Building Capacity for Disaster Resiliency in Six Disadvantaged Communities

Philip Berke, John Cooper, David Salvesen, Danielle Spurlock and Christina Rausch
Additional contact information
Philip Berke: Department of City & Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Campus Box 3140, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
John Cooper: MDC, Inc., Chapel Hill, PO Box 17268, NC 27516, USA
David Salvesen: Center for Sustainable Community Design, UNC Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina, Campus Box 6116, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Danielle Spurlock: Department of City & Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Campus Box 3140, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Christina Rausch: MDC, Inc., Chapel Hill, PO Box 17268, NC 27516, USA

Sustainability, 2010, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Disaster plans almost always do not benefit from the knowledge and values of disadvantaged people who are frequently underrepresented in disaster planning processes. Consequently, the plans are inconsistent with the conditions, concerns, and capabilities of disadvantaged people. We present an approach to community-based participatory planning aimed at engaging marginalized and distrustful communities to build their capacity to be more disaster resilient. We review the experiences of six disadvantaged communities under the Emergency Preparedness Demonstration (EPD) project. The EPD effort revealed several critical implications: recruit a diverse set of participants for inclusive collaboration; provide analytical tools to co-develop information and empower people; employ coaches to organize and facilitate sustainable community change; design a bottom-up review process for selection of strategies that holds communities accountable; and build capacity for implementation of strategies.

Keywords: disaster planning; resiliency; disadvantaged communities; social vulnerability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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