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Concepts of sustainability and resilience have been increasingly discussed in the last ten years since climate change become a tremendous issue in human life. Some people think that both sustainability and resilience are synonymous, but these two terms are, in fact, different. Sustainability, although it means many things to many people in many different contexts, is related to the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic system considerations. Meanwhile, resilience was viewed as a system to overcome expected and unexpected challenges (threats and shocks). Sustainability and resilience are both used to describe a system. The increasing number discusses these issues can be seen from the increasing number of academic articles and journals on the website.

Understanding the similarities and differences in sustainability and resilience is essential for decision-makers. If they are unfamiliar with the similarities and differences of these two terms, then the implementation of these two concepts may bring several problems not only for the decision-makers but also for the context where they are applied, especially in the context of cities. As it can be seen from multifarious problems in previous cases in climate change strategies, increasing urban density strategies , and disaster mitigation efforts.

In terms of climate change mitigation efforts, for example, as Lizarralde and friends found that there were some tensions between sustainability and resilience when they applied in the built environment in several cities in the United Kingdom include achievements or capacities, incremental performances, efficiency and redundancy, Mid-term and long-term equilibrium, and emphasis on standards. In the UK, Lizarralde found that the sustainability agenda was focused on the achievements of energy consumption performance and lowering CO2 emission while the resilience paradigm emphasizes the capacity to cope with challenges mostly focused on floods and terrorism although they have high priority hazards and threats such as pandemic flu, low temperatures, heatwaves and so forth. In terms of trial and error performances, in the UK, Lizarralde and friends also found that the sustainability agenda focused to decrease resource consumption while the resilience agenda emphasizes on testing performance by using anticipated catastrophic predictions. Moving to the efficiency and redundancy, the sustainability paradigm depends on the approach of reducing the number in consumption and minimizing environmental impacts whereas the resilience agenda was more fenceless to the assumption of damages and disaster prevention. Meanwhile, although sustainability and resilience consider on long-term impacts, in the UK they both applied in a different way. Sustainability agenda doubts that the next generations can get the impact as a result of decisions made today while the resilience agenda supports that the generation will get the changes of today’s intervention as long as it happened simultaneously and constantly. Last, in terms of emphasis, the sustainability paradigm in the UK has largely emphasized on international standards, sometimes the concept despises the importance of local structures. Instead, the resilience paradigm focused on local potentials before going internationally.

From the cases of implementation sustainability in the UK, it can be seen that contradicts between sustainability and resilience paradigm occurred in a different scale and in a different context and it needs a good understanding of a policymaker to combine these paradigms in order to create a well-implemented policy in the UK. Synergies are the main key to encapsulate the paradigms and produce a good policy

The similar cases also happened in Boston, USA. The city has miscellaneous problems that need to be solved in order to achieve resilient and sustainable development goal include economic inequality, climate change, environmental stresses, terrorism, community trauma, health inequities, educational opportunity, and achievement gaps, inequitable transportation infrastructure, and systemic racism. One of the biggest challenges in Boston is climate change. As a coastal city, Boston has the highest potential risk of flood and damage caused by the rising of sea level (Fig. 1). In 2013, Boston was ranked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as one of the top ten metropolitan area which has possibility to lose their annual economic due to coastal flooding disaster. This will bring a tremendous impact on the important infrastructures such as Logan International Airport and the Seaport World Trade Center.

The accidents of bombing and shooting also shaped an unforgettable memory for Boston citizens. Therefore, communities in the city collaborated with the government to campaign this issue so people will more care about the issue of community trauma. Although it sounds a small issue, community trauma problems might also bring a huge impact on an urban resilience and sustainable city strategy.

Among all the problems, Boston could be said achieved the urban resilience sustainability development goal. The city succesfully balanced the tension between these two paradigm on the implementaiton. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network in 2018 [11] reported that the city had good performance on several indicatora such as education, clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communites, health and well being. Although Boston had poor performance in climate action, overall reported mentioned that the city had a high score index on more than 60 on sustainable development goal. Two reasons why Boston could balance the terms of sustainability and resilience and achieved high score might be the resilience strategy process and preliminary resilience assessment.

As it stated on Boston’s preliminary resilience assessment document (April 2016) :

Boston’s Preliminary Resilience Assessment (PRA) is based on stakeholder engagement, previous and current relevant initiatives, and preliminary research. As a result, the Chief Resilience Officer, Resilience Steering Committee, and Racial Equity Working Group developed the Resilience Themes and Discovery Area Questions in the PRA. The PRA is a critical milestone in developing Boston’s Resilience Strategy. The objective of the Boston Resilience Strategy is to provide a framework for building resilience. This framework is meant to trigger action, investment and support to facilitate change both from within city government and more broadly throughout Boston. This will be an inclusive process that needs participation and ownership from all partners. The strategy development process is divided into three phases: Phase I establishes the foundation for the Resilience Strategy Phase II is strategy build-out, and Phase III begins the implemention of the strategy. The City of Boston is now at the end Phase I which will guide a more targeted discussion of approaches, actions, and implementation for Phase II. Rather than a static traditional written plan, the Resilience Strategy will become the collective efforts of the Boston Resilience Collaborative (BRC) for development, implementation, and measurement of progress. The BRC will consist of the Mayor’s Office of Resilience, the Resilience Steering Committee, the Racial Equity Working Group, the remaing Working Groups currently under development, and others willing to be active partners.

It can be seen that Boston tried to balance the tension between resilience and sustainability by a multiscale collaboration of the governments, communities, and stakeholders based on some critiques and initiatives.

Another example of balancing between sustainability and resilience agenda could be found in Singapore. The city has a series of challenges, but climate change and changing demographics are the two key challenges. The rising of sea level is the most crucial threat caused by climate change to Singapore because the city lies only 15 meter above the sea level. In addition, by 2030, there will be a demographic shift where the inflow of immigrants and foreign workers will increased significantly and affect their economic dynamism and growth.

In order to solve the problems, Singapore has a solution called “Learning from the past, looking to the future” where the city learn how to find a solution base on a collection of case studies from the past. The solution includes provide spaces for communities, building a strong community, promoting a great awareness and action, Fostering ownership and social cohesion, and so forth. The city also share the solutions so future actions can continue to build upon.

The way Singapore manage sustainability and resilience paradigm is by framing sustainability as a component of resilience development as it can be seen in one of Singapore resilience effort which is Sustainable Singapore Blueprint (SSB). The city tried to develop the resilience through the implementation of sustainable principles. When making a policy, Singapore also used the same way with that of Boston, where the communities have a tremendous role in order to share an idea or opinion. However, there is no Resilience Officer (CRO) either in sustainability or resilience agenda in Singapore. For example, it can be seen from the empowering community strategy, which is now is an ongoing project in Singapore, where the involved stakeholders vary from government, grassroots, non-profit organizations/ social enterprises, and community.