Cllr Susan Aitken reflects on her 'profound experience' in Kobe

The G7 Urban7 (U7) Mayors’ Summit met in Kobe, Japan in April on the 30th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake, an event that symbolised the significant and growing resilience challenges facing urban populations globally and the ability of cities to rapidly mobilise responses and solutions to those challenges, given the powers and resources to do so.

Attending as leader of Glasgow on behalf of Core Cities UK – which, along with equivalent city networks in each of the G7 countries, is a formal participant in the U7 process – it was my privilege to represent the collective voices of the UK’s largest cities outside London in discussions that concluded with a unified call for the U7 to be formally recognised as an official G7 engagement group, enabling systematic and permanent dialogue between local leaders and G7 national governments.

As cities bear the greatest impacts of emerging and escalating global challenges – from armed conflict to climate change, from the movement of refugees and displaced people to housing shortages – the gathered city associations from Germany, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, the USA and the EU, as well as the UK, were unanimous that global institutions such as the G7 will be considerably diminished in their effectiveness if they do not commit to multi-level dialogue and action alongside city leaderships.

Cities have long led the way in innovating to respond to human crises, but they are able to do that with the greatest speed and impact when nation-states co-operate with and support them. In the UK, for example, Core Cities members are grappling with the desire to safely and compassionately accommodate asylum-seekers and refugees while also dealing with the most severe pressures on housing supply for generations. Our collective inability to respond to that challenge as our diverse communities need us to, poses very real risks to social cohesion across the country. It’s a moment where government needs to listen to cities and get behind the delivery of effective local responses. This particular challenge is replicated across the G7, as are growing climate risks – whether from extreme heat or flooding – and it’s the closer connections between local governments and citizens that are the key to delivering the solutions in ways that will be tangible for communities.

This multi-level co-operation is all the more crucial where national or federal governments are departing from democratic values and the rules of international engagement. When the first Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Climate agreement, for example, it was Mayors who kept the USA connected to the global climate consensus. During this present Presidential US term, it’s clear that the US Conference of Mayors will be an even more crucial forum. When the very viability of global dialogue can hinge on an election outcome (Canada holds the Presidency of the G7 this year and a different result in their federal elections – which was counting votes just as the U7 Summit discussion got underway – could have resulted in a very different kind of Presidency), city-to-city diplomacy and solidarity are the bulwark of international co-operation.

The backdrop of the anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Kobe in 1995, taking more than 6,500 lives and making tens of thousands of people homeless, brought a particular poignancy to our discussions. But it also provided a living example of what’s possible when a whole-society approach is taken to both disaster recovery and planning for future resilience. Were it not for the memorials to those who lost their lives, it would be almost impossible to tell that Kobe suffered such a devastating event well within living memory. The rebuilding of the city is not only comprehensive but also thoughtful, with a balance between a major industrial harbour and global company HQs; lively public spaces; futuristic tall buildings and human-scaled, medium-density residential areas with plenty of open green space and mature trees. Even more impressive though are the efforts that have been put into building resilience in the face of a future disaster that may not happen within the next century or even at all, never mind within short-term political cycles. From the engagement of children from a very young age in designing computer games that teach about disaster preparedness, to the investment made by global industrial players like Kawaski in high-tech innovations like robot firefighters, there is a collective effort to prioritise the protection and preservation of lives and habitats that will create resilience not only in the face of possible future earthquakes but also climate events, pandemics or other major shocks.

I was particularly struck by the thought that’s been put into building resilience under the ground. Most deaths in urban earthquakes are the result of fires caused by the destruction of underground gas networks. In Kobe, the city has worked with academic and industry partners to develop underground piping that is flexible, bendable and – if broken – self-sealing, innovation that aims both to minimise death and injury and also allow for the swift restoration of basic utilities in the aftermath of any disaster event.  It provides an instructive contrast with attitudes in the UK, where the focus is usually on ‘fixing’ rather than renewing underground infrastructure, and the lack of co-ordination between utilities providers means that their repeated interventions are largely viewed by the public as inconvenient ‘road-works’. Yet as many parts of the UK – my own city included – face more regular occurrences of monsoon-type rainfall and increased flood risk, the capacity and robustness of underground utilities networks are going to become ever more critical. While the UK might not be a prime target for natural disasters like earthquakes, we can learn a lot from those who are about how to make sure we’re prepared to weather our future weather. And the effective delivery of that will depend on the very multi-level co-operation between national and local governments that the U7 seeks to make the new normal.

Cllr Aitken's flights and accommodation were generously funded by colleagues in Kobe.