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Development: Sustainability and resilience differ

Nature volume 546, page 352 (2017)Cite this article

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Sustainable urban development moved forward last year, when the United Nations adopted both the Sustainable Development Goal 11 on cities and the New Urban Agenda (see go.nature.com/2qz8ows). Unfortunately, these international policy documents interchangeably use two quite different concepts — sustainability and resilience. We are concerned that policymakers confuse the two because academics do, which hampers implementation.

Resilience is a property of a complex system. For example, the Internet is resilient because it continues to function even when major nodes collapse. Resilience may not always be desirable — witness dictatorships that are resilient across generations. It may also run counter to sustainability goals: for instance, efficiency reduces diversity and redundancy, both of which are key features of resilience.

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  1. Thomas Elmqvist: *On behalf of 4 correspondents (see Supplementary information for full list).

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  1. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden

    Thomas Elmqvist

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  1. Thomas Elmqvist
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Correspondence to Thomas Elmqvist.

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Elmqvist, T. Development: Sustainability and resilience differ. Nature 546, 352 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/546352d

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