Community Resilience and Critical Urban Infrastructure: Where Adaptive Capacities Meet Vulnerabilities

In many of Southeast Asia’s cities, critical infrastructure development is concentrated in affluent areas; and poor communities, lacking access to basic services, often resort to alternatives that may be unsafe or more expensive. Crucially for policymakers, these options leave communities vulnerable to a range of threats that reduce not just their own long-term resilience, but also that of the city overall. An examination of the water infrastructure in Jakarta, Manila and Ho Chi Minh City amply illustrates this. The cases suggest that to bring about greater community resilience, and thus ensure security and sustainable development, governments must vigorously upgrade critical infrastructure not just to improve efficiency, but also to achieve equity among urban communities. [NTS Insight no. IN13-07].