Green-blue Infrastructure in Urban-Rural Landscapes– introducing Resilient Citylands

With theglobal change crisis pushing – and new knowledge about sustainability in socio-ecological systems pulling – there presently is a window of opportunity to further our understanding about resilient landscapes. In this paper we focus on Green-blue infrastructure as a key component of human settlements. Our main focus is theoretical and conceptual but we also illustrate its values and functions to deliver recreation, preserve biodiversity, create urban structure, support cultural identity, provide ecosystems services and maintain primary production/recycling. We further elaborate on the potential for new interactions between green-blue- and built structures, discussing international cases of both practical and theoretical relevance. Resilient Citylands is proposed as a new concept useful for e.g. landscape architecture and planning. It represents a new reciprocal co-evolution for different scales: of urban and rural areas; of human settlements and natural ecosystems1, and of constructed and green-blue areas and elements within urban settings. We investigate how functionally dense, mixed-use, vibrant, inter-sensory and contemporary urban areas could be combined with cutting edge, lean and efficient rural areas.