Regional Resilience: Policy, Research, and Practice

Posted by on March 12, 2012

Evidence Matters Features Regional Resilience: Policy, Research, and Practice

The latest issue of Evidence Matters: Transforming Knowledge into Housing and Community Development Policy (Winter 2012), organized around the theme of regional resilience, is now available. PD&R Assistant Secretary Bostic provides the context for this issue, which examines how local capacity, leadership, and community connections can help regions avoid or recover from stresses — and how the federal Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative is fostering capacity-building in some of the nation’s hardest hit areas. The issue also highlights efforts to understand regional resilience and explores cross-sector partnerships in Chicago’s south suburbs and in Chester, Pennsylvania that address growing suburban poverty.

Keypoints

Strong local government leadership, cross-sector partnerships, and inclusive community participation are critical to increasing regional capacity.

The Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative promotes resilience by helping localities build capacity and maximize the effectiveness of federal assistance.

Approaches to measuring regional resilience depend on the type of stress affecting the area, as well as the research focus (e.g., economic development, social connectedness).

Research finds that regions with greater industrial diversity are more likely to be resistant to shocks and that a history of collaboration across sectors bolsters resilience.

Poverty in the suburbs has expanded rapidly in the past decade. Cross-sector collaboration is proving to be a key to revitalization efforts in Chicago’s south suburbs and in Chester, Pennsylvania.

http://www.huduser.org/portal/evidence.html