Evaluating Urban Resilience Capacity for Transformative Spatial Planning

Spatial planning increasingly confronts urban and territorial contexts shaped by interconnected global shocks, often described as a “polycrisis.” Rapid urbanization, climate change, resource pressures, and growing uncertainty place cities at the center of both climate vulnerability and responsibility, as they account for a large share of global emissions and energy use. While international agreements stress mitigation, effective climate adaptation also requires transformative changes in spatial planning, including the integration of resilience and a rethinking of growth-oriented development models toward multidimensional wellbeing. Developed within the RETURN Extended Partnership, this research explores urban and transformative resilience as the capacity of urban systems to maintain essential functions while continuously learning and adapting to future shocks. In response to the lack of standardized frameworks for measuring urban resilience, the study develops a comprehensive and spatially explicit set of progress indicators. Based on a systematic literature review and empirical testing, the framework captures the multidimensional nature of resilience, encompassing built, environmental, social, economic, and institutional dimensions. The indicator set is designed as a flexible tool applicable across scales, particularly at the urban and district levels, and supports monitoring, scenario evaluation, and policy design. Its application in the city of Turin (Italy) demonstrates its effectiveness in assessing resilience to risks such as flooding, air pollution, and urban heat island effects, and in identifying transformation scenarios to inform urban policy. The study highlights the need for context-sensitive yet transferable resilience evaluations and advocates a shift in spatial planning from reactive approaches toward proactive, resilience-oriented and post-growth strategies.