Stimulating urban transition and transformation to achieve sustainable and resilient cities

Third, we combine the information obtained from these stakeholder exercises with that extracted from the literature in order to provide a fuller picture on how stimulate the transition and transformation to achieve sustainable and resilient cities. Based on our literature review and empirical approach, we formulate an integrated conceptual model for transition that enables the design of adaptation (and mitigation) strategies that consider the triggers of change. Uniquely we identified 8 triggers of change, including authority and political leadership, learning from disasters, co-responsibility, increased public-private interface, social participation and the living lab approach to innovation. The proposed model can be applied to the whole city or to a certain sector of the city (e.g. energy). We demonstrate that triggers of change help to overcome planning and implementation barriers and move the socio-ecological and socio-technical systems of any city towards those of a resilient city.