David Howard is a Fellow of Kellogg College and a University Lecturer in Sustainable Urban Development. In this seminar, Dr Howard will consider the interconnections between urbanism and socially sustainable development policy and practice, concentrating on the Caribbean region and recent research in Jamaica, in order to address the potential conflict of delivering sustainable urbanism in profit-driven urban contexts. The notion of resilience and vulnerability are widely promoted as being inherent to ideas of sustainable urban development, yet are often uncritically used to refer to a built environment or urban society, without exploring the notions that low-income populations may not be resilient, and remain vulnerable under current neoliberal economic policies and forms of governance. The presentation will analyse the renewed emphasis on formalising housing tenure in low-income neighbourhoods as a means of releasing capital for residents to gain access to basic services, such as water and electricity, which are increasingly delivered by public-private partnerships. The empirical evidence will focus on ethnographic research with residents, police officers and development workers in a low-income urban community in Kingston.