Ten Principles for Building Resilience

Flooded Homes in Houston, TX (source)

 The Urban Land Institute, in a publication of the same name as this entry title, describes the following keys to building resiliency in communities, namely:

Ten Principles for Building Resilience

The Urban Land Institute

1.  Understand Vulnerabilities

     Understanding how shocks and stresses increase risks is the first step toward building resilience.

2.  Strengthen Job and Housing Opportunities

     Cities with a diversity of jobs and housing choices are more resilient and better prepared for extreme events and other challenges.

3.  Promote Equity

     Pursuing equity means purposefully addressing racial, social, environmental, and economic injustices to build stronger communities

4.  Leverage Community Assets

     Identifying and leveraging existing assets will enable communities to bounce back better.

5.  Redefine How and Where to Build

     Building resilience entails identifying and investing in places and infrastructure that are the most likely to endure.

6.  Build the Business Case

     Strategies that prepare for and mitigate climate-related risks can create and provide a strong return on investment.

7.  Accurately Price the Cost of Inaction

     Recent extreme weather events suggest that the costs of not investing in resilience and risk reduction are dramatically increasing.

8.  Design with Natural Systems

     Designing resilience relies upon an understanding of the function and geography of natural systems and how they can help strengthen manmade systems and communities.

9.  Maximize Co-benefits

     Risk reduction initiatives and infrastructure can also include elements that enhance quality of life and economic development potential.

10. Harness Innovation and Technology

     Innovation related to infrastructure, mobility, data and information tracking can improve response to crisis and strengthen resilience for the long term.

Each of these is is critically important to the target audience of the paper (civic leaders and their real property partners), and the paper shares both details and case studies where these principles have been successfully incorporated.  Of particular relation to this blog, is the notion of "Redefining How and Where to Build" (#5).  The paper expands, with the following:

… Redefining how and where to build entails not only proactive investment in the future, but also an acknowledgment of the inherent risks in cities’ current development patterns. Merely supporting parts of a city that have the potential for long-term growth presents a major risk: that those living and working in vulnerable areas will be forgotten. Providing support to these communities, and ensuring that all people have the social networks and physical infrastructure needed to stay safe and reach their potential, are also critical facets of building resilience.

Cities will need to establish fair approaches for supporting communities in places that are physically vulnerable to climate impacts and major events. Thoughtful relocation strategies, which seek to maintain community fabric and networks and include residents in the decision-making process, may be part of the solution. If communities or residents ultimately need to relocate, they should be provided fair compensation and offered alternatives in nearby neighborhoods, which preserve access to jobs, civic facilities, and social networks.

Pivoting land use patterns and municipal investment strategies to acknowledge vulnerabilities and enhance resilience will be a long-term process, and it may take decades for land use patterns encouraged by new policies to come to fruition. In the interim, developers, investors, and others who anticipate this potential shift are likely to see long-term potential in investments that are out of harm’s way.