Empowering urban resilience: Grassroots volunteering for a renewed shock-response governance in post-pandemic Milan

• Emergence of BVEs : the paper examines the rise of BVEs as a distinct type of volunteering actor grounded in mutual assistance, offering a potential antidote to urban individualism. • BVEs’ Transformative Potential : the study highlights the transformative potential of BVEs in reshaping urban and volunteering governance, resilience, and empowerment during and after emergencies through place-based, neighborhood actions, and horizontal management practices. • Key Partners in Pandemic Response : the paper illustrates how BVEs transcend traditional boundaries, fostering collaboration across diverse stakeholders and emerging as key partners in the city's pandemic response, embodying a renewed model of collective governance rooted in mutual solidarity. • From Informal Groups to Institutional Partners : the study tracks the evolution of BVEs from informal, neighborhood-based groups to key partners for the Milan municipality, renewing volunteering and shock-response governance at the urban level. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical weaknesses in neoliberal urban governance, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities, poverty, and social exclusion. Public services in cities like Milan, Italy, struggled to meet growing needs, while traditional welfare systems appeared inadequate in addressing these escalating challenges. The study examines how grassroots initiatives, such as the Brigate Volontarie per l'Emergenza (BVEs, or Volunteer Brigades for Emergencies) evolved from informal volunteer groups into institutional partners and engaged in a successful response to the shocks generated in the city by COVID-19-induced measures. This transformation significantly influences Milan's crisis response and governance structures, thus enabling a renewal of community empowerment and urban resilience, from the bottom-up. The research, based on semi-structured interviews, participant observation of volunteering activities, and researchers’ direct involvement in these initiatives, shows how Milan's integration of traditional governance with bottom-up, community-driven efforts has shaped a new collaborative governance model, characterized by adaptability, solidarity, and community empowerment. The study enriches the discourse on urban resilience by providing insights into the interplay between grassroots initiatives and institutional frameworks in shaping post-pandemic urban recovery.