The effect of public places on community resilience. A case study of the role of social and digital tools in the City of Volos (Greece)

Abstract

Community resilience provides capacity to speed up recovery from disruptions, minimizes the impact of crises and helps to plan and adapt to long-term urban challenges. Public places are vital structural elements of the urban environment and they are considered useful tools for community resilience if they have physical and social capacities, with inclusiveness as their conceptual basis. This chapter investigates the main resources and activities of community resilience related to urban public places, and explores whether public places are useful tools for risk mitigation, emergency response, recovery and adaptation. A case study in the Greek city of Volos is conducted. The study explores the existing institutional framework and community building for disaster management, it surveys public spaces in Volos, and explores their role in disaster prevention. Furthermore, the case study investigates social risk mitigation practices in public spaces, identifies challenges associated with community resilience and discusses strengths and weaknesses of using digital tools to overcome these challenges. Within this framework, the potential of using Blockchain technology for strengthening community resilience is discussed by elaborating on its features and existing applications.

Young People and Placemaking: The Provision of Public Spaces for and by Youth

“…The literature search confirmed that digital technologies can provide useful support before, during and after disasters (Ruchinskaya & Lalenis, 2020). In this framework, the experience of using cultural memories of past disasters in digital games in Volos was a useful tool for raising disaster awareness.…”