The challenges for tomorrow’s communities

There is a new mantra in town. Communities must become more resilient. It is imperative that they can withstand the shocks and strains that are increasingly coming their way. What has brought this about? The short answer is that global crises have, of late, been arriving like proverbial buses. During the decade after the 2008 banking crisis, the world was confronted in 2016 by the fervent unilateralism of Brexit and Trump - and its disruptive impact on trade relations and economic stability. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, causing social as well as financial havoc. In the meantime, the climate emergency has only worsened;in 2018 inequality widened to the point that the world’s 26 richest individuals possessed as much wealth as the 3.8 billion people who made up the poorest 50 per cent on the planet (Elliott, 2019);the worldwide surge of anti-liberalism is escalating hatred and discrimination against vulnerable groups;and job insecurity everywhere has been intensified by the rapid advancement in automation and artificial intelligence. © Bristol University Press 2021.