Urban Resilience

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so

[Applause]

when you look back at 2020 in 10 years

five years even next year what will you

remember most

working from home desperately trying to

homeschool your kids on one laptop

computer

did you get sick will you think about

the job you lost or the pay cut you took

will you remember george floyd and the

protests his murder inspired

or maybe your own experience of racism

will create even sharper memories

or maybe the worst is yet to come

for you for all of us

after all we still need to make it

through hurricane

and wildfire season

it’s only july but 2020 has felt like a

lifetime

and it’s had more shocks than most

people see in a decade

a raging pandemic significant protests

driven by systemic racism and police

violence

and now we’re at the mercy of what is

likely to be one of the hottest summers

on record and what if i told you

that in five or ten years 2020 might not

seem so exceptional

that the only thing the coming years are

sure to bring

is more more disasters

more extreme weather events more failing

systems

more compounding shocks

the challenges we’re facing can feel

overwhelming too big to plan for or

grapple with

especially when layered on top of one

another the bad news is

each of these challenges conspired to

make the others worse

every shock pandemic heat wave flood

made worse and in turn exacerbating the

underlying stresses

of climate change racism poor public

health

and equity and all too often as covet 19

has put on full display

poor and vulnerable communities are most

impacted which leads

to further poverty and fragility and so

the cycle starts again

but here’s the big idea let’s not think

about these as separate things a

pandemic that requires pandemic

solutions

heat waves that require heat wave

solutions but rather

as a web of connected risks and

opportunities

there is good news linking these rather

than treating them

in isolation allows us an opportunity to

tackle them at once

and with efficiency over the past decade

a new field has emerged called

urban resilience its innovation is to

recognize

how these risks and communities face

can be and should be seen together and

by addressing them at once we can make

our communities

stronger and more resilient to whatever

the next thing comes their way

this is important for two reasons the

first of which

is that we do not do a good job of

predicting the next crisis

i was deputy commissioner of emergency

management in new york in the late 90s

and early 2000s

in the late 90s we thought the next big

thing was going to be a hurricane

hitting new york

then on 9 11 two planes flew into two

buildings

in the ensuing years we had anthrax

letters

a plane crash in queens great northeast

blackout of 2003

the financial crisis of 2008 and only in

2012

did we have superstorm sandy how can

communities make sense of and prepare

for

all of these events at the same time the

answer is by building strength across

their systems

meeting the basic needs of their most

vulnerable

developing good governance with strong

stakeholders at the table

promoting diverse and equitable

economies supporting cohesive

communities where neighbors check on

neighbors

all underpinned by sustainable

infrastructure that you is good for

multi-use

all of those capacities help cities

respond to

recover from and in fact grow in the

face of risk and adversity

this isn’t easy silos began to spring up

around particular disciplines in the

20th century

transportation economic development

social services

because it could seem more efficient for

experts to talk to

experts but we launched 100 resilient

cities

and later resilient cities catalysts to

help cities change the way they approach

their risks and opportunities

to do it in more integrated inclusive

and strategic ways let me give you three

examples of how this is playing out

at large and small scales i told you the

big idea was to see our challenges

as interconnected and to try to address

them together

this idea came out in part from medellin

colombia in the 1990s

today medellin is thriving in one of the

world’s most livable cities

but at the time it was rife with

violence and murder it was home to the

medellin cartel

and the infamous pablo escobar and it

was on the verge of

complete collapse to address this

violence

planners in colombia looked at the

causes of criminality

medellin is a mountain city as you can

see here its main economic center is in

the valley floor

and its poorest communities are perched

precariously on hillsides

it used to take up to three hours down a

windy mountain road on the back of a bus

or on a motorcycle to reach the good

jobs in the valley center

that left communities isolated hopeless

and criminalized what medellin did is

design a new transportation system

that helped connect those communities to

the economic opportunities

it started with bus rapid transit into

gondolas

and finally to escalators for many it

reduced commute times by over half

of course authorities did kill escobar

and they did dismantle the cartel

but in part because of improved life

chances for medellin’s poorest

murder and violence reduced by nearly 90

percent

over the ensuing decade and a half

the program had other benefits and

impacts as well that

helped make medellin stronger and more

resilient

it led to better air quality a reduction

in the city’s carbon footprint

improved economy and stronger

communities due to the reduced commute

times

that is what we call the resilience

dividend an intervention that starts

with one purpose

in this case to break the cycle of

violence by increased

economic opportunities and leads to

other benefits that reduce

fragility and improve resilience

let’s travel to paris to see what this

looks like closer to present day

in 2014 when i first met paris mayor ann

hildago she was very focused on climate

challenges

she wanted to talk about flooding urban

heat

and air pollution but then 2015 happened

two terrorist attacks and a refugee

crisis

i told you we don’t do a good job of

predicting what comes next

the opportunity for paris was to figure

out a way to address

both immigration refugees and

radicalization at the same time

as dealing with its climate challenges

to do that the city needed space

at 9.5 percent of its land paris has

some of the least amount of green space

for any world capital

paris officials led by chief resilience

officer sebastian mayer

started small in 2017 they chose three

schools in neighborhoods

that primarily serve immigrant and

low-income communities

with the help of students climate change

activists

school construction authority and

immigrant advocates the city

redesigned those spaces to include

light-colored building materials bushes

and trees

to address the heat permeable surfaces

to capture and hold rain water

and they opened the spaces on off hours

on the weekends of the community

so that the immigrants and refugees the

city’s newest members

had a place to meet mingle and to make

sense of their new home

again let’s notice the resilience

dividend an intervention that starts

with one purpose

in this case to break the urban heat

island through cool green spaces

and adds other benefits to make the

community stronger

and more resilient here paris improved

storm water management and community

access

to protect against floods and mitigate

radicalization caused by isolation

the project was wildly popular and now

paris has both

plans and budget to do all 561 schools

which account for more than 700 acres of

land

but these projects don’t have to be big

and they don’t have to be city-led

here’s a final example from re-powering

london a non-profit forum to help social

housing residents convert to solar power

although their core work is solar power

on rooftops

the team noticed vacant lots near rail

stations

the community-based organization worked

out a deal with the london transport

agency

to use these discarded parcels and the

energy garden was born

it began as another way to introduce

solar power into communities but thanks

to integrated design

by the group they discovered other

resilience dividends

there are now 34 energy gardens across

greater london and they account for

thousands of square meters

of repurposed trackside land just this

act alone cleaning and greening vacant

space can have a

major effect on the community

just to give you one data point a 2018

study in philadelphia looking at the

impact of simple

cheap greening of vacant lots found that

it had significant impact on mental

health of the community

it decreased feeling depressed by 42

percent

for those living near the lots as

opposed to the control group

in london the garden teams installed

solar panels and sold that power back to

the grid

this provides a revenue source and

demonstrates the benefits of small

renewable energy projects the teams also

had hundreds of volunteers and community

groups they engaged local authorities

they held public consultations

because they knew that part of this

effort was building cohesive communities

which ultimately leads

to a more resilient neighborhood and

city

finally the gardens are small examples

of what every city needs

healthy local food and biodiversity

community members they harvested a

variety of vegetables

and spring flower supported bees which

are critical to biodiversity

and so important on our cities and yet

the bee populations are declining in

london and cities

all around the world and

hops were used to make energy garden ale

which we all know is the official drink

of any crisis

like the paris school yards and the

medellin gondolas but on a smaller scale

each of these outcomes

builds strength and capacity across

multiple areas

strengthening the neighborhood in the

community so that it can respond recover

and grow in the face of all shocks

i’m going to leave you with one last

story before we finish up

earlier i mentioned that years ago i

worked at the new york city office of

emergency management

i’ve just completed a three months of

comment there to help the city through

the most acute phase of the covid

pandemic

i supported the city’s food czar and

helped

design and implement the emergency food

home delivery program

bringing meals to covet and food

vulnerable new yorkers

at its peak we’re delivering more than a

million meals a day

and that’s impressive and important work

and of that i am incredibly proud and

grateful

but it was a blunt tool at a citywide

scale we didn’t have the ability to

truly understand vulnerability

and deliver the appropriate meals

whether that was vegetarian halal

kosher prepared meals or pantry boxes

or culturally sensitive meals for the

vast immigrant populations we were

serving

our partnerships with community-based

organizations served us well but we

needed more

only at a community level working with

community leaders can we truly

understand

a neighborhood’s needs to do that to

really build resilience

we need to get down at that level and

strengthen the city and the

neighborhoods that we’re working at

as you start to think about what 2020

has in store for you

the rest of the way or what’s around the

corner in 2021 or 2025

you might possibly start to ask yourself

what you can do in the face of it all

as you emerge from lockdown what can we

do

differently so that we’re ready for the

next big thing

my advice to you is act small but act

now

join a local organization clean up a

vacant lot

get to know your neighbors this act

alone will make your city

your community your neighborhood more

resilient

and i suspect this is going to be

important in the years

and months to come thank you very much

[Music]

you