Visualising Resilient Communities

Similar to our needs to secure the basic necessities (food, water, shelter and clothing), we need more than ever today to build resilient communities’ livelihoods which have a set of approaches that help us to manage the challenges and be tolerant to a sudden crisis. Communities livelihood involves the capacity to ensure sustainable and continuously developing activities that overcome turbulent economic, ecological, and socially complex contemporary or foreseen situations. Having intolerant communities that refuse diversified life is a serious socio-economic problem that might lead to both socio-environmental and socio-political problems which deteriorate our livelihood. Therefore, we need to tackle non-resilience as an issue of hidden opportunities that need to be exploited until we reach optimum resilience status. Being more resilient helps to create lasting change, which is what differentiates any community outcome or realized change. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to create aspiring leaders from around the world who have the right mindset and passion towards creating a difference towards this challenging, positive change.

Rich Pictures focuses on the value of developing visual narratives – Rich Pictures – as an important component and starting point for community participation. A key device for the community to share ideas and perspectives on current and potential future situations, Rich Pictures provide a shared space for members to set out ideas and negotiate. While Rich Pictures are widely and globally used, this is the first book discussing their use, and how and when to use this technique for maximum participatory value. A valuable read for community engagement professionals, planners, politicians, and members of affected communities, Rich Pictures is richly illustrated with examples and authors’ testimonials.

The 2012 National Research Council report, Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative, identified the development and use of resilience measures as critical to building resilient communities. Although many kinds of resilience measures and measuring tools have and continue to be developed, very few communities consistently use them as part of their planning or resilience building efforts. Since federal or top-down programs to build resilience often yield mixed results, bottom-up approaches are needed, but are often difficult for communities to implement alone. A major challenge for many communities in developing their own approaches to resilience measures is identifying a starting point and defining the process. Other challenges include lack of political will due to competing priorities and limited resources, finite time and staff to devote to developing resilience measures, lack of data availability and/or inadequate data sharing among community stakeholders, and a limited understanding of hazards and/or risks. Building on existing work, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a workshop in July 2015 to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information about ways to advance the development and implementation of resilience measures by and within diverse communities. Participants worked to gain a better understanding of the challenges these communities face in the pursuit of resilience and determine whether the approach used during this workshop can help guide communities in their efforts to build their own measures of resilience. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

This book explores urban resilience through significant, original and rigorous academic research, utilising the experiences of town planners, architects and decision makers to create a charter on resilient communities. The second part of the book presents mini-essays discussing the strategic points of the paper, and enabling more casual readers with the ability to access information on urban resilience. The book then explores urban resilience through the work and understanding of the institutions responsible for regulating the professions of urban planner, educators, professionals, and those involved in communication. Providing numerous illustrations and examples, Resilient Communities and the Peccioli Charter will be of interest to researchers, postgraduates, architects, urban designers and planners alike.

This book argues for the need to rethink governance through the lens of 'resilience as self-governance'. Building on complexity-thinking, it contends that in the context of change and complex life, challenges are most efficiently dealt with, at the source, 'locally', to make 'the global' more responsive and sustainable. Resilience as self-governance is advanced as an overriding framework to explore its constitutive elements - identity, ‘good life’, local coping strategies and support infrastructures - which, when mobilized, can turn communities into ‘peoplehood’ in the face of adversity. It is argued that these communities of relations, self-organised and self-aware of their worth, is what makes them so resilient to crises, and what helps them to transform with change; and how they should be governed today. Central Eurasia, spanning from Belarus in the west, to Azerbaijan in the south and Kyrgyzstan in the east, provides fertile grounds for exploring how resilience works in practice in times of complex change. By immersing into centuries-long traditions and philosophy, local experiences of survival, and visions for change, this book shows that governability at any level requires a substantive 'local' input to make 'the global' more enduring and resilient in a complex adaptive world. This book will be of great value to students and scholars in the fields of Politics including Eurasian politics and the various aspects of Governance. Most of the chapters in this book were published as a special issue of Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

This book discusses the resilience of communities in both developed and developing world contexts. It investigates the notion of ‘resilience’ and the challenges faced by local communities around the world to deal with disturbances (natural hazards or human-made) that may threaten their long-term survival. Using global examples, specific emphasis is placed on how learning processes, traditions, policies and politics affect the resilience of communities and what constraints and opportunities exist for communities to raise resilience levels.

This interdisciplinary volume examines the relationship between community resilience and family resilience, identifying contributing factors on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level. Scholars and practitioners focus on how community-level policies and programs facilitate the distribution of resources, assets, and opportunities that provide valuable assistance to families who are struggling or in crisis due to economic hardship, mental illness, and the effects of natural and human made disasters. Additionally, representatives of local government and community agencies on the “front lines” of developing policies and programs to assist families provide valuable context for understanding the ways communities provide environments that encourage and nurture family resilience. Among the topics covered: How cities promote resilience from a public health perspective Family resilience following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Resilience in women from trauma and addiction Trauma-sensitive schooling for elementary-age students Developing family resilience through community based missions Resilience and the Community will be of interest to policy-makers, researchers, and practitioners seeking to facilitate the development of evidence-based resilience practices, programs, and/or policies for those working with families at risk.

A hybrid of theory and action, Resilient Communities across Geographies uses case studies to examine how global communities use GIS analysis, local knowledge, and engagement to realize resilience.

Over the past decade, resilience has gained significant traction across the nation and innovative programs are showing exciting progress in building resilient communities. For communities to be prepared for future extreme weather and climate events, as well as the chronic daily stressors, the momentum of implementing and taking action to build community resilience should continue to be fostered and expanded. Building on its many efforts dedicated to increasing and enhancing resilience, the Resilient America Roundtable hosted the State of Resilience Leadership Forum and Community Workshop on June 28 and 29, 2016. This activity brought together diverse decision makers, experts, practitioners, and community stakeholders, including representatives from academia, government, the private sector, foundations, and nonprofit organizations, to consider the results of years of investment, experimentation, and research in building resilience, take stock of these many initiatives and efforts, and share their experiences in building more resilient communities. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.