A panel of experts yesterday examined the role that organizations in New York, New Orleans and London play in building cities' resilience to catastrophes.
"The simple definition of a resilient city is not at all what I've seen," Columbia University Public Health Professor Mindy Fullilove said. "Organizations of human beings are resilient and will stabilize following being shaken, but they won't be as stable as they were before."
In her opening remarks, moderator and Fletcher School Professor Astier Almedom explained that the phenomenon of resilience does not apply only to cities, but can also be used in relation to many aspects of society.
"Resilience is the capacity for which individuals, families, institutions and ecosystems can maintain normal functions after a disaster strikes without recognizably changing their identities," Almedom said.
The talk took place as part of the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) class in Barnum 008, but was open to the Tufts community.
In her presentation, Fullilove described how community-organizing activities she led in New York after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, exposed post-disaster vulnerability.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Fullilove noticed that very few organizations were joining forces in a city-wide healing process. Disturbed, Fullilove founded "NYC Recovers," which provided a network to help local groups collaborate.
"Organizations are the great intermediaries in cities for [sparking] recovery and allowing people to mourn together, not alone," Fullilove said. She added that this network helped a lot of New Yorkers, even in a city that can be very exclusive.
"New York is a very segregated city that doesn't permit people to get to know each other, and in the aftermath of 9/11, the city continued to be a city of exclusion, not inclusion," she noted. "This is not the path to resilience."
Following Fullilove, panelist Wade Rathke, the founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), talked about New Orleans' resilience following Hurricane Katrina. During the storm, 9,000 employees at the New Orleans-based organization were displaced.
"In the theme of what I've come to learn as resilience, [ACORN] and so many others in New Orleans had to learn to leave New Orleans and adapt in all 50 states," he said.
Rathke expanded on how Katrina forced New Orleans' poorer communities, such as the poverty-stricken Lower Ninth Ward, to bounce back from the disaster. Home to 14,000, the Lower Ninth Ward was one of the most devastated parts of the city.
"While city officials were making building plans [for] other parts of the city, they were just planning on letting the Lower Ninth Ward become an open green space," Rathke said, adding that this idea got "a lot of people angry."
He said, "As people continue to fight about what is going to happen to the area, people's lives are being put on hold."
To date, only 15 percent of the ward has been restored, according to Rathke.
He echoed Fullilove's understanding that community organizations play a fundamental role in disaster recovery.
"In terms of resilience, your chance of coming back and rebuilding helps if you are part of an organization," he said. "We at ACORN believe that, and while it may not be part of the American way, we have definitely seen the effectiveness of organizations through New Orleans."
The last panelist, Professor Richard Williams of the University of Glamorgan in Wales, focused on Londoners' ability to psychologically recover following the bus bombings of July 7, 2005. For the past few years, Williams has researched and evaluated the mental health consequences of the attack.
"Following July 7, more people wanted to seek help from family, friends and organizations than individual, one-on-one psychological counseling," said Williams, a psychology professor. "It makes sense because individuals all rely on each other; we all have relationships and we all belong to groups."
He concluded that building connections helps prepare people for catastrophic events. "We need to prepare communities to develop their collective resilience and enable people to develop personal resilience," he said. "While personal resilience is good, we must all remember to work in groups. Behaving as an individual is to our disadvantage in the long term."
In the final moments of the panel, Fullilove questioned whether many American cities are truly resilient, arguing that the country neglects its urban centers.
"America doesn't like its cities, and many aren't cared for, so a natural disaster will obviously weaken them even more," Fullilove said. "It's like taking a person in a coma and throwing them in a bathtub. How are they supposed to save themselves?"
