The Resilience Dividend
Managing disruption, avoiding disaster, and growing stronger in an unpredictable world
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
New York. Athens. Wenzhou. Boston. Oslo. Dhaka. New Orleans. Nairobi.
In recent years, dozens of cities across the globe have been hit by large-scale catastrophes of every kind: natural disaster, geopolitical conflict, food shortages, disease and contagion, terrorist attacks. If you haven't been directly touched by one of these cataclysms yourself, in our interconnected world you are sure to have been affected in some way. They harm vulnerable individuals, destabilise communities and threaten organisations and even whole societies.
We are at greater risk than ever from city-wide catastrophe, and as the severity and frequency of these disasters increase, we must become better at preparing for, responding to and recovering from them. Be it Haiti's dependence on humanitarian aid, the rebuilding effort after the Great Fire of Manhattan or the reason why more girls than boys drowned in Japan's 2011 tsunami, The Resilience Dividend combines vivid stories with practical insights (such as how to disaster-proof a building) and ground-breaking research to help build a radical future in which individuals, companies and entire societies face disaster by creating more dynamic, more resilient cities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rockefeller Foundation president Rodin writes in an expert and straightforward manner about the character trait of resilience, addressed here in socioeconomic terms and on nothing less than a global scale. Resilience, Rodin explains, is the ability to "prepare for disruptions... recover from shocks and stresses, and... adapt and grow from a disruptive experience." The three primary such disruptions she identifies in today's world are "urbanization, climate change, and globalization." Rodin goes on to break down resilience into five characteristics, solidifying her argument with solid examples. The characteristics of resilience include "Aware," as seen in the aftermath of flash flooding in San Francisco in January 2004; "Integrated," exemplified by the success of M&M's in markets throughout the world; and "Adaptive," as embodied by many of New Orleans's African-American and Vietnamese-American residents following Hurricane Katrina. She also illustrates "Diverse" and "Self-Regulating" through the illuminating, respective counterexamples of fitness retailer Lululemon's over-reliance on a single fabric source and the mistakes that led to the Chernobyl disaster. While every author may hope to end a book with an indelible sentence, Rodin proves herself one of the select few who can pull this off.
