by Brianna Crandall — December 12, 2014—Facilities managers in 35 cities around the globe may experience positive effects from a recent announcement that 35 new cities worldwide have been added to 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation, to be part of the 100 Resilient Cities network. The announcement was made during The Rockefeller Foundation’s Urban Resilience Summit in Singapore.
According to 100RC, this second round of the Challenge drew 331 “exceptional” applications from cities around the world, submitted in seven languages. Each city was asked to present a clear and compelling description of their major resilience challenges, how they are approaching and planning for resilience to decrease vulnerabilities, and how they plan to partner with 100RC.
100RC says that an exhaustive review of the applicants led to the 35 current winners, among which are a historic safe haven for refugees and religious minorities in the Middle East, which is innovating to address everything from droughts to floods, and one of the biggest industrial and commercial centers in South Asia, which is grappling with the importance of how to take preparedness beyond disaster response to deal with challenges ranging from solid waste management to tsunamis.
Last week, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Foundation commended the addition. The AIA Foundation became a platform partner in the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge as part of a commitment made at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting. Partners pledged to support the cities’ chief resilience officers (CRO), create resilience strategies, and provide access to tools, technical support, and resources. 100 Resilient Cities also pledged to create a network for CROs to share information and best practices.
AIAF Executive Director Sherry-Lea Bloodworth Botop commented, “The AIA Foundation — through the American Institute of Architects component network nationwide — is already working in several of the selected U.S. cities to guide them in their selection of chief resilience officers and to provide AIA member expertise in resilience planning. Indeed, the AIAF hopes to act as a matchmaker of sorts between the cities that have been granted CROs and the architects and planning experts who can offer assistance and can help integrate design thinking into the monumental tasks facing CROs.”
The cities selected as winners of the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge are:
