How to Create a Resilient City
Preventing community loss in the event of a natural disaster
A research proposal submitted to the Urban Studies and Planning Program
University of California at San Diego
John Pham
USP 186
J3pham@ucsd.edu
November 3, 2011
Abstract
How do you prevent community loss in the event of a natural disaster? In a study done
by the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS), San Francisco will leave
200,000 of its residents with inhabitable homes in a 7.2 magnitude San Andreas
earthquake scenario. With its high density and limited space, San Francisco does not
have the capacity to shelter these many residents. As seen in recent natural disasters,
cities are at risk to losing their communities when residents leave the affected area.
There are social and economic losses associated with residents leaving the community.
In order to become community resilient, cities must take preventative measures to
avoid community loss that will ultimately save its economic and social well being. The
objective of this research is to investigate the effective characteristics of cities that are
resilient to losing communities in the event of natural disasters.
Key terms: resiliency, disaster planning, natural disasters, community loss
Introduction
As seen in recent natural disasters such as the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand and the
devastating hurricane in New Orleans, Louisiana, cities are at risk to losing their communities when
natural disasters strike. In the event of a natural disaster, homes become inhabitable and residents are
forced to relocate. Once they relocate it is difficult for them to return to their hometown due to reasons
such as economic hardships, psychological effects, and risk concerns. Residents whose homes are still
habitable are also likely to leave for the same reasons. Cities prone to natural disasters are at risk of
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experiencing damages again and again. It is known which types of cities are prone to natural disasters
which may be due to their location, climate, or geographical profile. However, it is unknown which types
of cities are resilient to natural disasters. Therefore it is important to research the characteristics of a
city that will lead it towards community resiliency.
For example, it is known why San Francisco is vulnerable to earthquakes. It is in proximity to
two major fault lines. The Hayward Fault is east of the city and the San Andreas Fault is west of the city.
Characteristics that make San Francisco more susceptible to earthquake damages are its liquefaction
prone areas, landslide inducing hillsides, and soft-story residential structures. The combination of these
earthquake risks makes San Francisco a top contender for earthquake damages as seen in past Bay Area
earthquakes. Scientists have predicted that this region is overdue for its next major earthquake and it
may occur in the very near future. It would be beneficial for San Francisco, and cities at the same risks,
to better understand the how to become community resilient in the event of the next natural disaster.
This research paper will look at different case studies of natural disasters affecting communities
to understand what characteristics of a city prevent community loss. Community resiliency is important
to avoid economic and social losses and will lead to streamlining the recovery of a city after the event of
a natural disaster.
Conceptual Framework/Literature Review
As previously mentioned, once residents leave a community due to a natural disaster it is
difficult for them to return. Residents are not the only ones who relocate after a natural disaster. If a
business can’t operate because their retail space is damaged, the appealing option is to move
elsewhere. Once businesses relocate, they take with them their jobs and sometimes their employees.
Taking away jobs from a community after a natural disaster only makes it harder to recover. Research to
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better understand these issues can result in prevention of community loss and in turn prevent other
social and economic losses.
The literature review regarding community resiliency consist of action plans and case studies.
One of the major action plans that will be discussed is the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety.
This plan has done a comprehensive review of San Francisco’s earthquake vulnerability and gives
recommendations to reduce these risks. The case studies discussed in the literature review will include
research on New Orleans. New Orleans is one of the cities that experienced prominent damages from
natural disasters
The Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS) project was formed due to concerns of
mitigating earthquake damage in anticipation for the next major Bay Area earthquake. CAPSS published
4 reports in 2010 describing the earthquake risks in San Francisco and a plan on how to reduce these
risks. However, the information given in their reports do not assess who will be affected and how they
could be helped in the event of an earthquake which is what this research geared towards learning.
With that said, the report still gives valuable information of the existing earthquake risks and
recommendations to the city of San Francisco to help mitigate these risks.
In its report ATC 52-1, “Potential Earthquake Impacts”, CAPSS describes the existing conditions
of San Francisco’s earthquake risks thoroughly, investigating an earthquake scenario on Hazus. Hazus is
a software program developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to estimate
social and economic losses due to natural disasters which include hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.
CAPSS used Hazus to estimate the earthquake damages done to San Francisco in the event of a 7.2
Magnitude earthquake on the San Andreas Fault and wrote a brief description on the impacts this
earthquake would have on the city. The data provided in this report can be used for an earthquake
scenario study that implements different measures to prevent community loss after a natural disaster.
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CAPSS also wrote a self-titled report, “The Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety” listed
under ATC 52-2. In this report there are 17 recommended actions to reduce earthquake risks. Each of
the recommendations are given timelines to pursue however due to complications in trying to
implement these ideas into public policy, the information given in this report has not been utilized to its
utmost potential. One of the goals of this research paper is to analyze these recommendations and
apply it to an earthquake scenario study to determine if they are actually effective in preventing
community loss.
Most of the case studies on natural disasters, in relation to communities, primarily discuss
damage mitigation and not necessarily community resiliency. Since community resiliency may have
more or less a direct relation to damage mitigation, the information from these case studies is still
relevant and important to review. In the case studies, damage mitigation is always mentioned from a
negative standpoint. Plans that went wrong after a natural disaster are usually discussed and not
necessarily the plans that went well. However, consistently in the concluding sections of these research
papers there are recommendations to mitigate natural disaster risks. This will help in determining what
the characteristics of a community resilient city may be.
One natural disaster case study is Hurricane Katrina which occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The research on Hurricane Katrina does not specifically analyze community loss but there are mentions
from this research that are made to community loss. For example, in an article “Hurricane Katrina and
the Paradoxes of Government Disaster Policy: Bringing about Wise Governmental Decisions for
Hazardous Areas,” there is discussion that there was not enough involvement by the local government
to prepare for hurricanes which resulted in over $200 billion worth of damages. It is mentioned that
“while citizens bear the brunt of losses in disasters, local public officials often fail to take actions
necessary to protect them” (Burby 2006, 172). New Orleans is an area prone to hurricanes due to its
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location and climate therefore it is argued that the local government should have been more prepared
for mitigating damages. With the extensive costs of damages there was a good portion of the
community that fled the area because “in trying to make the most hazardous parts of New Orleans safe
for urban expansion, it had the unintended effect of contributing directly to the devastation of
Hurricane Katrina” (Burby 2006, 179). There are many recommendations made from articles of the
Hurricane Katrina case study and this can be used towards the research method for determining the
characteristics of cities which are resilient to community loss.
There is limited research on the general effect of natural disasters to cities. Most of the research
targets a specific case study. However, there was some research done that could prove to be valuable to
this research paper. In the article “Mitigation Emerges as Major Strategy for Reducing Losses Caused by
Natural Disasters,” there is discussion on how there is an increasing trend to live by the coast in the
United States. Living closer to the coast exhibits characteristics that are prone to community loss. One,
living by the coast increases the risk of a natural disaster occurring. These natural disasters include
earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Two, living by the coast is relatively expensive. In the event of a
natural disaster, residents are at risk to losing much more in property value than if they were living
inland (Board, 1999). Another article which addresses the issue of natural disasters in a general sense is
an article titled “The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the
Gender Gap in Life Expectancy.” This article brings up an interesting finding that women have been
more affected by natural disasters than men. There is a relationship between disaster strength and the
socioeconomic status of women in terms of survival in natural disasters (Neumayer 2007).
The objective of this research is to analyze the characteristics of cities that create community
resiliency. This will help in determining how to mitigate social disruption and economic losses in
planning for natural disasters.
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Research Design/Methods
The research methods behind this report will include an analytical portion and a technical
portion. The analytical portion is to evaluate consistent aspects of three case studies. These case studies
will be based on cities which have experienced community loss in result of a natural disaster. This part
will be done mostly from literature research. The technical potion of the research method is to take the
outcomes learned from the analytical portion and apply it to the CAPSS earthquake scenario. The reason
for the technical portion is to assess if the outcomes learned from the literature research can be
effective in preventing community loss.
The analytical portion of this report is to review three case studies of cities which have
experienced community loss due to natural disasters. The three cities that will be reviewed are New
Orleans, San Francisco, and Christchurch. In New Orleans, Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina of 2005
devastated many homes by its major floods. There are many lessons that can be learned from this case
study including government response time, risk preparation, post-disaster planning, and resident
retention rates. In San Francisco, California, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake catastrophically damaged
residential homes and local businesses. It would be valuable to learn what San Francisco is doing in
preparation of the next major earthquake if anything at all. In Christchurch, New Zealand, two
consecutive earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 crippled its business district and rendered many residential
homes inhabitable. Since this event is fairly recent, it would be valuable to study how the efforts are
currently moving along and how the residents of Christchurch are responding to the relief efforts being
provided. Also it would be valuable to research what their plans are for rebuilding and if they are
implementing any policies regarding earthquake measures to prevent community loss.
For each of the case studies there will be a consistent evaluation of certain city aspects in terms
of community resilience to natural disasters. These aspects will include the city’s damage prevention
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measures from natural disasters, governmental assistance in providing relief, preparedness for a natural
disaster, the public perception of natural disaster risks, the demographic of the population and the
aftermath of the natural disaster in terms of community resiliency. By analyzing these aspects
consistently across the case studies, it can be determined which measures were successful and which
measures not as successful. Once this is learned, the successful measures will be gathered and applied
to the CAPSS earthquake scenario of San Francisco.
The technical portion of this report is applying successful resilient measures to the San Francisco
earthquake scenario to verify if these measures are effective with the use of GIS. An example of a
successful measure may be a quick response time for government provided relief or it might be a highly
prepared plan for natural disasters provided by the city. If these are the type of characteristics that
make a city resilient, it will be hard to model in a GIS. However, characteristics of resilient cities may also
be due to specific types of demographics, which will make it easier to model in GIS. These types of
characteristics may include a city with a large high income population or a city with a small youth
population and a small elderly population. The successful measures will not be known until the
analytical portion of the research is done.
It will be a bit of a challenge to model successful measures that are not demographic related and
more emergency response related. How do you model a quick government response time that occurred
in Christchurch and apply this to a scenario in San Francisco? As explained earlier, CAPSS had analyzed
an earthquake scenario in San Francisco for a 7.2 magnitude earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. In its
reports, CAPSS has the city divided into 14 different districts and describes how much earthquake
damage occurs in each of the districts. There 14 different district include: Bayview, Central Waterfront,
Downtown, Excelsior, Ingleside, Marina, Merced, Mission, North Beach, Pacific Heights, Richmond,
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Sunset, Twin Peaks and Western Addition. The breakdown of these districts can be seen in Figure 1
below.
Figure 1: CAPSS district boundaries
The CAPSS data for this earthquake scenario will serve as a case study to apply the successful
measures learned from the analytical portion of this research paper. A quick government provided relief
response time can be modeled in GIS using this data. One thing that would have to be found is the
percent of citizens that were helped by the quick response time in Christchurch and apply it to the San
Francisco scenario. Then an assessment would be needed to see if that percentage was high enough to
prevent community loss, taking into account the other successful measures that are being applied to the
scenario.
If the successful measures found are demographic related it would be much easier to model in
GIS for the San Francisco case study scenario. The first step in doing this is to determine the resilient
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demographic profiles found from research of previous case studies. The next step is to gather Census
data of San Francisco and allocate the data to the different districts defined by CAPSS. Then take the
CAPSS data and look at how much each district is affected and apply this to the demographic profiles
living in those districts. After all this information is allocated to the city-wide scale, the demographics
profiles of the affected residents in the San Francisco case study scenario will be compared to the
resilient demographic profiles found from the analytical portion of the research.
Outcome
There are some predictions of the successful measures that will create a community resilient
city. Demographics with high incomes and less fragile health concerns are a few things that may be
speculated to create a resilient community. This includes communities with a small youth population
and a small elderly population. People with high incomes can afford the risks to stay in the community
and can also afford to rebuild in the same community. People in the adult age group are healthier and
are more able to survive in less than norm conditions. There are also predictions for successful measures
that are not related to demographics but more towards emergency response efforts. Resilient
communities might depend on a quick emergency response time or the city’s preparedness for the
event of a natural disaster. A quick emergency response time may give people security in knowing that
their community is being responsive to the natural disaster and will instill trust that the recovery of the
city will be streamlined. The level in which the city is prepared for the natural disaster may also give the
same perception to the community in that they will trust to stay knowing that living conditions will be
returned back to normal.
There are many definitions of resiliency and there are many ways to reach it. The definition of
resiliency used for this research is community resiliency, to allow residents to stay in their communities
after the event of a natural disaster. The outcome of this research is to determine what characteristics
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of cities are effective towards community resiliency. Due to the nature in reaching this conclusion, there
will be other outcomes including a better understanding of why there is community loss in the event of
a natural disaster and the current conditions of community resiliency. The purpose of preventing
community loss is to avoid social and economic downturns which will ultimately streamline the recovery
of a city after a natural disaster.
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