What is Resilience?

per Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook

Resilience refers to the ability of a system, from individual people to whole economies. to hold together and maintain their ability to function in the face of change and shocks from the outside.

(p.12)

In the context of communities and settlements, it refers to their ability to not collapse at first sight of oil or food shortages, and to their ability to respond with adaptability to disturbance.

(p.54)

The benefits for a community with enhanced resilience will be that:

• If one part is destroyed, the shock will not ripple through the whole system
• There is a wide diversity of character and solutions developed creatively in response to local circumstances
• It can meet its needs despite the substantial absence of travel and transport
• The other big infrastructures and bureaucracies of the intermediate economy are replaced by fit-for-purpose local alternatives at drastically reduced cost.

(p.55, quoting David Fleming)

... being more prepared for a leaner future, more self-reliant, and prioritising the local over the imported.

(p.55)

See also page 5 of this pdf