"Considering Community Relocation After Disasters: Examples from Puerto Rico," a Zube Lecture Presented by Robert Olshansky. *1 AICP CM Credit
*Planners receive one AICP CM credit for attending this talk. Learn more here.
About the Talk
Disasters displace millions of people every year. After the disaster, they must decide whether to return to their homes or move elsewhere. Planners and government officials often propose permanent relocation as a response. But relocations disrupt lives and livelihoods of households and communities and are therefore rarely the preferred option of those affected. Nevertheless, relocations happen, and planners often develop relocation policies and plan the move. This talk will summarize principles for planning for proposed relocations, based on dozens of cases. It will then illustrate with three examples from Puerto Rico: the federally-funded rebuild/repair/relocate program, a case of self-managed relocation by a community land trust in El Caño Martîn Peña, and an impending $300M HUD-funded community relocation program. An important purpose of this research is to inform climate adaptation planning.
About the Speaker
Robert Olshansky, FAICP, is a Professor Emeritus of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For the past 30 years, he has studied recovery planning and management after numerous major disasters around the world, including ones in the U.S., Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Haiti. Olshansky's co-authored books (with Laurie Johnson) include Opportunity in Chaos: Rebuilding after the 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe Earthquakes (available online), Clear as Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans (APA Press, 2010), and After Great Disasters: An In-depth Analysis of How Six Countries Managed Community Recovery (Lincoln Institute, 2017). His current research focuses on the process of community relocation in response to natural hazards, including active cases in Taiwan, Puerto Rico, and Indonesia. Through UC Berkeley, he recently co-authored two policy studies on climate adaptation: "Rebuilding for a Resilient Recovery: Planning in California's Wildland Urban Interface," and "Bayshore Urbanism: Property and Climate Change Adaptation on San Francisco Bay." Since 2019 he has served on the Tsunami Technical Advisory Committee for the California Geological Survey.