Urban Resilience as New Ways of Governing: The Implementation of the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative in Rome and Milan

In the last decades, the discourse on urban resilience has become extremely influential across the globe. In the field of urban planning and studies, scholars and practitioners have emphasised the role of cities as both spaces that are critically exposed to different kinds of risks and as strategic actors who can and must mobilize policy initiatives in order to cope with them. In this context, this chapter focuses on the mainstreaming and institutionalisation of discourses on urban resilience within local governments and governance networks through the intervention of Trans Municipal Networks (TMNs). The object of analysis is the participation of the cities of Milan and Rome to the implementation of the international initiative and network ‘100 Resilient Cities’, promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation. Based on a set of in-depth interviews with stakeholders and participant observation, the study addresses empirical evidence according to three analytical dimensions: downscaling; internal institutionalisation; and external institutionalisation.