Assessing patterns of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience across urban centers

Can repeated patterns of vulnerability and resilience be identified across urban areas? This question is addressed using a conceptualization of vulnerability developed by the climate community and applying a model-centered meta-analysis approach of 64 case studies on cities and vulnerability. In this meta-analysis the authors pull a minimum set of models or frameworks to go beyond existing case studies, looking for systematic patterns across the frameworks and describe patterns of urban vulnerability across and within urban centers. This paper illustrates that some components and determinants of vulnerability hold across urban cases. More specifically, the authors argue some determinants of vulnerability are consistent across specific situations, but also recognize that urban vulnerability is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon determined by a number of concurrent factors.