Urbanization is a complex socio-economic process that transforms the built environment, converting formerly rural areas into urban settlements, while also shifting the spatial distribution of a population from rural to urban areas. The major consequences of urbanization are increasing population size or urban settlements, and in the number and share of urban residents compared to rural dwellers. Urban resilience is the capacity of cities to act efficiently so that its residents and workforce, especially the vulnerable people, survive and thrive in spite of the stresses or shocks they encounter in their everyday lives. Similarly, 100 resilient cities, a not-for-profit organization of the Rockefeller Foundation, defines the term resilient urbanism as surviving and thriving, regardless of the challenge. The word resilience means “the persistence of relationships within a system” and “the ability of these systems to absorb the changes of state variables, driving variables, and parameters, as well as persist.

Urbanization is a common phenomenon in the modern world. It has come with new challenges, especially for developing countries. Such countries, therefore, have to stay ahead in their preparedness efforts to meet these urban issues halfway. Unfortunately, urban residents in Pakistan are living in serious social, physical, and economic hardships. Despite being economic engines, cities in Pakistan suffer from stresses like climate change, haphazard and unregulated expansion, housing shortage, and a lack of basic civic amenities. While using systematic review methodology, we collected published and grey data from national and international sources. Literature shows that successive governments in Pakistan gave ample space to urban development in most of the policy documents. However, urban resilience and community engagement were given scant attention. This major gap, both in policy and practice, needs to be bridged to promote resilient and sustainable urbanization in Pakistan.