Resiliency Assessment Paper

1. Phoenix is ranked number 233 on the RCI with a Z-Score of -0.16, where the Z-score is the city’s overall resilience capacity score, which is a generated from the city’s standard deviation from the average metropolitan score and shows its variance from the average that was measured (“RCI Ranking”). The quote from the book “Resilient Cities”, under Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change, “Resilience can be applied to cities. They too need to last, to respond to crisis and adapt in a way that may cause them to change and grow differently; cities require an inner strength, a resolve, as well as a strong physical infrastructure and built environment” (Newman, Beatley, & Boyer, 2009) shows how necessary resilience is to cities and their sustainability

Before choosing Phoenix, I reviewed the Building Resilient Regions website, which features a Resilience Capacity Index. This Resilience Capacity Index provides data and ranks 361 U.S. metropolitan areas by each city’s resiliency and score. I chose Phoenix because after living here for nearly ten years I am quite familiar with it and I am interested in learning more about it and its’ resiliency. Phoenix is a rapidly growing city, both in population and infrastructure. People are drawn to the area for its comfortable winters and growing economy. Phoenix and its general metropolitan area has averages temperatures that range from about 60 degrees fahrenheit in December to over 100 degrees fahrenheit in July.

2. The city of Phoenix is especially vulnerable with regard to climate change due to its existing high temperatures and issues associated with temperature, such as urban heat island effect, greenhouse effect, and our weather patterns. The global climate is changing at an unprecedented speed, these changes affect cities all over the world and lead to issues with human health, infrastructure and the environment. This rapid change in climate change

The city of Phoenix and its built environment can be changed to increase its resiliency by implementing greener infrastructure, improve transportation, and introduce policy to help encourage more environmentally conscious decisions. Through ICLEI’s website link to Resilient Communities for America (RC4A), Resilient America was discovered. Resilient America is a collaboration between ICLEI-USA, National League of Cities, World Wildlife Fund, and U.S. Green Building Council. Resilient America encourages communities and governing bodies to create communities that can bounce back more easily from issues, such as extreme weather, energy crisis, and economic challenges all while promoting city-to-city exchange (“Resilient Communities for America”). As mentioned in the website’s section on Infrastructure Renewal techniques such as “Investing in upgrades to community facilities to safely serve the needs of changing communities decades into the future. Creating new models to finance improvements and manage risks to community assets through engagement with the private sector. Harnessing innovations in information technology and green infrastructure to optimize performance and reduce costs through more efficient operation” can be employed to help communities become more resilient (“Resilient Communities for America Agreement”). By utilizing these techniques Phoenix can potentially become a more resilient