Resilience Is a System, Not a Silo | President's Message - August 2025

By Danielle DiLeo Kim, AIA
President, AIA Philadelphia

This summer I’ve been fortunate to spend time in eight very different U.S. cities: Boston, San Diego, Harrisburg, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Portland (Oregon), New York, and of course, Philadelphia. As a geeky urbanist, it’s been a fun and busy summer of discovery and observation. As I explored each one I kept asking myself: what’s working here and what’s not? More specifically: how resilient are these cities?

Resilience is a big word. It means resisting threats, recovering from setbacks, adapting to new conditions, and transforming in the face of change. Cities are made up of unbelievably complex systems—physical, social, and economic—all of which are deeply interconnected. One decision in one area ripples through all the others.

The pedestrian-first streets in Ann Arbor and NYC’s Chinatown and the active development in Boston’s Seaport

Take one of my favorite stops of the summer: Ann Arbor, Michigan. The easy quality of life there struck me as remarkable, and not by accident—it’s the result of years of investment in a vibrant mixed-use downtown that supports the mothership: the University of Michigan. It’s clearly a city that values greenspace with its abundant parks and arboretums, pedestrian-first open streets, and ample cultural experiences to engage its highly-educated residential population. On the other hand, cities like Detroit, Harrisburg, and Portland—places with real assets too like striking architecture and beautiful landscapes—are often solely defined by negative headlines about vacancy or homelessness. Even in dynamic global hubs like New York and Boston, I saw resilience and fragility side by side: NYC’s Chinatown struggling with overcrowding and senior housing needs while protesting a massive proposed prison across the street from the community’s well-loved Columbus Park; Boston’s Seaport gleaming with newness but eerily homogenous.

Who knew? The stunning Guardian Building in Detroit and the equally stunning Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, PA, and Washington Park in Portland, Oregon.

So, what makes a city resilient? I like CBRE’s definition from its recent Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities report: the “development and maintenance of robust and adaptable infrastructure, including social, educational, and medical facilities, transportation systems, and essential services like water and power.” That list captures it well—because resilience is inherently about interconnectedness. Robust transit supports economic activity. Accessible housing supports workforce stability. Vibrant public spaces support community trust. And when one system falters, the others feel the strain.

This is exactly what’s at stake in Philadelphia right now. SEPTA’s drastic service cuts to the 800,000 daily trips are not just a transit issue—they are an existential threat to the region’s resilience and to the Commonwealth’s as well. Without a reliable and accessible transit system, workers and students can’t easily get to jobs and school, employers can’t attract talent, traffic becomes unimaginable, and the city’s economic engine slows. The ripple effects will hit hardest on lower-income residents, widening inequities and weakening Philadelphia’s competitiveness as a whole. If resilience is about interconnected systems, then losing transit capacity undermines them all. SEPTA’s website says it best: If the trains don’t run, the city and region don’t either.

At the same time, resilience is not only about transit. It's clear from my travels that all US downtowns are facing stubborn vacancy to some degree. Empty storefronts and office towers act like urban cancers—creating unsafe, inactive streets. It’s urgent to rethink and reuse the urban fabric we already have. Rezoning to concentrate retail in strategic areas, incentivizing office-to-residential conversions, and keeping residential near employment centers are essential steps. Historically, this kind of density and diversity of activity has kept cities thriving. It will again.

Resilience also depends on a shared diagnosis from decision makers. Too often, urban efforts are siloed—agencies and nonprofits tackling symptoms in isolation. True resilience requires leadership that brings parties together around common data, a shared understanding of the problems, and coordinated action at the systems level. Without that, even the best efforts are band-aids.

Ultimately, resilience is about stewardship—recognizing the interconnectedness of systems and making decisions that strengthen them together. Whether we’re talking about Ann Arbor’s investments in livability, NYC Chinatown’s fight for community resources, or Philadelphia’s fight to protect transit, the lesson is the same: every move on the chessboard affects the rest. Our job as civic leaders, designers, and citizens is to play the long game.

Lastly, if you’re looking for a deeper dive into the systemic barriers to resilience, I highly recommend reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which lays out how government and regulatory systems have often obstructed progress instead of enabling it. Our current and urgent call to action is to push our cities, and our country, to be courageously adaptive and abundant for the benefit of all.