Michael Berkowitz, president of 100 Resilient Cities, said it's going to take "integrated solutions" to help address the 21st century challenges many cities face.
"If you design a more walkable, more bikeable city, you both drop your carbon footprint but you also make your population healthier," Berkowitz told HuffPost Live at Davos.
100 Resilient Cities is a $100 million commitment by The Rockefeller Foundation to build urban resilience worldwide. The effort aims to help cities that have experienced "acute shocks" like hurricanes, tornados or terrorism, and also cities that have "chronic stresses" like food, water and energy shortages.
Berkowitz said cities often recover after natural disasters like Superstorm Sandy in an inefficient way, and 100 Resilient Cities hopes to develop solutions that offer a better place to live while maintaining the natural environment.
"The instinct is to build back as it was, and really, Resilient's thinking leads you to build back better and build back smarter," Berkowitz said.
Below, more updates from the 2015 Davos Annual Meeting: