https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6935-1832
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT
A growing number of cities are incorporating resilience into their plans and policies to respond to shocks, stresses, and uncertainties. While some scholars advocate for the potential of resilience research and practice, others argue that it promotes an inherently conservative and neoliberal agenda, prevents systemic transformations, and pays insufficient attention to power, politics, and justice. Notably, critics of the urban resilience agenda argue that policies fail to adequately address social equity issues. This study seeks to inform these debates by providing a cross-sectional analysis of how issues of equity are incorporated into urban resilience planning. We develop a tripartite framework of equity that includes distributional, recognitional, and procedural dimensions and use it to analyse the goals, priorities, and strategies of formal resilience plans created by member cities of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities programme. Our analysis reveals considerable variation in the extent to which cities focus on equity, implying that resilience may be more nuanced than some critics suggest. There are, however, clear areas for improvement. Dominant conceptions of equity are generally tied to a distributional orientation, with less focus on the recognitional and procedural dimensions. We hope our conceptual framework and lessons learned from this study can inform more just resilience planning and provide a foundation for future research on the equity implications of resilience.
1. Introduction
While cities have been developing sustainability and climate action plans for over two decades, planning efforts, as well as academic publications, policy reports, and funding opportunities, are increasingly focused on making cities more resilient to rapid shocks and long-term stressors (Kythreotis and Bristow Citation2017; Leitner et al. Citation2018). There is no consensus on what resilience means in practice, but it generally implies that cities accept disruptions and change as inevitable, and focus on enhancing the ability of institutions, the built environment, and communities to cope with them and adapt (Meerow, Newell, and Stults Citation2016). Examples of commonly-cited resilience strategies include adaptive management, decentralised and “safe-to-fail” infrastructure, nature-based solutions or green infrastructure, and building social capital (Ahern Citation2011; Masterson et al. Citation2014). Explanations for the growing popularity of resilience also vary, but often point to the rising cost of disasters, growing concerns about climate change, and the apparent broad appeal of the term resilience (Béné et al. Citation2018). International organisations such as the United Nations have also played a major role in promoting the global resilience agenda, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) programme, which assists cities in developing a resilience strategy or plan (Spaans and Waterhout Citation2016; Fainstein Citation2018).
Cities are increasingly focused on resilience, but it is unclear who is truly benefitting from these efforts. At present, communities’ resilience is highly unequal. Numerous studies have shown that hazards disproportionately impact low-income and minority communities, that they receive fewer resources to recover, and that disruptions often exacerbate inequalities (Bolin and Kurtz Citation2017). Thus, for a city to be universally resilient it must address social inequity in all its forms. 100RC promises to “make a city better, in both good times and bad, for the benefit of all its citizens, particularly the poor and vulnerable” (Citation100 Resilient Cities Citation2018). Similarly, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) notes that “global agendas having resilience as a key concept will ensure that the call for sustainable and resilient cities leaves no one behind” (UN-Habitat Citation2018). These quotes suggest that resilience plans and policies should be socially equitable. However, some scholars argue that resilience research and practice is inherently conservative, perpetuates the neoliberal status quo and associated economic inequalities, prevents necessary system transformations, and pays insufficient attention to uneven power relationships and politics (MacKinnon and Derickson Citation2012; Bonds Citation2018). These critiques have largely come from individual case studies of resilience policies or plans. In fact, we could not identify any published systematic, cross-sectional analyses of how equity is addressed in resilience plans. Meanwhile, the field of practice is quickly evolving. In 2015, New York was the first of the 100RC cities to release its resilience plan and now over 40 cities have published their respective strategies. More research is needed to determine whether these cities are learning from early critiques and making equity a focus of their resilience planning or if resilience really is an inherently problematic concept that needs to be “refused” (Bonds Citation2018).
This study seeks to inform these theoretical and empirical debates by examining how social equity is incorporated into resilience planning. We conduct a qualitative analysis of the first ten North American city resilience plans created through the 100RC programme. In Sections 2–4 we briefly review the literature on urban resilience and theories of justice, culminating in our conceptual framework of social equity in urban resilience planning. In Section 5, we outline the methods used to analyse the plans. We present our results and analysis for the ten cities in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 reflects on the broader implications for resilience and social equity planning, including recommendations for enhancing justice in planning.
2. The rise of urban resilience
Cities face unprecedented environmental, social, and technical challenges, from rising infrastructure repair costs associated with extreme weather events, to terrorism, to risks of climate gentrification in higher-elevation neighbourhoods as residents retreat from rising seas (Keenan, Hill, and Gumber Citation2018). In the face of these and other threats, cities have increasingly incorporated the concept of resilience into their policies and plans (Coaffee and Clarke Citation2015). Urban resilience is appealing because it is ostensibly focused on enhancing the ability of the city to cope with a variety of shocks and stresses, such as those posed by climate change (Leichenko Citation2011). In the academic literature, resilience has a long history of use in psychology, ecology, and engineering (Alexander Citation2013). Urban applications more often trace the concept back to ecology and the work of Holling (Citation1973), who defined resilience as the ability of a system to persist in the face of disturbance and change (Meerow, Newell, and Stults Citation2016). Resilience is now applied in a wide range of disciplines and urban systems (Davoudi et al. Citation2012). Numerous policy initiatives also focus on making cities more resilient, one of the most notable being the 100RC programme. Launched in 2013, 100RC provides member cities with funding and support to hire a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) and develop a resilience strategy.
3. Critiques of resilience
The growing pervasiveness of the resilience concept has sparked some trenchant critiques. First, the term is criticised for its ambiguous meaning (Cretney Citation2014). Meerow et al. identified 25 different definitions of urban resilience in 2016, and the literature continues to expand. Though this malleability may enable the concept to function as a boundary object that bridges disciplines, varying definitions can also create conflicting interpretations (Brand and Jax Citation2007). For example, if resilience is defined in terms of “bouncing back”, it becomes an inherently conservative goal (Davoudi et al. Citation2012). In contrast, if an evolutionary conception of resilience is adopted, it may encompass more radical transformations (Chelleri et al. Citation2015). Translating the fuzzy concept of resilience into practice thus remains a consistent challenge (Moglia et al. Citation2018).
A second set of resilience critiques argues that the predominant conceptualizations of resilience – those rooted in engineering and ecological theories – inadequately address politics and social justice (Meerow and Newell Citation2019; Ziervogel et al. Citation2017). In many ways, these discussions parallel those around sustainability, which is also criticised for neglecting equity issues (Agyeman and Evans Citation2003). Though meanings vary across domains and sectors, urban resilience planning generally focuses on reducing vulnerabilities or enhancing adaptive capacity. This purely instrumental view of resilience often overlooks the underlying factors driving vulnerabilities or constraining positive adaptation, such as uneven power relations and structural inequality (Béné et al. Citation2018; Harris, Chu, and Ziervogel Citation2017). Additionally, because much of the resilience literature (particularly that drawing on the ecological and social-ecological systems perspectives) takes a systems-based approach, there is a tendency to focus on the performance of the whole, obfuscating important inequalities and trade-offs, or the distribution of resilience winners and losers, within a single city (Cote and Nightingale Citation2012; Fainstein Citation2018; Matin, Forrester, and Ensor Citation2018). For example, efforts to enhance flood resilience in cities like Manila and Jakarta have led to the forced relocation of informal settlements, disrupting residents’ livelihoods (Anguelovski et al. Citation2016; Meerow Citation2017).
Moreover, by focusing on the need for individuals and communities to build capacity to withstand any disruption, resilience-focused policies have been accused of normalising crisis and forestalling more difficult debates about how to transform the underlying systems that produce repeated crises – such as global capitalism (Davoudi et al. Citation2012; MacKinnon and Derickson Citation2012; Cretney Citation2014). The rhetoric of resilience may thus be used to justify rapid investments in infrastructure to protect or enhance the unjust status quo, as opposed to long-term social improvement (Long and Rice Citation2018). As Bonds (Citation2018, 3) writes, “Resilience thinking conceals the political and racial nature of social systems, obscuring the role of previous policies, institutions, and authorities in siphoning resources from poor neighborhoods of color in order to build resilience elsewhere”. Some take it a step further, arguing that resilience efforts are not simply ignoring the social production of risks, but are actively used to perpetuate a neoliberal agenda and all its associated inequalities (Joseph Citation2013; Evans and Reid Citation2015; Fainstein Citation2018). By focusing on the inevitability of crisis, resilience planning may also be used to justify increased “securitization” – or the urgent need to build-up physical or virtual defenses, potentially at the expense of civil liberties and participatory decision-making (Cretney Citation2014, 634). Citing these various critiques, some researchers reject resilience discourse altogether (MacKinnon and Derickson Citation2012; Bonds Citation2018).
Other scholars are more optimistic about the potential for resilience efforts. Cretney (Citation2014), for example, argues that the Transition Towns movement, which uses resilience ideas as a motivation for establishing communities based on alternative local economies, shows that resilience discourse can be leveraged for social transformation. Similarly, Bahadur and Tanner (Citation2014) argue that a programme to build resilience in Asia showed the potential to be transformative because it started to rectify local power imbalances and increase public participation and social cohesion. Meerow and Newell (Citation2019) and Harris, Chu, and Ziervogel (Citation2017) acknowledge that the resilience literature pays insufficient attention to the politics shaping resilience policy decisions but suggest that urban resilience can be redeemed by making the inevitable negotiations about how to apply resilience and associated tradeoffs the focus – questions of resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why? Working through these questions could help to foreground debates about equity and justice in resilience policy-making.
While insightful, much of the literature debating the merits of urban resilience has been largely theoretical or based on individual case studies (Woodruff et al. Citation2018). Collectively, how are cities defining the parameters of resilience and how do these conceptualizations relate to social equity? Such critical examinations are necessary in light of the growing portfolio of local resilience planning and investments. But before we can examine how resilience planning addresses equity, we first need to define social equity, and much like resilience the term is contested.
4. Defining social equity in the context of urban resilience
Definitions of social equity and justice have evolved over time, generally expanding from a narrower focus on distributional equity to include participation and recognition as critical components of justice. Following this trend, and building specifically on the “widely accepted” conception of Schlosberg (Citation2004, Citation2007) (Bulkeley, Edwards, and Fuller Citation2014, 33), we adopt a tripartite framework of social equity that includes distributional, recognitional, and procedural equity dimensions. We believe that all three types of (in)justice shape communities’ resilience (Figure 1).
Published online:
25 July 2019Figure 1. Conceptualising social equity in the context of urban resilience planning.
Figure 1. Conceptualising social equity in the context of urban resilience planning.
4.1. Distributional equity
Political theorists traditionally understood justice in relation to the distribution of goods and freedoms, following John Rawls’ (Citation1971, 9) classic definition of justice as “a standard whereby distributional aspects of the basic structure of society are to be assessed”. Advocates of this so-called “distributive justice” generally define just outcomes as the fair allocation of material goods to all members of society. It is important to note that this is not synonymous with equalitarianism (equal allocation for all). Social goods may be distributed to explicitly improve the welfare of the disadvantaged (Schlosberg Citation2007). In the context of urban resilience planning, we define distributional justice as equitable access to goods and infrastructure, environmental amenities, services, and economic opportunities (Figure 1). Conversely, the distribution of undesirable land uses (disamenities) or pollutants across the urban environment is equally important, and has long been a focus of the environmental justice scholarship and activism (Schlosberg Citation2007).
Several recent studies (Chelleri et al. Citation2015; Meerow and Newell Citation2019; Fainstein Citation2018) have raised concerns about the distributional inequities of resilience-building efforts, pointing out that there are inevitable trade-offs in the beneficiaries of resilience initiatives, and they are often not the most vulnerable. Drawing on land use planning examples from around the world, Anguelovski et al. (Citation2016) differentiate between “acts of commission”, whereby the negative consequences (e.g. displacement) of resilience investments primarily impact disadvantaged communities and groups, and “acts of omission”, whereby marginalised groups receive fewer resilience benefits.
4.2. Recognitional equity
While distributive justice is crucial, it may not be sufficient to ensure equitable resilience outcomes. Social justice scholars like Schlosberg (Citation2004) argue that it is important to recognise the underlying social structures that contribute to unequal distribution. By focusing solely on the best schemes or models of distribution, other social, cultural, and institutional patterns and contexts may be overlooked (Young Citation1990). Moreover, many distributional inequities may stem from a lack of social or political recognition, “demonstrated by various forms of insults, degradation, and devaluation at both the individual and cultural level” (Schlosberg Citation2007, 14). Recognitional injustices, then, are the institutions (beliefs, norms, culture, language) that shape group differences and determine inequitable distributions (Young Citation1990). Recognition is a “relationship, a social norm embedded in social practice” (Schlosberg Citation2007, 23), so it cannot be assumed or subsumed under distribution.
Recognitional justice, in contrast, refers to the equal acknowledgement and respect of different identities and associated social status (Schlosberg Citation2007). In the context of resilience planning, we propose that recognitional equity entails: (1) acknowledging community members’ different intersecting identities (e.g. race, gender, class, and age), (2) recognising that these identities are shaped by historical injustices and can shape individual vulnerability to shocks and stresses, ability to access resources, and capacity to participate in decision-making, and (3) fostering respect for different groups.
Efforts to enhance recognitional equity should focus on identifying and changing the social and cultural factors that undermine self-respect within a particular group and prevent them from being fully accepted and valued within the community, as well as building a general respect for social differences (Schlosberg Citation2007). For example, calls for official government acknowledgement of indigenous nations and more respect for their unique cultures would both be examples of struggles for recognition (Schlosberg Citation2004). Similarly, when defining equitable resilience, Matin, Forrester, and Ensor (Citation2018, 203) acknowledge that “subjectivities place, identity, and social contexts all come together to create a form of reality which influences the way people and communities see themselves and are treated by policy and the policy community”.
4.3. Procedural equity
A third component of social equity focuses on the decision-making processes that dictate the distribution of goods and conditions for formal recognition. Procedural justice refers to the “fair and equitable institutional processes of a state” (Schlosberg Citation2007, 25). For resilience planning, we define procedural equity as equitable participation in decision-making processes, which includes public participation in the development of the plan, efforts to increase ongoing public participation in city governance, and specific outreach to marginalised groups that often are underrepresented in traditional public engagement processes.
Procedural equity is closely connected to both recognitional and distributional equity. An individual or group’s membership and participation in decision-making is integral to the equitable distribution of material goods. Without procedures of recognition, an individual or group is unable to participate in the community; without such participation, their unique needs for social goods cannot be recognised either. Recognitional equity is thought to create more inclusive, collaborative and democratic forms of government to better engage and recognise pluralist needs, issues, and solutions to equity (Nussbaum Citation2003); and recognise the historical contexts that created inequalities in the first place and continue to exacerbate resource maldistribution and social misrecognition (Nozick Citation2000).
Recent studies arguing for more equitable approaches to resilience planning stress the merit of inclusive, participatory processes (Meerow and Newell Citation2019; Shi et al. Citation2016; Harris, Chu, and Ziervogel Citation2017; Matin, Forrester, and Ensor Citation2018). Matin, Forrester, and Ensor (Citation2018, 200), for example, note “overwhelming evidence argues for the inclusion in decision-making of diverse social groupings that influence resource distribution and human-environmental relationships”. Yet Anguelovski et al. (Citation2016) find that climate adaptation planning processes – often framed as resilience planning – fail to meaningfully include marginalised groups. In response to these concerns, Harris, Chu, and Ziervogel (Citation2017) propose an entirely procedural orientation to resilience through their concept of “negotiated resilience”.
5. Methodology
This study examines how, and to what extent, cities are incorporating social equity into their resilience plans and strategies. To achieve this objective we systematically review the first ten resilience plans developed by North American cities through 100RC using our tripartite framework (Figure 1) of equity in urban resilience planning.
5.1. Data collection
Our sample of resilience plans included the following ten cities: New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Boston, Boulder, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Berkeley, Norfolk, Atlanta, and Mexico City. Each city’s resilience plan was collected from municipal government websites and the 100RC database (www.100resilientcities.org/strategies) from January to April 2017. The plans varied greatly in length, from fewer than 55 pages (Boulder) to more than 300 pages (New York City) ().
Table 1. Resilience plans analysed.
Given that these plans were written and self-reported by each city, the strategies and aims outlined in them largely reflect the objectives of those delivering or publicising the initiative – namely city elites and the Rockefeller Foundation. Even where the plans do address equity, it does not guarantee that they will be implemented, and the final impacts are unknown (Broto and Westman Citation2017). Furthermore, because our database is restricted to urban resilience strategies developed through 100RC, our sample is not a comprehensive representation of all resilient strategies, especially those that are informal or implemented at the state or federal level. Rather, the 100RC strategies provide a convenient sample to examine narratives of resilience and equity as they are enacted by the 100RC platform (Woodruff et al. Citation2018). Moreover, given the influence of 100RC in advancing the urban resilience agenda even beyond member cities, it is important to understand how participants are framing resilience and equity (Leitner et al. Citation2018).
5.2. Plan analysis
To analyse the plans, we employed a qualitative coding scheme. Plans and strategies in each city were reviewed and coded for their interpretations of resilience and equity. The resilience plans underwent two rounds of analysis, by two separate reviewers, to ensure that no key themes were missed, that there were no significant discrepancies between analyses, and to identify common themes.
More specifically, we developed a spreadsheet () with deductive codes derived from the literature on resilience and justice in cities (see Section 3). These codes include information about how resilience, equity, and/or justice are framed, how equity and/or justice are framed in relation to resilience, and if (and how) plans engage with equity-related themes and issues (e.g. inclusive participation and engagement, equality of resource allocations, access to infrastructure, addressing issues of marginalised and vulnerable populations, and engagement with historical contexts – see ). Each researcher carefully read through and coded the plans, copying any relevant quotes into their own copy of the spreadsheet. After reconciling them, we coded the combined results inductively for common themes and differences.
Table 2. Coding scheme for resilience strategy documents.
6. Equity in the 100RC plans
6.1. Framing of resilience
Definitions of resilience were fairly consistent across the 100RC cities, differing primarily in terms of emphasis. Most cities define resilience as the capacity to withstand and/or adapt to disruptive events, including chronic stresses (i.e. aging infrastructure, socio-economic disparities, and environmental degradation) and acute shocks (i.e. sea level rise, earthquakes, floods). The critical element of resilience, in this context, is centred on the robustness and resistance of physical elements (such as buildings and infrastructure) to shocks and stresses. This rhetoric, of surviving and overcoming climate-related stressors, shocks, or uncertainty, is used across the board; however, stressors and shocks are tailored to each city’s history, social conditions, and geography. Stresses, for instance, are generally defined as longer term, social events; whereas shocks are identified as shorter-term events ().
Table 3. Illustrative stresses and shocks in the plans.
Similarities in cities’ definitions likely stem from the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation’s City Resilience Index (developed in collaboration with the consultancy firm Arup). Their index, structured around four dimensions, twelve goals, and fifty-two indicators, defines resilience as “the capacity of cities to function, so that people living and working in cities – particularly the poor and vulnerable – survive and thrive no matter what stresses and shocks they encounter” (Rockefeller Foundation Citation2014). This definition is quite broad, leaving considerable flexibility for city interpretation. It also does not explicitly mention social equity and justice. The index does point to low-income and vulnerable populations, however, both in its overarching definition and in one of the seven qualities of a resilient system: “inclusion emphasizes the need for broad consultation and engagement of communities, including the most vulnerable groups” (Rockefeller Foundation Citation2014).
Several cities expand on the Rockefeller definition to acknowledge deeper social contexts. Oakland and Boston, for example, specifically mention fostering “equitable access” to resources and opportunities to addressing “racial equity” in their conceptualizations of resilience, respectively ().
Table 4. Definitions of resilience in the 100RC plans.
The plans also vary in how they articulate the relationship between equity and resilience. New Orleans and Oakland explicitly state that investing in equity builds resilience. Similarly, Boston argues that “By beginning the process of repairing racial inequity, Boston stands better poised to find effective solutions to other major shocks and stresses” (3). Berkeley, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh cite inequity as one of the main challenges to which they must become more resilient, on par with earthquakes, extreme weather, and sea level rise. Mexico City, conversely, argues that enhancing resilience will lead to a more equitable society (6).
6.2. Definitions of social equity in the resilience plans
Our analysis reveals variable engagement with social equity in the resilience plans. At one extreme is Boston, whose plan is built on a racial equity framework. Other cities identify equity as one of their guiding principles or goals, while some simply allude to it in different parts of the document. The variation in the number of times the plans use the word equity is revealing. There is not a single reference to equity in Boulder’s plan, for example, whereas the term is used once in Norfolk’s, four times in Mexico City’s, 21 times in New Orleans’, 35 in New York City’s, and 91 times in Boston’s plan.
In New York, equity is defined as one of the plan’s four principles: “fairness and equal access to assets, services, resources and opportunities so that all New Yorkers can reach their full potential (14).” In New Orleans, equity is one of the plan’s key visions of “connecting to opportunity” (4). Likewise, in Berkeley, racial equity is defined as one of the plan’s main goals: “provide proactive leadership to identify and eliminate institutional barriers to racial equity” (19). In contrast, despite having extensive engagement with resilience, equity is not explicitly addressed in Boulder, only indirectly through mentioning of vulnerable populations and accessibility of resilience (27). Likewise, in Mexico City, equity is not explicitly identified as one of their guiding principles, despite it being part of the plan’s title.
Where plans do mention social equity, it is inconsistently defined. Most conceptions of equity are predicated on notions of distributional equity, with fewer cities also addressing recognitional and procedural equity ().
Table 5. Definitions of social equity across resilience plans.
6.3. Distributional equity in the resilience plans
Many of the plans have the stated objective of addressing inequalities in income, access to infrastructure (e.g. housing, transportation, public spaces), environmental amenities and disamenities, services, and educational and economic opportunities. For instance, the goal of Mexico City’s plan is “that CDMX citizens have equal access to urban amenities, housing, green areas, and public spaces” (13). New York City emphasises “equal access to assets, services, resources and opportunities” (14) and Oakland highlights the need for “equitable access to quality education and jobs, housing security, community safety and vibrant infrastructure” (12).
Housing quality and affordability is a major focus in several of the plans, including New York, Pittsburgh, Oakland, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Oakland, for example, is developing opportunities to support nonprofit organisations to buy and rehabilitate existing buildings that house lower-income Oaklanders – and making them permanently affordable to current and future residents. New York City plans to create a new Inclusionary Housing Program and to try to engage women-and-minority-owned businesses in those efforts. San Francisco intends to implement an Affordable Housing Preservation & Neighborhood Stabilization Program that would allow buildings to be rehabilitated and permanently stabilised as deed-restricted to households earning up to 120 percent of the Area Median Income.
Access to infrastructure is another common theme across plans. New York’s plan acknowledges the disproportionate burden of long commutes on low-income communities and lack of access to transit and sets a goal of providing all residents access to transit and a 45-minute commute. San Francisco sets a somewhat vague goal of increasing connectivity of all neighbourhoods by developing a long-range transportation plan. Access to healthy food (e.g. Pittsburgh, New York City, Norfolk), and water (Mexico City) are also discussed in some of the plans. Several of the cities, such as New York and Oakland, recognise inequitable access to green infrastructure, and outline plans to expand green spaces. New York’s “Community Parks Initiative (CPI)”, for example, is an equity-based approach for park investment for neighbourhoods in need (77). Pittsburgh also aims to connect all neighbourhoods to nature.
While many of the plans discuss the distributional equity of desirable amenities, fewer discuss disamenities. New York City’s plan does mention that crime, air pollution, and extreme heat are not evenly distributed across the city. Similarly, Oakland recognises that flooding is concentrated in low-income areas. Pittsburgh flags disparities in violent crime between largely segregated neighbourhoods and environmental justice issues, such as the fact that black residents face higher air toxin exposure.
The importance of equitable access to services is also recognised in many cities. New York discusses disparities in broadband internet access and plans to provide universal access by 2025. Boston also aims to increase internet and technology access. New York, along with some of the other cities, outlines strategies to expand healthcare access to all parts of the city. San Francisco, for example, plans to expand mental health services for San Franciscans, including the homeless, and seismically upgrade and strengthen the City’s public health care facilities and emergency medical response infrastructure to ensure their viability after a major earthquake (36).
Many of the plans (e.g. Oakland, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh) acknowledge disparities in educational quality, access, and attainment, often connecting them with economic opportunity. Different strategies are proposed to improve education, from providing free universal pre-K (New York City; Pittsburgh) to college savings programmes for low-income parents (Oakland).
In general, achieving more equitable economic opportunities and general economic growth is a major focus of many of the plans. “Equitable economic opportunity” is one of the focus areas for Boston’s plan. Many of New York’s strategies focus on workforce development and the need to lift people out of poverty. Oakland aims “to build a model of responsible economic growth and business attraction, in concert with a commitment to building economic security, especially for those who have historically had limited access to opportunity” (60). Pittsburgh plans to develop job and training programmes for youth of colour to improve economic opportunity and workforce diversity. None of the plans really question the desirability or feasibility of continued economic growth.
Addressing the specific needs of disadvantaged groups is a critical aspect of distributional equity, thus it becomes crucial how the geography of needs and opportunities are identified. Several of the cities engage with their respective historical contexts. New York, for instance, has considered historical trends and statistical data on poverty and homelessness to inform interventions on affordable housing in vulnerable parts of the city. In contrast, San Francisco, though it identifies housing as a primary goal, seldom mentions its historical contexts, the roots of homelessness in the city, or those most vulnerable to these problems. Importantly, it is unclear how “vulnerable populations” (88) are defined, a common issue, which we discuss in more depth later.
6.4. Recognitional equity in the resilience plans
Compared with their handling of distributional equity, the 100RC plans were considerably weaker in addressing recognitional equity. Only two of the cities (Boston and Pittsburgh) specifically mention systemic racism, although New Orleans acknowledges persistent racism and the far-reaching effects of racial inequality. Moreover, some of the other cities discuss the particular challenges faced by certain minority groups and propose strategies to tackle them.
Boston thoroughly acknowledges its “history of racism, discrimination and social cohesion” and the fact that “generations of Bostonians have experienced implicit and explicit bias in all aspects of life – from interpersonal relationships to housing policy to educational opportunity – and continue to do so today” to better contextualise and problematise present systemic inequities, and makes addressing them a focus of the plan (10). In New Orleans, past injustices in racial inequity are identified, and the plan outlines “how real estate policies reinforced racial segregation and historic settlement patterns tied to people color and lower-income residents” to contextualise disproportionate vulnerabilities to extreme events, unequal distribution of wealth, and limited access to social mobility (41). The introductory letter from Pittsburgh’s mayor states that “our resilience journey begins with the acknowledgment of our recent past. A reverence to our scars, it is within our history that we find lessons from which we can learn … ” (4). The plan does not shy away from the city’s racial and income disparities. In contrast, Norfolk and Boulder focus more on their history of resilience, with little discussion of inequalities.
A number of the cities also identify groups that are more vulnerable and outline plans to assist them, with varying degrees of specificity. Boston specifically identifies the most vulnerable groups, provides maps of where they are concentrated across the city, and connects many of their strategies – from community energy to flooding – back to how they affect these populations. Oakland acknowledges that “communities of color and low-income communities are over represented in the most vulnerable segments of the population” (27), and New York discusses strategies to provide housing for the homeless, veterans, seniors, foster care youth, those with disabilities, and the formerly incarcerated.
Other cities also acknowledge that some populations are more vulnerable but provide scant details about who these people are or where they live. San Francisco, for example, describes a Citizens Advisory Recovery Committee composed of service providers and representatives of vulnerable populations, but does not go into depth about who would be included.
By making recognition one of the core elements of equity, especially in the political sphere, we may be better equipped to address the needs of those who are misrecognised and politically excluded from climate adaptation efforts.
6.5. Procedural equity in the resilience plans
Almost all the plans purport to have been developed through extensive public consultation and engagement processes. In many cases, cities list partner organisations, detail how many workshops were held or residents surveyed. Once again, cities vary considerably in this regard. New York City’s plan details how they met with 1300 residents, advocacy groups and elected officials; conducted 7500 public surveys and 800 telephone surveys; and consulted 177 civic organisations, 50 elected officials, and 15 leaders from neighbouring cities and counties before developing the plan (18). Boston writes that their resilience office worked with over 11,000 stakeholders; Berkeley received input from 1100 residents; Pittsburgh over 600 individuals; New Orleans, on the other hand, boasts that they had 350 individuals participate in their planning process, and San Francisco 186. Mexico City claims that their plan was developed through a “participatory process” with stakeholders, but do not provide any specifics. Boulder provides no details of public engagement.
Beyond the development of the resilience plans themselves, some of the cities make it a goal to enhance public participation, share public data, and support community cohesion. New York City emphasises the “social cohesion necessary to create resilient communities”. San Francisco’s plan notes their intention to build community cohesion through community asset mapping and a Neighborhood Empowerment Network. Norfolk’s strategy also includes asset mapping, as well as participatory budgeting, the latter of which is also one of Boston’s strategies.
While the scale of many of the cities’ engagement efforts are admirable, from a procedural equity perspective it is not clear whether or how they engaged marginalised groups. Cities may state how many residents completed surveys, but it is not clear how representative those are, or whether marginalised communities participated. Prior studies have shown that the most vulnerable residents are not those that typically take part in public meetings (Laurian Citation2004). Here, again, Boston is a notable exception. They write in their plan that they took “different approaches to reach those who might not attend meetings, including riding MBTA buses to engage with residents individually about their impressions of Boston’s challenges” (2). Boulder also plans to develop a “community-driven, interactive mobile resilience lab” that can “meet people where they are” for resilience-related programming (32). Moreover, many of the cities outline plans to engage residents using new technologies, without reflecting on who this might exclude. Norfolk, for example, plans to develop web-based applications to better connect residents, but they do not mention how those without smart phones or internet access will be engaged. Similarly, San Francisco aims to develop a digital service strategy with no discussion of inclusivity issues.
7. Discussion: towards more equitable urban resilience planning
Resilience discourse is increasingly criticised for failing to address equity issues (Harris, Chu, and Ziervogel Citation2017; Fainstein Citation2018). Yet our in-depth analysis of how equity is framed in ten cities’ resilience plans suggest a more complicated reality. We find considerable variation in the extent to which plans incorporate social equity into their definitions of resilience and their strategies, as well as the forms of equity they consider. This study is, to our knowledge, the first cross-sectional analysis of equity in resilience plans, therefor the findings have important implications for both the theory and practice of urban resilience. Our conceptual framework for social equity in the context of urban resilience planning and the lessons learned from reviewing this initial sample of plans can inform more equitable resilience planning and provide a foundation for future research on the equity implications of resilience.
Most of the cities in our sample adapt the official 100RC definition of resilience, which is somewhat apolitical, although a few cities add an equity dimension. Operationalising resilience ultimately entails decisions about who is most socio-economically and physically vulnerable to threats, how to allocate limited resources, and tradeoffs related to the policies in the plans. Often the needs of the most vulnerable are not prioritised, nor are they included in decision-making processes (Vale Citation2014). We argue that resilience planning must go beyond an apolitical focus on infrastructure and potential shocks to one that explicitly engages with the multiple dimensions of equity: distributional, recognitional, and procedural. Here we find room for improvement in the plans. In keeping with the literature (Schlosberg Citation2007), we find that when cities do address justice issues, they focus on distributional equity, including more equitable access to infrastructure, goods, services, and opportunities. Fewer strategies focus on procedural or recognitional justice. Boston stands out among the cities for the extent to which it applies an equity lens to all aspects of the plan. Boulder’s plan, on the other hand, has very little equity-related content. In terms of distributional equity, common themes across the plans include strategies to increase access to affordable housing, transit, green infrastructure, healthcare, technologies (including internet), and educational and economic opportunities. Unsurprisingly, plans do not call for radical transformation of the capitalist system or degrowth, which has also been a critique of urban sustainability initiatives (Broto and Westman Citation2017). Most of the plans detail some form of public engagement as part of the plan’s development, although the extent varies, and some have strategies related to increasing public participation in governance. Procedural equity could generally be improved by clarifying strategies for reaching marginalised groups. Similarly, most cities recognise that certain groups are more vulnerable than others, but only a few plans recognise structural factors (e.g. systemic racism) that perpetuate inequalities and propose strategies to address them. Explaining the variation in how cities address equity is outside the scope of this study but could be an important avenue for future research.
Regardless of the cause, the variation we observe in how plans address justice issues suggests that resilience may not be inherently antithetical to equity, but there are some general areas for improvement. It should also be acknowledged that these plans are not binding and may merely represent wishful thinking. Future research should examine whether strategies are implemented, and who benefits as a result. In other words, there remains a need to empirically examine inevitably political and contested questions and trade-offs related to resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why? (Meerow and Newell Citation2019; Harris, Chu, and Ziervogel Citation2017) As an example, Mexico City suggests in their plan that housing in high-risk areas should be “identified for possible relocation”, but does not discuss how, or what the impact would be on those people’s livelihoods (108). As noted in the Oakland plan, “Without proactive consideration of environmental justice concerns, adaptation decisions about what is protected and how it is paid for may have a disproportionate impact on low-income neighborhoods and communities of color” (27). If we do not call into question whose resilience is being strengthened and gain a better understanding of the advantages and trade-offs of adopting policies, the disproportionate impacts of climate change and urbanisation – such as extreme inequality, concentrated poverty, social exclusion and unemployment – will persist in cities (Béné et al. Citation2018).
8. Conclusion
Resilience has become ubiquitous in urban policy. Rooted largely in contemporary theories of engineering and ecology, urban resilience refers to the capacity of communities to recover or adapt to climate change and other disruptions. Emerging critiques of resilience in the academic literature focus on the multiple meanings of the term and its failure to adequately address social equity. Our cross-sectional comparison of some of the first local resilience plans finds that most cities’ definitions and priorities for resilience focus on recovery and adaptation, with limited engagement with systemic inequality and the uneven politics of urban development. Some cities do emphasise equity in their plans, suggesting that resilience efforts can advance social justice, but even they tend to focus on the equal distribution of material resources and opportunities. Equity, we argue, is not merely a question of distribution. Applied to planning and development in the context of climate adaptation and resilience, allocating resources evenly may flatten identities and misrecognise the different needs of individuals, especially those whose identities are politically underrepresented.
Moving forward, resilience strategies need to explicitly consider resilience for whom, while at the same time promoting the equitable distribution of social and material goods, meaningful participation and engagement in decision-making processes, and acknowledgement of social, cultural, and political differences. Urban resilience planning thus needs to consider distributional, recognitional, and procedural equity. We have shown that some cities are focusing on enhancing distributional equity in their resilience plans but could do a better job recognising structural factors that perpetuate inequalities and taking clear steps to ensure that marginalised groups participate in decision-making processes. Embedding all three dimensions of social equity in resilience plans is an important step in re-politicizing resilience, and we propose a framework to begin thinking about this integration. Though truly equitable resilience planning will undeniably be more exhaustive and complex, it is necessary if we hope to create cities where all residents are more resilient.
| Plan title | Date released |
|---|---|
| One New York: The plan for a strong and just city | April 2015 |
| Resilient New Orleans | August 2015 |
| Norfolk’s resilience strategy | October 2015 |
| Resilient San Francisco: Stronger today, stronger tomorrow | April 2016 |
| Berkeley resilience strategy: A strategic preparedness plan for Berkeley | April 2016 |
| City of boulder resilience strategy | April 2016 |
| Mexico city resilience strategy: Adaptive, inclusive and equitable transformation | September 2016 |
| Resilient Oakland | October 2016 |
| Resilient Pittsburgh | March 2017 |
| Resilient Boston: An equitable and connected city | July 2017 |
| Coding category | Description |
|---|---|
| Framing of resilience | Text defining what resilience means for the city |
| Framing of equity | Text defining equity for the city |
| Framing of equity in relation to resilience | Text describing the relationship between equity and resilience |
| Mentions of equity | Total number of times “equity” is written in the document |
| Distributional equity | |
| Equity of resource allocations | Text describing how resources are inequitably distributed across city, how they should be allocated to enhance equity, or strategies to enhance equity of resource allocations |
| Access to infrastructure | Text describing inequitable access to infrastructure, how it should be made equitable, or strategies to enhance equity of infrastructure |
| Access to economic opportunities/jobs | Text describing inequitable economic opportunities or jobs, how they should be made more equitable, or strategies to enhance equity of access to economic opportunities |
| Procedural equity | |
| Inclusive participation and engagement | Text describing how different members of the public are engaged in the planning process or initiatives to increase participation in decision-making |
| Recognitional equity | |
| Addressing issues of vulnerable groups | Text identifying vulnerable populations or describing inequities in vulnerability or strategies to reduce vulnerability of these groups |
| Consideration of historical contexts | Text describing historical inequities or their impacts |
| Discussion of structural racism | Text recognising the existence of structural racism |
| Ties to other groups and plans | Text describing other plans or external partnerships related to distributional, procedural, or recognitional equity |
| Metrics for identifying issues/assessing outcomes | Text describing how equity will be assessed or measured |
| City | Stresses | Shocks |
|---|---|---|
| Pittsburgh | Economic and racial inequity, fragmentation, aging infrastructure, environmental degradation (27) | Infrastructure collapse, economic collapse, climate change, and extreme weather (27) |
| New York | High unemployment, aging infrastructure, an overtaxed or inefficient public transportation system, endemic violence, and growing inequality (12) | Superstorms, blackouts, heat waves, and other acute events (27) |
| Oakland | Equity stresses include socio-economic disparities, wealth disparities, educational disparities, access to good jobs, high crime rate, insufficient affordable housing, chronic homelessness, trust in government, aging infrastructure, limited city resources (20–22) | Earthquakes, wildfires, coastal and urban floods (27–29) |
| New Orleans | Violence, poverty and inequality (2) | Floods, infrastructure failures, recessions, oil spills, storms (66) |
| San Francisco | Social inequity, unaffordability, infrastructure (10) | Sea level rise, earthquakes (201) |
| Berkeley | High unemployment, inefficient transportation systems, endemic violence, and chronic food and water shortages (13) | Earthquakes, floods, disease outbreaks (13) |
| Dominant framing | Illustrative quotes from plans |
|---|---|
| Engineering and Ecological: Surviving, adapting and thriving when faced with chronic stresses and acute shocks (natural and man-made) | New York: Ability of people, the places where they live, and our infrastructure systems – such as transportation and energy – to withstand a stress or shock event, to recover, and emerge even stronger (217) New Orleans: Capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience (10) Boulder: The capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt and thrive no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks that may be experienced (18) Berkeley: The ability of the individuals, institutions, businesses, and systems within the community to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what chronic stress or acute shock it experiences. (7) Norfolk: Resilience … centers on the ability of individuals, systems, and our neighbourhoods to survive, adapt, and, when conditions require it, transform in the face of shocks and stresses (11) Pittsburgh: the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience (12) San Francisco: The capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow, no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience (20) Mexico City: Resilience refers to the capacity of the individuals, communities, enterprises, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow, notwithstanding the chronic stresses and acute impacts experienced (19) |
| Social: Tackling systemic social challenges to better withstand chronic stresses and acute shocks | Oakland: Resilience in Oakland means tackling systemic, interdependent challenges, such as equitable access to quality education and jobs, housing security, community safety and vibrant infrastructure to better prepare us for shocks like earthquakes and stresses like climate change (6) Boston: … achieving citywide resilience means addressing racial equity along with the physical, environmental, and economic threats facing our city (6) |
| Dominant framing | Illustrative quotes from plans |
|---|---|
| Distributional equity | New York: Fairness and equal access to assets, services, resources and opportunities so that all New Yorkers can reach their full potential (14) Oakland: Equitable access to quality education and jobs, housing security, community safety and vibrant infrastructure, which will better prepare us for shocks like earthquakes and climate change impacts (12) |
| Recognitional equity | Boston: Equity … aspires to achieve fair outcomes and considers history and implicit bias, rather than simply providing “equal opportunity” for everyone. Racial equity is not just the absence of overt racial discrimination; it is also the presence of deliberate policies and practices that provide everyone with the support they need to improve the quality of their lives (9) |
| Procedural equity | Berkeley: By helping to advance racial equity, the actions described below help to enable the participation and contribution of all community members in all aspects of Berkeley society. The participation of all community members – and contributions from them – is fundamental to Berkeley’s resilience (37) Pittsburgh: Equitable development as a “positive development strategy that ensures everyone participates in and benefits from the region’s economic transformation – especially low-income residents, communities of colour, immigrants, and others at risk of being left behind” (41) |
Acknowledgement
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under award number SES-1444755 (Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Sara Meerow http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6935-1832
Pani Pajouhesh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1465-1547
Thaddeus R. Miller http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1692-5839
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