Strengthening Concepts and Collaborations: IWG meets in Milan to Advance Work on Resilient Metropolitan Regions

On 20 and 21 February 2025, the ARL International Working Group “Resilient Metropolitan Regions – Spatial Planning and Management for Urban Transformation” met at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) at Politecnico di Milano for a two-day plenary meeting. The aim was to further develop the position paper, discuss the methodological approach to case studies, and plan the group’s activities and outputs for 2025.

On the first day, the group discussed the current draft position paper and the conceptual understanding of resilience in metropolitan regions. The group agreed on a timeline for comments, revision and integration of contributions, with the shared goal of finalising and publishing the position paper in 2025. It also elaborated a qualitative approach to case studies focusing on key challenges and governance issues at the metropolitan scale, which was further refined through feedback from the group and additional literature suggestions.

The second day focused on preparing an exchange with (CRAFT) based on the working group’s preliminary results. To encourage closer collaboration, members were mixed into new sub-groups that brought together conceptual work and practice-oriented perspectives. In the afternoon, the IWG met with CRAFT colleagues, presented its work on resilient metropolitan regions and exchanged experiences and ideas for future cooperation.

In the final discussion, the group addressed organisational matters and next steps. The members outlined planned outputs, including the ARL position paper, a special session at the AESOP Annual Congress 2025 in Istanbul, a poster for the ARL Congress “Future now! – Shaping the socio-ecological transformation” in Halle (Saale), and possible special issues and other formats to reach both academic and practitioner audiences.