Urban Resiliency

Abstract: In this study, we will review the main effects that the world economic crisis has had on cities in different regions around the world; also, we seek to learn about the response of local governments and make an initial evaluation of their effectiveness. In particular, we are interested in identifying those governments that are committed to policies forming human capital, urban innovation and strategic development planning.

Abstract: The Problem: Metropolitan areas in the U.S. are increasingly growing together into megaregions with many linkages and interdependencies in their economies, infrastructure, and natural resources, but they are not linked well in terms of governance. Hundreds of jurisdictions, federal and state sectoral agencies, and regulatory bodies make independent and conflicting decisions with no entity focusing on the region's overall welfare. The Purpose of the Research: To investigate potential governance strategies for such megaregions. As we have noted elsewhere, collaborative and networked processes can do many of the needed tasks for regional governance, as they fill gaps where government fails to operate, cross jurisdictional and functional boundaries, engage public and private sector actors on common tasks, and focus on the collective welfare of a region. Our goal is to identify strategies that allowed such processes to have some success in planning and managing resources, in adapting to unique conditions, and in mobilizing key players in joint action. Methodology: We rely on our own in-depth research in California on two major water planning cases, CALFED and the Sacramento Water Forum, and on two cases of regional civic voluntary organizations known as Collaborative Regional Initiatives. We use two interrelated analytical perspectives, complexity theory and network analysis, to develop our findings. Results and Conclusions: These largely successful cases shared the following features: diverse, interdependent players; collaborative dialogue; joint knowledge development; creation of networks and social and political capital; and boundary spanning. They were largely self organizing, building capacity and altering norms and practices to focus on questions beyond the parochial interests of players. They created new and often long term working relationships and a collective ability to respond constructively to changes and stresses on the system. Takeaway for Pra

Abstract: Regional scientists and geographers have long tried to uncover the keys to regional success through comparative studies. From Chinitz's (1961) comparison of Pittsburgh and New York to Saxenian's (1994) pairing of Silicon Valley and Route 128, these studies have generally adopted an exceptionalist or historicist perspective, in which what is important is not the commonality of processes that produce the spatial world we see, but the unique results that can only be understood by deep observation of specific regions. The contrast between two regions helps to highlight the differences in regional assets (in particular, factor endowments), as well as regional institutions, actors, and cultures, that have led to different outcomes. Of particular interest in these studies is the ability of regions to adapt, to reinvent themselves after a downturn, as Silicon Valley did in the late 1980s, due in large part to the networked structure of its economy (Saxenian, 1994). In contrast, the systematic perspective seeks to analyze the processes of change and the phenomena that they produce on a large (e.g., national) scale. By detecting patterns across a large number of regions, researchers hope to find commonalities that can lead to large-scale policy reform. Examples of large-scale pattern detection studies abound, from city ranking studies (Chapple et al., 2004; Hill, Wolman & Ford, 1995), to a growing literature on metropolitan disparities (Orfield 2002; Rusk 1993). The advantage of these systematic studies is that they are able to identify outliers, or regions that have performed exceptionally well, and suggest common factors behind success that are likely to be replicable across regions. The disadvantages are that they typically look at success at one point in time, rather than success or adaptiveness through time, and attribute success to a set of variables that are by definition universal across regions.

Abstract: Although the literature on regional macroeconomics continues to emphasize the analysis of economic growth, the concept of economic resilience is of increasing interest to policymakers. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 focused attention on the ability of regional economies to respond to human-made and natural disasters (Chernick 2005, Liu and Plyer 2007). The steep losses of U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000, especially in the Great Lakes Region, have prompted a great deal of concern about how regional economies experiencing those losses can rebound (Wial and Friedhoff 2005, Wial 2007, McGahey and Vey 2008). Despite the growing importance of the idea of economic resilience, the concept has not been carefully defined or measured. Drawing on implicit definitions used in the limited literature on economic resilience and on more explicit treatments of the concept in the ecological literature, this paper begins by outlining some possible meanings of regional economic resilience. Using these definitions, it then describes in more detail a quantitative and qualitative research methodology that can be used to operationalize the concept and assess the determinants of regional economic resilience.

Abstract: Like other old blue collar cities of the Northeast and Midwest, New York City and its surrounding metropolitan area have faced some serious headwinds from deindustrialization, disinvestment, racial succession, white flight, social and cultural conflict, and many other adverse force. Like many other old industrial cities, New York went through a turbulent period of economic and social decline from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. In New York City's case, this involved a public sector fiscal crisis and high levels of residential property abandonment and arson as well as a more generalized decline of population and employment. Yet unlike the many other once-proud cities that have had to adjust to a lesser status over time, New York has rebounded markedly from its low point in the mid-1970s. Today, it is hard to believe that broad swaths of the New York City terrain had essentially no market value only thirty years ago. Instead, "luxury loft buildings" are rising next to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and a high priced luxury hotel has been built next to the Gowanus Canal, erstwhile scene of dead bodies and raw sewage overflows during heavy rains. What accounts for this dramatic turn-around? How and why did New York City prove to be so resilient, when its 19 century rivals along the East Coast, Philadelphia and Baltimore, have continued to lose population steadily, as have Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, and even Chicago? This paper considers some provisional answers to that question.

Presented at ACSP 2006, Working paper published 2007. Kathryn Foster "The purpose of this paper is to explore how such questions and concepts of resilience may apply in the complex setting of a metropolitan region, that is, to understand what we'll call "regional resilience." How might regions, like individuals, adapt to adversity and stress? What factors account for a region's resilience and how can we measure them? As with individuals, given clear differences in challenges, assets and cultures, is it possible to compare places on the basis of their regional resilience? Can regions intervene to increase their resilience and, if so, why might a region fail to intervene well or at all?"

Abstract: The different responses of New York City to the terrorist attacks in 2001 and New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have focused the attention of scholars on the ability of metropolitan areas to recover from disasters. In the case of New York City, despite dire warnings that people would flee urban settings that were vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the real estate market in lower Manhattan revived and is now as vibrant as ever. The painful memory remains, but the city has recovered from its wounds. New Orleans is another story. The immediate response to the hurricane was often uncoordinated and ineffectual. The long-run recovery has been slow and uneven. The population of the city is still only at about 72 percent of its pre-Katrina level and while the levees have been repaired they have not been built to withstand a category 5 hurricane like Katrina. It is still uncertain as to whether the city will recover enough to sustain the dynamic culture in food, music, and the arts that flourished before Katrina. The word that is increasingly used to describe successful responses to disasters like these is "resilience." Resilience is an idea that can also be applied to slowly developing challenges as well as sudden disasters. The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of the resilience framework for thinking about how metropolitan areas respond to challenges.1 At this point in its applications to regional studies, resilience is more than a metaphor but less than a theory. At best it is a conceptual framework that helps us to think about regions in new ways, i.e., dynamically and holistically. As derived from the field of systems ecology, the resilience framework encourages us to think about regions as interconnected systems with extensive feedback processes that must be understood for successful human intervention.

Abstract: Based on approximately fifty interviews, along with analysis of data and newspaper coverage, this report compares local responses to surging foreclosures in three pairs of regions with similar housing markets and foreclosure-related challenges (St. Louis/Cleveland, East Bay/Riverside, and Chicago/Atlanta). The authors examine the choices made by leaders and organizations both to prevent foreclosures and to reduce their negative spillovers (neighborhood stabilization). Resilience is defined as the ability to alter organizational routines, garner additional resources, and collaborate within and between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to address the foreclosure challenge. The research shows that resilience in the face of foreclosures varied significantly across and within metropolitan areas. The most resilient metropolitan areas had strong housing nonprofits and a history of collaboration between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Many suburban areas have been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, but they often lack the rich array of housing nonprofits and public sector planning capacity that is often present in central cities. The greatest obstacles to local resilience are the rigid and inflexible policies of lenders and loan servicers. The report concludes that resilience requires both "horizontal" relations of trust and collaboration with regions and "vertical" policies by higher level actors to support and empower local collaborations. Even the most resilient metropolitan areas cannot adequately address the crisis on their own. Federal and state policies can expand (or contract) the "opportunity space" for local resilience. State laws, for instance, that lengthen short foreclosures processes give local actors more opportunity to prevent foreclosures and keep families in their homes or apartments. Local actors need the right kinds of policies by higher level actors to support metropolitan resilience. Likewise, state and feder

Abstract There is considerable federal interest in disaster resilience as a mechanism for mitigating the impacts to local communities, yet the identification of metrics and standards for measuring resilience remain a challenge. This paper provides a methodology and a set of indicators for measuring baseline characteristics of communities that foster resilience. By establishing baseline conditions, it becomes possible to monitor changes in resilience over time in particular places and to compare one place to another. We apply our methodology to counties within the Southeastern United States as a proof of concept. The results show that spatial variations in disaster resilience exist and are especially evident in the rural/urban divide, where metropolitan areas have higher levels of resilience than rural counties. However, the individual drivers of the disaster resilience (or lack thereof)-social, economic, institutional, infrastructure, and community capacities-vary widely. KEYWORDS: disaster resilience, indicators, Southeastern U.S.

AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, Volume 39, Number 8

Chapter in Book "Resilient Cities"

Abstract In recent years, ideas of security and resilience have become increasingly embedded in urban planning and design practice, and in national security and energy policy, as attempts have been made to make the built environment and critical energy infrastructure more resistant to disruptive challenges. This has taken place with particular regard to the threat of climate change and to the security challenges faced by many cities as a result of the threat of terrorism. In this context, this paper explores the possible synergies between security and environmental issues, and policies connected to the planning, design, and engineering of the built environment. As the paper illustrates, there may be opportunities for further integration between these areas of concern.