Urban Resilience
[Music]
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