Can Manchester Roll With The Punches?

The following is a transcript of a provocation delivered by Jon Lovell to the UK Green Building Council City Conference in Manchester on 21 January 2015. It is intended as a stimulus for conversation and an exploration of the relevant issues. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

If we get caught on the chin, do we drop to the deck and take the count, or do we stand firm and come back fighting? But more than that, do we have our guard up, so the punches don't land?

That's what this is about, this subject of resilience. It is a question of our adaptive capacity in the face of risk. Risk, as we know, takes many forms, but we're essentially talking here of our exposure – as a city – and our vulnerability – as a city to the various hazards of global change and local impact. In whatever form they might take.