Municipal solid waste management as an urban subsystem
The concept of urban resilience has evolved from a narrow engineering definition of “bouncing back” to a sophisticated, multi-dimensional framework that encompasses the ability of a city to survive, adapt, and grow amidst the chronic stresses and acute shocks of the twenty-first century. At the core of this evolution lies the recognition that cities are complex adaptive systems, where the failure of one subsystem can precipitate a cascade of vulnerabilities across the entire urban fabric. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management is one of these subsystems. Its connections to other urban subsystems — drainage, public health, livelihoods, land use, governance — create interactions that are simultaneously its greatest source of leverage and its most difficult management challenge.
