On Wednesday, the city released its “Resilient Houston” strategy, a robust plan to invest in and strengthen the capabilities of neighborhoods, communities and the entire region to address, withstand and quickly recover from physical, social and economic shocks and stresses.

Mayor Sylvester Turner unveiled the strategy alongside Chief Resilience Officer Marissa Aho and signed an executive order requiring all city departments to make resilience part of all strategic planning.

“We are faced with a choice. Either we commit now to making the investments in our workforce and infrastructure that can prevent huge losses, or we become short-sighted and think we have plenty of time,” Turner wrote in the strategy’s opening address. “By choosing the latter, we will be too late.”

Preparing for shocks and addressing stresses

Top of mind for many Houstonians when they think of resilience are the six flooding events in five years that were declared disasters by the federal government — including three 500-year floods in three years: the Memorial Day Flood in 2015, the 2016 Tax Day Flood and Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

In the context of resiliency, hurricanes and flooding are examples of acute shocks. Large scale, sudden events that disrupt and endanger life. Other shocks include economic crisis, cyberattacks, terrorism, chemical disasters and extreme heat and drought, among others.

Critically, though, the strategy not only addresses shocks, but also a litany of chronic stresses that make recovery from shocks difficult and that represent hurdles in Houstonians daily lives. The shocks and stresses identified in the strategy are tailored specifically to Houston.

Stresses do not impact every Houstonian the same way. Indeed, chronic stresses such as poor air quality and environmental injustice, health disparities, crime and violence, economic inequality, urban sprawl and limited access to education, affordable housing and public transportation disproportionally impact low income and non-white Houstonians. Layered stresses make responding to or recovering from shocks even harder.

“The release of Resilient Houston is a pivotal milestone in resilience-building efforts after Hurricane Harvey, but there is much more work to do,” Aho said in a release. “Today is the beginning of implementing this ambitious, yet achievable, framework for resilience.”