Layering Strategies to Achieve Resilience

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How to engage diverse stakeholders in a planning process/conversation about resilience .
• How to develop a resilience strategy for your community that works towards prosperity, equity, and environmental quality
• How to prioritize infrastructure investments that better prepare your community for acute shocks and chronic stresses

MORE SESSION DETAILS

With federal funding competitively awarded to the State of Connecticut, an interdisciplinary team of planners, architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers, and outreach specialists has worked to engage the diverse population of the state's most populous city, Bridgeport, in a conversation about resilience and a prioritization of infrastructure investment to better mitigate the potential impacts of acute shocks, recognizing that underlying chronic stresses like poverty and lack of local employment opportunities hamper the community's ability to recover. Though developed for Bridgeport, the team created a multi-layer approach to resilience (natural systems/green edge, dry egress/evacuation routes, grey infrastructure/perimeter protection, green infrastructure/stormwater management, microgrids, and adaptive development) that can be deployed in a range of community types large and small in the face of diverse challenges. The expert panel will convey how the layered strategy for resilience can be oriented to a community's overarching goals regarding the economy, social equity, and environment/climate action, emphasizing the importance of couching resilience within the broader context of community revitalization and master planning for the whole community's diverse goals and objectives.