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Team members and neighborhood residents at the Alief Design Sprints in September, 2023. The workshops were held in Alief's recently completed community center, which also serves as a resilience hub.
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It has been an exciting couple of months for R4C North America. After working with communities to identify the most pressing challenges when it comes to flood and heat resilience, we have been charting a path forward and developing solutions to build flood and heat resilience in Houston and Boston.
In this issue of our snapshot, we’ll share an update of activities from our action cities as our communities transition from discovery to problem-solving. We'll zoom out to provide a brief snapshot of R4C global activities from Greater Manchester and Melaka and share next steps for R4C as we transition into the program's third year. In case you missed it, the program also has a new website, which you can check out here: Resilience for Communities R4C - Resilient Cities Network
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REMINDER: Our next cohort call for our Action and Champion cities will be at 1 PM EST on November 16th, 2023. Tune in for more details on our work over the last couple months as well as to help us brainstorm future activities for R4C.
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ACTION CITY UPDATES: Houston
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Earlier this year we completed community engagement and data collection and came away with valuable insights from both Alief and Trinity Houston Gardens. We’ve started leveraging lessons learned from these processes to identify, prioritize, and develop equitable, locally driven solutions.
Grading: The grading process began in July, when we used the Climate Resilience Measurement for Communities (CRMC) Tool to translate findings from surveys, key informants and focus groups into resilience metrics. The team assigned grades on an A-D scale to each of the 76 sources in the tool, identifying the key challenges and strengths from the perspective of the community. Diving deeper into the analysis, the team then pinned down a subset of sources that were particularly relevant and actionable.
During the grading process we found challenges in both Trinity Houston Gardens and Alief related to infrastructure, ecosystem services, budgeting and investment, planning and data use, community financial health and access to daily necessities like food and healthcare. Community strengths included both neighborhoods being home to robust social networks, high awareness of risks, strong local knowledge of risk-mitigating actions and resources, and consistent access to early warning systems and emergency equipment.
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Participants at the Design Sprints worked to evaluate which of the identified resilience gaps were neighborhood priorities and would be taken through to the solution design phase.
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Co-designing Resilience Interventions: With grading results in hand, the team was ready to begin the identification and design of solutions. After analyzing the data and translating findings into accessible and engaging materials, the team came together for the Design Sprints - interactive solution design workshops - in Alief and Trinity Houston Gardens during the week of the 25th of September.
During these interactive workshops, we discussed grading results with local stakeholders. Then, we identified the priority opportunities and traced their root causes and impacts. Finally, we identified the solutions that would best address the challenges identified. In identifying these solutions, the community considered budgeting constraints, the impact of each, and potential partners in their implementation.
One of the challenges that came up for the Alief neighborhood was the question of energy affordability. Residents discussed the barriers to accessing reliable energy at an affordable rate and discussed potential solutions, including implementing subsidies and tax breaks for alternative energy solutions; increasing tree canopy and natural ground cover to reduce heat and as a consequence, household energy expenses on cooling; and establishing local energy provision cooperatives.
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ACTION CITY UPDATES: BOSTON
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Facilitators in Chinatown worked with residents to complete household surveys.
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Data Collection and Community Engagement: Thanks to our CBOs and the lessons learned from community engagement in Houston, the Boston Data Collection process was an enormous success. During August and September, we spoke with local leaders, government officials and members of the community to understand their experiences during extreme weather events and discuss their perceptions of flood and heat resilience in the community.
We partnered with the Department of Urban Planning and Community Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston in Lower Roxbury, and with the Chinatown Community Land Trust and Chinatown Main Street in Chinatown to conduct focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and surveys in identifying the strengths and challenges towards building extreme weather resilience in both communities.
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Focus groups in Lower Roxbury were held in partnership with UMass Boston's School of Planning.
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Grading: We’ve now completed initial grading of resilience sources, or indicators, in Chinatown and Lower Roxbury. We are currently analyzing the grades to narrow down a list of priority sources that we will present to the community, and then work together to develop solutions that can strengthen these local sources of resilience. As in Houston, the R-Cities team and the CBOs assigned grades to each of the sources in the CRMC tool, identifying areas for improvement. Among other things, community members identified pollution, a lack of green space, household finance, and deficient infrastructure as key risk areas.
During this stage, identification of strengths is also critical. Strong sources of local resilience sources can be leveraged in identifying and building solutions that leverage connections, resources, and leadership within the community.
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Earlier this year, R4C went global, with the program expanding to Melaka in Malaysia, and Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. In September, Greater Manchester selected its two communities – Wigan and Stockport – and will be kicking off community engagement and data collection shortly. In Melaka, Kampung Morten and Peringgit were chosen to pilot the R4C program. Additionally, the city of Melaka signed a commitment letter to the program in October, allowing the team to begin the community engagement process with an R4C Champions Masterclass and initial discussions with both communities.
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Community mapping exercise with the Kampung Morten community in Melaka in November 2023 - community members collectively mapped out critical areas affected by flooding and heat as well as key community spaces. This mapping will be used to design household surveys as well as to develop interventions at a later stage.
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Houston: Having identified high-priority, high-impact solutions, the team will take the next steps toward implementation. Under the leadership of the City of Houston, the team will evaluate selected interventions using a set of criteria that includes the availability of technical expertise and implementation partners, alignment with the city’s Resilience Strategy, equity and inclusion, sustainability, external funding, potential for replicability and timeline feasibility. Once these initiatives are evaluated, the team will advance towards preliminary studies, action planning and project preparation
Boston: Following the conclusion of grading and analysis, the team will be in Boston during the week of the 13th of November for our Design Sprints! Insights from the design sprints will guide the project team’s next steps toward implementation. In collaboration with the community, the team will identify and select the most feasible, high impact interventions. We will also compile a list of potential local implementation partners emphasizing Small and MWBEs (Minority and Women Business Enterprises).
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We want to hear from you!
How is your city practicing equitable community engagement? What programs can we learn from? Do you or your city have an example of community engagement resilience building that you think could help us enhance the R4C program? We want to hear from you. You can get in touch with R4C Program Manager Jordana Vasquez at jvas...@r-cities.org.
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Resilient Cities Network is the world’s leading organization working in urban resilience. Present in more than 90 cities, 40 countries, and 6 continents, R-Cities is a global city-led nonprofit organization that brings together knowledge, practice, partnerships, and funding to empower cities to build a safe, equitable, and sustainable future for all.
If you are interested in receiving information about our city-led, impact-focused initiatives around the world, subscribe, share, or follow us on social media here.
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