Just as cities are hubs for innovations and investments that expand opportunities, they are also living laboratories confronting challenges of increasing complexity. They face a wide range of shocks and stresses ranging from natural hazards and climate change, to financial shocks and terrorism; slow-moving chronic stresses like poverty and violence and social conflict. As we consider how cities will adapt to the challenges of the 21st century – both known and unknown – the resilience agenda becomes increasingly important. This presentation highlights the Rockefeller Foundation’s understanding of city resilience, as informed by the RF-Arup City Resilience Framework, as well as its Resilience by Design portfolio, a series of place-based, landscape-scale interventions in U.S. coastal cities to show how we can build resilience with design while working with large federal institutions.
2. “Cities have the capability of providing
something for everybody, only because,
and only when, they are created by
everybody.”
Jane Jacobs
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Photo Credit: Rockefeller Foundation
3. In order to get a grip on it, one
must be able to relate resilience
to other properties that one has
some means of ascertaining,
through observation.
Martin-Breen & Andries
Resilience: A literature review3
7. Reflective systems are accepting of the inherent and ever-increasing
uncertainty and change in today’s world.
Robust systems include well-conceived, constructed and managed physical
assets.
Redundancy refers to spare capacity purposely created within systems so
that they can accommodate disruption.
Flexibility implies that systems can change, evolve and adapt in response
to changing circumstances.
Resourcefulness implies that people and institutions are able to rapidly find
different ways to achieve their goals or meet their needs during a shock or
when under stress.
Inclusion emphasises the need for broad consultation and engagement of
communities, including the most vulnerable groups.
Integration and alignment between city systems promotes consistency in
decision-making and ensures that all investments are mutually supportive
to a common outcome.
Reflective
Robust
Redundant
Flexible
Resourceful
Inclusive
Integrated
8.
9. Make no little plans. They have
no magic to stir [people]’s blood
and probably will not be realized.
Make big plans. Aim high in hope
and work.
Daniel Burnham,
Chicago Architect
12. Change Paradigms
Pave, pipe, pump and prevent
• Allowed urbanization of delta and
coastal cities
• Unintended consequences of
increased risks of devastating floods,
subsidence, climate change, social
isolation and inequality, ecological
damage
Living with Water
• Adopt multiple lines of defense
• Increase long term safety by making
room for water
• Create new economic and
development opportunities with safe,
attractive waterways and water
infrastructure
• Improve quality of life with water
through capture, re-use, and
retention to integrate healthy water
into public spaces
25. The Rebuilders – Rebuild by Design (Video):
http://vimeo.com/90825595
26. We who live in the world’s deltas or on the edges of great oceans
are the most immediate laboratory for innovation and change,
and our success or failure will be the symbol for the world’s
ability to accomplish great things, or not.
But for all coastal cities our future is not just about survival. …
It’s about redemption.
It’s about getting this right, for now and for the generations to
come.
- Cedric Grant
Deputy Mayor, New Orleans