From Cook County to Ahmedabad the Real Work of Resilience

This article was originally published on Medium.

The recent AlphaGeo report, How Climate-Resilient Are the World’s Largest Cities?, brought two places with special meaning for me into the same global frame: Chicago, ranked first among the 72 cities assessed, and Ahmedabad, identified as facing a particularly demanding combination of physical climate risk and adaptation needs. Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, and Ahmedabad both are clients of Climate Resilience Consulting (CRC).

CRC Team with Chicago and Ahmedabad Resilience Leaders

A ranking illuminates conditions at a particular moment. What interests me even more is the ambitious work now underway in both places, and what their very different approaches teach us about building resilience.

CRC Team with Chicago and Ahmedabad Resilience Leaders

The two accompanying photographs were taken thousands of miles apart one in Chicago and one in Ahmedabad. In both, I am surrounded by people thinking seriously and creatively about how their communities can thrive in a changing climate.

The places could hardly be more different.

Cook County is home to more than five million people and 134 municipalities, anchored by Chicago and connected through an intricate web of local governments, public agencies, institutions, businesses, and community organizations.

Ahmedabad’s historic Walled City, founded in the 15th century, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is not simply a collection of historic buildings. It is a living city whose architecture, cultural traditions, livelihoods, infrastructure, and community life have evolved together over centuries.

Both Cook County and Ahmedabad are developing climate resilience strategies, and Climate Resilience Consulting is supporting them. The work has reminded me that there is no universal blueprint for resilience. The strongest strategies grow out of a place’s particular history, institutions, assets, risks, and aspirations.

Ahmedabad has undertaken something genuinely visionary: a Vision 2035-70 process that brings cultural heritage and climate resilience into the same long-term conversation. That horizon matters. It invites people to consider not only what must be protected from climate change, but what kind of living heritage city they want future generations to inherit.