Resilience Matters: Opportunities for Action to Strengthen Communities

In this hopeful and frustrating year, contributors to the Island Press Urban Resilience Project celebrate our collective progress and challenges in a new free book of short and sweet articles, op-eds, and interviews. Essential reading for planners!

1 minute read

March 1, 2022, 5:00 AM PST

By Todd Litman


Ivy-covered stone wall and cover of Resilience Matters e-book

Island Press / Resilience Matters E-book

In 2021, all the good news came with an asterisk.

American democracy survived an unprecedented assault on January 6, but the nation is more bitterly polarized than ever. Lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time, but a substantial swath of the American public refused to get the jab. The Biden administration swept into office on promises to tackle climate change and "build back better," but progress was thwarted by key lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

In this hopeful and frustrating year, contributors to the Island Press Urban Resilience Project (URP) celebrated our collective progress, while highlighting how far we have yet to go. Those ideas—originally published as articles, op-eds, and interviews—have now been collected in a new e-book Resilience Matters: Opportunities for Action to Strengthen Communities, available at no cost.

portrait of professional woman

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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