, and buffering; control systems are resilient through engineered redundancy and directed pathways.  This paper describes the two forms of resilience, use several  cities as examples, and explains the implications to urban ecosystem management and design. The human ecosystem model (Machlis et al 2008 version) is introduced as one alternative tool for evaluating the impacts of bedlam and control within urban ecosystem functioning.
Results/Conclusions: The model has been widely applied to urban systems from Baltimore to Bangkok, and to conservation problems as well. In this effort, Bangkok is an elaborated real-world example of a bedlam city; Singapore is an elaborated example of a control city. A synthesis city —with key elements of bedlam and control combined—may well be Las Vegas. The implications for understanding urban ecosystems, their resilience and response to perturbations from dramatic population growth to climate change are described. The moral implications of bedlam vs. control are raised as well--urban ecology that engages human systems necessarily confronts the moral implications of alternative governance and operation.