Note from Storm: We don’t normally post company sales literature here in REVITALIZATION, but global engineering firm AECOM‘s brochure on their “whole systems” approach to community resilience, climate change adaptation, and sustainable growth is unusually good, so I’m making an exception here.
AECOM is a strategic partner of the Rockefeller Foundation‘s 100 Resilient Cities program. In this role the company is currently supporting 16 cities around the world in becoming more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.
In Australia and New Zealand, for instance, they are currently working with Sydney in their early stages of strategy development. In Melbourne and Christchurch (and San Francisco in the U.S.) they are focused on identifying and delivering resilience initiatives.
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From the AECOM brochure: Cities have become the front line for many of the world’s most pressing challenges, from climate change, water scarcity and air quality, to economic disruption, public health and social instability. The scope of these issues extends beyond individual departments or agencies, beyond city boundaries and beyond the public sphere or private sector.
Yet it’s essential that cities find solutions. In the next 20 years, the world’s urban population will grow by more than two billion people. We are in the midst of the urban century. Fortunately, cities have the capacity to address these global challenges—and meet local demands. At their best, cities have a density that makes transportation and housing more efficient,
reduces per capita resource and energy use and lowers carbon emissions. They boost individual mobility and opportunity and drive economic growth. They foster diversity, creativity and social
progress. Building successful cities is essential to creating a more sustainable world.
Which is why we’re asking the question, what’s next in making cities resilient? How do we plan for healthy urban growth? The answer lies in a new approach: a whole-systems approach to
better prioritize projects, plan ahead, protect vulnerable assets and provide sustainable growth. At AECOM we’re pursuing ways to connect the best ideas and insight, from across communities,
professions and regions and from public and private sectors, to help cities overcome their challenges and build a brilliant future.
Cities have never been more important, nor the competition between them more intense. Those positioned to excel through this time of global change are pursuing broad, integrated strategies to tap hidden value, celebrate ecology and culture, attract people and investment and overcome financial and operational inefficiencies to define success.