Researching-the-Urban-Dilemma-Baseline-study

themselves, giving rise to a Manichean landscape of “safe” gated communities and “violent”
slums. 281 According to Gotz and Simone (2009), in some informal settings defined by volatility and
unpredictability and control over confined spaces, tensions over unclaimed spaces can lead to the staging of
exaggerated and often violent claims of belonging. 282 However, city disorder need not imply that urban spaces
are unable to cope with such challenges and ultimately transform.
On the contrary, the “resilience” of cities is a crucial feature that is often overlooked, and one from which
important lessons can be drawn. 283 The concept of resilience can be defined as an ongoing process of
adaptation/coping of territorially bounded units including the city’s formal as well as informal social, political,
and economic institutions and its members and affiliates to exogenous and endogenous stress. 284 Indeed,
proponents of the public health approach note how “protective factors” – characteristics of an individual and
his/her environment that strengthen the capacity to confront stresses without recourse to violence – play a
role in facilitating healing and decreasing the propensity of violence behavior. There is, for example,
considerable evidence that a feeling of social connection is an important protective factor against violent
behavior. 285
While still a comparatively nascent area of study, there is a growing body of work examining the critical place
of protective factors in enhancing resilience and resistance to urban violence. Drawing largely on the
ecological model noted above, protective factors tend to be aggregated at multiple levels. Moreover, it is
often the accumulation of such factors that are said to enhance the safety and security of urban residents.
Examinations include “social connections” in the family at an early age – including the reduction of child
exposure to violence but also their exposure to positive family role models. Other social connections that are
considered protective include peer groups as well as proactive community associations and schools and their
authorities. Sociologists have also highlighted the role of community networks and productive employment
opportunities as “protective.” 286
281 See Lemanski (2012, 2007).
282 Credit to Colin Marx for pointing out this argument. Interview, December 2012.
283 See Muggah and Jutersonke (2012). See also URCV (www.urbanresilience.org) for a review of literature on how formal and informal
institutions in cities adapt and cope with situations of chronic and acute violence.
284 The URCV project´s approach to assessing resilience builds on the notions of (i) metabolic flows that sustain urban functions; (ii)
governance networks and adaptive capacities of societies to meet urban challenges; and (iii) the social dynamics of citizens in relation
(and response) to changes in their built environment. Ibid.
285 See, for example, WHO (2002) and Gabriel et al (1996).
286 See World Bank (2010).
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