ISSUES

Resilience is the ability to recover quickly and well from shocks and crises. This means both physically and socially. A well-maintained infrastructure, energy grid and robust emergency services are all important to a community’s physical resilience. Good schools, skilled employees, libraries, parks and a unified public prepared for emergencies are important to our social resilience. With our Federal government being destroyed, our resilience and how well we survive coming crises will depend on us and our own local government.

Equity means that government serves everyone and does not either advantage or disadvantage certain groups of people. A healthy community provides what all its members need to reach their full potential and contribute to that community. This sounds simple and even expected, but throughout history, certain people usually get more than others from their government. And, that select group’s benefits are not usually according to their needs or improvements for everyone, but according to the influence of certain groups. This inequity holds a community back because the talent, insights and labor of many of their residents is untapped. It also makes a community less resilient because in a crisis, you need everyone working together. If some people feel they are unfairly treated by a community, they will not work well with other community members. As an elected leader, I found the following questions from Arlington’s Equity Resolution helpful for ensuring that a decision was equitable: Inequities are so baked into many of our systems that it can be hard to see them. Who benefits? Who is burdened? Who is missing? How do we know?

Innovation leads to resilience because it lets us respond well to changing situations. It is more likely to be fostered by diverse groups than homogenous ones because diverse groups bring more perspectives to an issue. Darwin noted that it is not the biggest or strongest species that survive, but the species that adapt the best. Humans are amazingly adaptable, but they do not like change. So, while humans will adapt when forced to, they tend to resist adapting to change as long as they can. People tend to be unforgiving if their leaders make mistakes. But, to innovate, you have to try new things and that inevitably leads to mistakes at times. This is a challenge for government leaders who see the need for change and then must persuade voters change is needed and withstand voter upset when everything does not go perfectly the first time. I recommend looking over the Rockefeller Foundation’s Report 100 Resilient Cities (2013) for an overview of what is needed for a city to be resilient. It is interesting how many of these cities around the world see the same challenges to their survival. And also, I encourage you to read the 100 Resilient Cities Midterm Evaluation Report: Summary (2020).