Scholars from home and abroad contribute their thoughts on urban resilience at the International Symposium of Resilient City held in Wenzhou. [Photo/st.zjol.com.cn]

The city of Wenzhou in East China's Zhejiang province hosted the International Symposium of Resilient Cities from Sept 10 to 11.

The symposium is one of a series of international events ahead of the second World Young Scientist Summit (WYSS 2020) to be held in the city in October. Among the attendees, who contributed their thoughts online and offline, were more than 100 experts from UN-Habitat as well as countries and regions including China, the UK, France, Italy, Finland, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent crisis has led experts and the general public to rethink urban planning and construction, emergency treatment, and sustainable development. The "resilience" discussed in the symposium refers to a city's ability to cope with and transcend chronic difficulties such as air pollution and water shortages, as well as drastic shocks caused by emergency accidents such as earthquakes and flooding.

Zhejiang has started research into the concept of a "resilient city" and has also begun to put it into practice. In 2019, the Hangzhou-based Zhejiang University established the Resilient City Research Center, the first of its kind in China, focusing on strategic studies on how to improve the resilience of a city's urban system, including traffic, water-related issues, power and architecture, amid natural disasters and public accidents. In addition, Yiwu and Haiyan, two county-level cities in Zhejiang, have entered the global network of 100 Resilient Cities, established by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Wenzhou authorities released data in relation to the city's enhanced urban resilience at the symposium. Wenzhou, a mountainous, coastal city with stretched land resources, has so far created a vast space measuring 390,000 mu (260 square kilometers) through a sea reclamation project. The city has also added 36,000-mu land for construction use through urban village renovation since 2015. It's expected that both changes will facilitate the city's further urbanization, which in turn will entail plentiful business opportunities.

The symposium released a declaration on efficiently utilizing underground space in cities across the Yangtze River Delta, including in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai. The host city of Wenzhou has made a strong start in this regard: the city has promulgated a series of government documents in recent years and the basements beneath its urban area have so far created nearly 30 square kilometers in floor space.