This book critically assesses Christchurch, New Zealand as an evolving post-earthquake city. It examines the impact of the 2010–13 Canterbury earthquake sequence, employing a chronological structure to consider ‘damage and displacement’, ‘recovery and renewal’ and ‘the city in transition’. It offers a framework for understanding the multiple experiences and realities of post-earthquake recovery. It details how the rebuilding of the city has occurred and examines what has arisen in the context of an unprecedented opportunity to refashion land uses and social experience from the ground up. A recurring tension is observed between the desire and tendency of some to reproduce previous urban orthodoxies and the experimental efforts of others to fashion new cultures of progressive place-making and attention to the more-than-human city. The book offers several lessons for understanding disaster recovery in cities. It illuminates the opportunities disasters create for both the reassertion of the familiar and the emergence of the new; highlights the divergence of lived experience during recovery; and considers the extent to which a post-disaster city is prepared for likely climate futures. The book will be valuable reading for critical disaster researchers as well as geographers, sociologists, urban planners and policy makers interested in disaster recovery.

"This book critically assesses Christchurch, New Zealand as an evolving post-earthquake city. It examines the impact of the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence, employing a chronological structure to consider 'damage and displacement', 'recovery and renewal', and 'the city in transition'. It offers a framework for understanding the multiple experiences and realities of post-earthquake recovery in Christchurch, New Zealand. It details how the rebuilding of the city has occurred, and examines what has arisen in the context of an unprecedented opportunity to refashion land uses and social experience from the ground up. A recurring tension is observed between the desire and tendency of some to reproduce previous urban orthodoxies and the experimental efforts of others to fashion new cultures of progressive place-making and attention to the more-than-human city. The book offers several lessons for understanding disaster recovery in cities. It illuminates the opportunities disasters create for both the reassertion of the familiar and the emergence of the new; highlights the divergence of lived experience during recovery; and considers the extent to which a post-disaster city is prepared for likely climate futures. The book will be valuable reading for critical disaster researchers as well as geographers, sociologists, urban planners and policy makers interested in disaster recovery"--

Great natural disasters are rare, but their aftermath can change the fortunes of a city or region forever. This book and its companion Policy Focus Report identify lessons from different parts of the world to help communities and government leaders better organize for recovery after future disasters. The authors consider the processes and outcomes of community recovery and reconstruction following major disasters in six countries: China, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States. Post-disaster reconstruction offers opportunities to improve construction and design standards, renew infrastructure, create new land use arrangements, reinvent economies, and improve governance. If done well, reconstruction can help break the cycle of disaster-related impacts and losses, and improve the resilience of a city or region.

Damage assessment, rehabilitation, decision-making, social consequences, repair and reconstruction; these are all critical factors for considerations following natural disasters such as earthquakes. In order to address these issues, the United States of America and the Peoples Republic of China regularly organize bilateral symposia/workshops to investigate multiple hazard mitigation, particularly with respect to earthquake engineering. This book contains state-of-the-art reports presented by world-renowned researchers at the US/PRC Sympsosium Workshop on Post-Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction held in Kunming, Yunnan, China, May 1995. The following key areas are addressed: damage assessment of structures after earthquakes; lessons of post-earthquake recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction, including public policy, land use options, urban planning, and design; issues in and examples of decision-making, and implementation of rehabilitation and reconstruction plans and policies; repair, strengthening, retrofit and control of structures and lifeline systems, post-earthquake socio-economic problems covering issues of relief and recovery; human and organizational behavior during emergency response, and strategies for improvement; real-time monitoring of earthquake response and damage.

New Zealand has to rebuild the majority of its second-largest city after a devastating series of earthquakes – a unique challenge for a developed country in the twenty-first century. The 2010-2011 earthquakes fundamentally disrupted the conventions by which the people of Christchurch lived. The exhausting and exhilarating mix of distress, uncertainty, creativity, opportunities, divergent opinions and competing priorities generates an inevitable question: how do we know if the right decisions are being made? Once in Lifetime: City-building after Disaster in Christchurch offers the first substantial critique of the Government’s recovery plan, presents alternative approaches to city-building andarchives a vital and extraordinary time. It features photo and written essays from journalists, economists, designers, academics, politicians, artists, publicans and more. Once in a Lifetime presents a range of national and international perspectives on city-building and post-disaster urban recovery.

This open access book originates from an international workshop organized by Turkish Natural Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) in November 2019 that gathered renown researchers from academia, representatives of leading international reinsurance and modeling companies as well as government agencies responsible of insurance pricing in Turkey. The book includes chapters related to post-earthquake damage assessment, the state-of-art and novel earthquake loss modeling, their implementation and implication in insurance pricing at national, regional and global levels, and the role of earthquake insurance in building resilient societies and fire following earthquakes. The rich context encompassed in the book makes it a valuable tool not only for professionals and researchers dealing with earthquake loss modeling but also for practitioners in the insurance and reinsurance industry.

The celebrated physician and anthropologist offers a vivid on-the-ground account of the relief effort in the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake—and issues a powerful call to action. Reprint.