Cities Try To Figure Out How To Be 'Resilient'

The organization 100 Resilient Cities has funded 'chief resilience officers' in 66 cities worldwide. It's helping four California cities prepare for 'stresses and shocks' including earthquakes, sea level rise, and even poverty.

1 minute read

March 28, 2016, 12:00 PM PDT

By Josh Stephens @jrstephens310


"'Resilience' refers to cities’ ability to weather and recover from discrete 'shocks,' such as earthquakes, and chronic 'stresses,' such as poverty and the predicted effects of climate change. California has become Ground Zero in the resilience movement."

"Once defined, 100RC encourages each city to set its own priorities, by identifying its most pressing threats and the strategies needed to avoid or recover from them. Likewise, cities identify initiatives already underway and might reframe then as resilience-building efforts. 100RC bases its approach to resilience on the “City Resilience Framework,” drafted in a multi-year process by ARUP. The framework is accompanied by an index of 200 indicators of urban resilience."

"Regardless of how much support or funding they have, CROs may not be around long enough to witness the fruits of their labors (or to witness the non-events that will take place when cities weather disasters). 100RC hopes that cities will continue to fund CRO positions after two- or three-year grant periods. But cities are not obligated to do so. For that reason, the project has been criticized as encouraging cities to 'make plans to make plans.'"

Thursday, March 17, 2016 in California Planning & Development Report

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