How could better land use and transportation strategies help your state recover and remain resilient in the face of disaster?

In October 2015, Smart Growth America released Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies, a resource designed to help state agency staff integrate land use and transportation issues into their conversations about resilience. Disaster preparedness professionals can also use it to make strategic decisions and build communities that are more resilient from the ground up.

As part of the kickoff, we hosted an online conversation about resilience efforts at the state level. We talked all about the new resource—as well as national best practices, and how the states of Colorado, New York, and Vermont are using these strategies.

Speaking on the webinar were Elizabeth Schilling, Deputy Director of Policy Development and Implementation at Smart Growth America; Dr. Gavin Smith, Research Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning at University of North Carolina and Director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence; Noelle MacKay, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development at the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development; Kate Dineen, Deputy Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery for the State of New York; and Molly Urbina, Executive Director of the Colorado Resiliency and Recovery Office. Together they discussed this emerging field of practice and how some of the nation’s leading disaster preparedness agencies are putting the ideas in our new guide into practice.