Community resilience to environmental hazards and climate change: can smart growth make a difference?

Over the last 20 years, principles of smart growth haven’t explicitly prioritized issues of community resilience in the context of climate change. Hence, literature exploring the integration of smart growth and community resilience, both mitigation and adaptation, is scant. In fact, early conceptualizations of smart growth did not even recognize resilience as a purported benefit or co-benefit. In this chapter, we explore the relationship between smart growth and climate change particularly as it relates to mitigating emissions that have fundamentally driven global climate change as well as opportunities for adaptation to more frequent and intense hazard events. We begin with a conceptual framing for smart growth and community resilience integration, review evidence in support of this integration, and conclude with recommendations on how smart growth might evolve to center resilience in future growth and development. Read more about JPB Fellow Marccus Hendricks’ research.