The 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is upon us. Many of us city planners invested whatever skills we thought we had, plus a heavy dose of passionate naivete, to recovery planning in the wake of the 2005 storm.
"This week kicks off the anniversary month of Hurricane Katrina, which walloped the Gulf Coast states on August 29, 2005, killing more than 1,800 people and causing more than $150 billion in property damage. While anniversary summaries have dribbled into the mainstream already, August will be the big month for looking back and guessing at what was learned."
Ben Brown speaks from his own extensive experience, as well as quoting several articles and reports on the Gulf Coast.
"This discussion is an important one, not only because it comes as part of the tenth anniversary look back, but also because it speaks to the future of planning and governing in our cities and regions beyond the storm zone. Disasters are stress tests."
"What experts on disaster recovery and resilience tried to tell us before and after recent catastrophes like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and the BP Oil Spill is that communities’ abilities to bounce back after such events depend largely on how well things were working before disruptions struck. That’s a more complex observation than it sounds, because the definition of “what’s working” has all kinds of caveats."
FULL STORY: Katrina ‘Ten Years After’: And the band plays on
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The Katrina Cottage Legacy
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Op-Ed: Why an Effective Passenger Rail Network Needs Government Involvement
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions