"Resilience" explained

The first time I saw "resilience" in a planning document, I had to stop and think about what it meant.  Sure I knew what the word meant, but what did Central Planners mean when they used it?  At first it was a joke - another one of those planner-speak words that professionals thrown in to make things sound more complicated or confused than they are.

But slowly I began to realize that "resilience" meant making the community better to prepare for emergencies, food shortages, other emergencies, and especially climate change.  We wonder how city planners have claimed this role, along with the science of agriculture and nutrition for food resilience, the science and research needed in combatting diabetes and heart disease, and the science of environmentalism, etc., as part of their job.  I believe it's called mission creep.

Being prepared is no joke.  Ready.gov is a good place to start.  Contact your Neighborhood 

Association Chair to learn how you can form a Neighborhood Disaster Group, get materials from the Fore Department or City Hall.  You only have one chance to prepare.  See Lake Oswego website for information on an Emergency Preparedness presentation on Sept. 25.

Found at Along the Gradyent (see blog menu at right)

NATIONAL HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS WEEK, 2014

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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As the climate continues to warm, hurricane intensity and rainfall are projected to increase, and we expect sea level rise to make storm surges more costly. That is why, last year, I issued an Executive Order directing the Federal Government to take coordinated action to prepare our Nation for the impacts of climate change. In the years ahead we will remain committed to increasing resilience, investing in scientific research, and cutting red tape so we can quickly send assistance where it is needed most.

Urban Land Institute

After Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, more focus has been placed on how communities can prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.

Increasingly ominous predictions from climate scientists suggest that adverse events related to climate change pose increasing risk to communities worldwide. Furthermore, the world is becoming increasingly urban, and our cities tend to lie in particularly vulnerable areas. From sea level rise to heat waves, from storm surge to drought, the adverse events threaten the built environment in ways that have serious consequences for the health, viability, and economic vitality of our future.

The Urban Resilience Program works to help communities prepare for increased climate risk in ways that allow a quicker, safer return to normalcy after an event but also an ability to thrive going forward. Through careful land use planning, wise investment in infrastructure, and smart building design, we can protect the value we’ve created in our cities and be more robust when facing adverse events.

American Planning Association
 7) Climate change. The existing report contains almost no discussion of climate change because the literature and documentation of the impacts of climate change on planning for post-disaster recovery were virtually nonexistent in the 1990s. Today we know that, while great uncertainty remains, we can expect major changes potentially to affect the viability of new development that must last up to a half-century and beyond in circumstances that may over time be significantly altered from those prevailing today. We need to address the additional margin of safety that must be built into reconstruction after disasters in order to ensure the longer-term viability of new development.