CHICAGO—For the first time in history, the majority of humanity lives in cities, and many national economies are driven by what happens in the great urban areas. But with looming challenges such as climate change, experts say that we need to pay more attention to cities' resilience.

“This is about the capacity of cities to plan effectively,” Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, told an afternoon panel on urban infrastructure during last week's inaugural Chicago Forum on Global Cities, hosted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Financial Times. Rodin recently published a book titled “The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong,” and said cities need the ability to withstand acute shocks such as floods and “slower burning stresses” such as a lack of affordable housing and poor air quality.

And the impacts from whatever difficulties encountered by global cities will not stay confined within national borders or even continents, Rodin added. She pointed out, for example, that the 2011 floods in Bangkok shut down many factories that manufactured computer components and disrupted worldwide supply chains.