Quantifying the Urban Resilience Gap: A Parcel-Level Assessment of Structural Decay and Strategic Misalignment in Riga, Latvia

Rapid urbanization and the aging of large-scale building stocks have created a critical disconnection between strategic urban planning and physical structural realities. This study introduces a multi-dimensional resilience framework to evaluate the structural integrity and socio-economic exposure of Riga’s urban fabric at the parcel level. By integrating high-resolution wear-out data with a normalized Economic Priority Index (EPI), the study analyzes the distribution of 2405 buildings identified in the terminal wear-out phase of the Bathtub Curve reliability model. The results reveal that 92.7% of critically vulnerable buildings fall outside the scope of the city’s RTIAN 2030 strategic intervention framework, including the majority of high-risk structures supporting 13,416 business units and 646,033 residents. Spatial intersection analysis further demonstrates that contemporary modernization initiatives, including digital pilot zones, effectively bypass 98% of these critical structural hotspots. Predictive scenario analysis confirms that without a strategic reorientation toward a proactive, reliability-based monitoring framework, these excluded corridors face an exponential escalation of structural risk. Specifically, this study examines the urban spatial resilience of Riga’s building stock through the integrated PLE-Bathtub Curve framework, evaluates the spatial alignment of RTIAN 2030 with identified vulnerability zones, and assesses how effectively Smart City pilot initiatives target structurally vulnerable clusters defined by the Economic Priority Index (EPI). This research provides a replicable diagnostic framework, calibrated for post-socialist urban contexts, to support municipal authorities in realigning investment priorities with empirical physical vulnerabilities, ensuring long-term metropolitan continuity.