New York, L.A. atop list of world’s most resilient cities
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New York and Los Angeles top a list of the world’s 25 most resilient cities in a report Monday from Tokio Marine Group and Economist Impact.
Rounding out the top five are, in order, London, Singapore and Paris.
The five cities with the lowest resiliency score, 21st through 25th on the list, are New Delhi, Jakarta, Cairo, Dhaka and Lagos.
Economist Impact defines urban resilience as a city’s ability to avoid, withstand and recover from shocks, such as natural disasters, and from long-term stresses such as poverty, decrepit infrastructure or migration, the report said.
Cities performed largely well in the “critical infrastructure pillar of the index,” but fared less well with the “socio-institutional pillar,” mainly due to income inequality and poor health conditions, the report said.
Such findings take on added importance against the backdrop of population forecasts showing cities as main population centers.
By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world’s population will call cities home, the report said.
Sometimes the absence of basic staples such as electricity can hamper a city’s resilience, such as in Mexico City, with 22 million people, or New Delhi, with 32 million. Some 107 million people live in cities with “inadequate electricity provision,” according to the report.
Social services, like infrastructure, are also a key part of the equation. Only six cities – Dubai, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Munich and Tokyo – have emergency services that can respond in under 10 minutes, the report said.
