Two weeks ago, I introduced a new report produced by the American Planning Association under a contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I had the honor of managing the production of Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation over the four years of research and writing that were involved in its development, along with overseeing several other web-based enhancements that were also part of the project. Now I’d like to introduce readers to one final product that we rolled out just yesterday—a series of downloadable briefing papers on various subtopics of disaster recovery.
The report covers the subject of recovery planning in 200 pages of detail, offering considerable depth on the topic. The briefing papers serve a very different function. Realizing that planners, public officials, and others involved in the realities of disaster recovery are almost always working under severe time pressures, and that the report offers considerably more information than most citizens will want to absorb, these are “cut to the chase” papers that allow users to distill a series of key points on specific issues in recovery, such as affordable housing, infrastructure restoration, and managing public engagement in the recovery planning process. We have now posted the first five, but more will be rolled out in coming weeks. They are available both in HTML format, allowing easy reading on screen, as well as PDF, providing users with the option of downloading and printing them for use in public meetings, discussions with elected officials, and similar forums. Find them all at https://www.planning.org/research/postdisaster/briefingpapers/. And watch for more over time.
Jim Schwab