Florida Resilient Cities (FRC) is an initiative to help communities across Florida develop the capacity to be more prepared for and more resilient to increased risk. Led by The Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER), the program will bridge community needs with design research through the College of Design, Construction, and Planning, partnered with faculty from across the University of Florida.
Developing resilient communities requires a process that 1) empowers and synthesizes values and goals of a broad range of stakeholders, 2) incorporates dependable baseline data reflecting future conditions, and 3) builds local capacity to champion, fund, and implement projects. Through collaborative research projects, access to data analytic tools, community planning, and design FRC will help Florida meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Through generous support from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund, the first FRC team including FIBER, the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, and The Center for Landscape Conservation and Planning, will focus on the City of Port St. Joe and its greater region’s recovery from Hurricane Michael and long-term resilience. On October 10th, 2018, Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The storm devastated communities across the Florida Panhandle and into Georgia. Many months after the storm, debris is still being collected and people throughout the region are struggling to move forward.
The FRC will engage city officials and residents through a suite of courses and faculty-led research projects to provide solutions to the most pressing challenges within the themes of affordable housing, environmental management, and policies for adaptation to sea level rise. FRC will nominate project champions to represent the community’s interests. Rapid research and design projects undertaken in partnership with the city will spur further implementation efforts.
For further information contact:
Jeff Carney AIA, AICP
Associate Professor, School of Architecture
Associate Director, FIBER
j.carney@ufl.edu
www.dcp.ufl.edu/fiber