Toward Better Public-Private Partnerships in Resilience Planning

The public sector and the private sector need a better system of incentives to deliver on the infrastructure and development investments necessary to prepare for climate change and other environmental threats.

1 minute read

August 22, 2017, 11:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Miami

Sean Pavone / Shutterstock

"Many cities are turning to other partners to work on their resiliency efforts," according to an article by Jackie Snow. Other partners, that is, meaning the private sector.

However, much of the article focuses on the remaining disconnect between the public sector and the private sector on the work remaining to be done to build resilience—not just resilience plans. Ernst & Young and 100RC released a study called "How can cities build resilience thinking into their infrastructure projects?" for instance, "found that city governments think they understand the challenges of urban resilience better than they actually do, with only 30% of private sector agreeing that cities understand the work around urban resiliency."

The disconnect is perpetuated like challenges like term limits (politicians are interested in wins during their tenure, not in thinking on the timelines of climate change) and project budgets (private sector entities are afraid of overbidding on requests for proposals. In fact, the "study found that both the public and private sector agree there is insufficient incentives to incorporate resilience thinking into infrastructure," according to Snow.

Thursday, August 17, 2017 in Smart Cities Dive

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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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