Increasing the resilience and adaptive capacity of cities through entrepreneurial urbanism

This paper sets out to provide an illustrative discussion of emergent and somewhat decentralised urban uplift through a lens of entrepreneurial urbanism. Informal interventions by citizens and entrepreneurs can positively contribute to the urban environment which in turn provides the setting for real estate assets. This whole landscape perspective underlines the increasingly important partnership between citizens, private and public sectors in delivering a resilient yet adaptive urban environment as is evident in the recent shift from ‘managerialism’ to ‘entrepeneurialism’ in urban planning. The examples provided here demonstrate opportunities and beneficial effects of informal and appropriated uplift of spaces which fall outside of formal regeneration and renewal projects. It is asserted that this kind of democratisation of space will be increasingly relevant for urban development as public budgets are reduced and funding opportunities become more limited. Value creation and maintenance of the whole urban environment is increasingly a shared responsibility, requiring businesses to acknowledge greater levels of reciprocity and inter-dependencies. Cities are evolving ‘organic’ entities through which a more holistic and co-dependent appreciation of individual assets is suggested here in order to fully appreciate the environmental context and interplay between business and society.