Innovative Community Responses to Disaster

Increasingly, community leaders around the world face major natural and economic disasters that require them to find ways to rebuild both physical infrastructure and the local economy. Doing this effectively requires an understanding of how various parts of the community are interconnected, as well as information as to which revitalization approaches have succeeded in the past. Community investment in recovery is essential and, in some cases, may require local leaders to rethink how it can be financed and arranged.

This book presents a conceptual framework based on the community capitals, and describes approaches that have succeeded in situations where local leaders have coordinated efforts to rebuild and revitalize local conditions. Contributions provide examples of successful approaches around the world, thus analysing potential strategies for addressing disasters of many different types in various cultural settings. In this way, the book provides insights into a variety of approaches based on applications of accepted community development theory and concepts.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Community Development.

Brent D. Hales is Associate Dean of Extension in the Centre for Community Vitality at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, USA. His primary area of research is the adoption innovation-based community and economic development and entrepreneurship.

Norman Walzer is Senior Research Scholar in the Centre for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA.

James R. Calvin is an Associate Professor in the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.