Neighborhood Resilience and Urban Conflict：The Four Loops Model

This book explores resilience in urban neighborhoods affected by chronic conflict and violence, developing a new model for developing resilience. The neighborhood resilience approach is an inclusive form of building positive resilience, which recognizes that local communities possess valuable skills and experience of dealing with crises, and prioritizes the agency of local communities in the production of knowledge and developing practices. The book identifies and describes the repertoire of neighborhood resilience practices organized in four clusters: (1) addressing the structure of conflict; (2) increasing effectiveness of external resources; (3) enhancing community capacities; and (4) reflecting dynamics of identity and power in neighborhoods.

One of the key findings of the book is that nonlinear connections between structure and dynamics of conflict and neighborhood resilience practices can be represented in the Four-Loop Model. The concentration on community-based practices addresses macro-level critiques of neo-liberalism in critical resilience studies and encourages rethinking the ways community-based indicators might operate in combination with existing macro indicators of resilience. The bottom-up indicators provide more specific details and essential localized experiences for improving resilience policies at the national level.

This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, resilience, urban studies and US politics.