The paper discusses the case the reconstruction of Kalamata city, Greece, after the 1986 earthquake disaster, focussing on urban resilience during the phases of response, recovery and reconstruction. In doing so, it revisits the concept of resilience as an analytical and policy tool. A set of factors are identified as significant for the success oft he reconstruction. The political and economic context in the country at the time was favourable to innovative strategies. At a local level, strong leadership at the Municipality played an important role together with the availability of external expertise and consultancy. Furthermore, the fact that a new and comprehensive general urban plan was in place a few months before made possible the key decision to set it as a guide towards reconstruction. Numerous features of resilience are detected in this specific case, among them leadership, self-organization, innovation, knowledge and learning capacity, networking and trust, interaction between different spatial and time scales. However, if those signify at large a resilient city against disasters remains questionable.