Recovery for Resilience: Exploring the Disconnect Between Collaborative Planning and Project Implementation in Post-Hurricane Sandy New York City

Collaborative and participatory planning processes that are interactive, thoughtful, and efficient have become increasingly important elements of post-disaster recovery. Meanwhile, rapid action remains critically important to quickly restore destroyed urban systems, but creating long-term resilience demands new ideas that are also implementable. These various tensions create a daunting paradox, and while many communities have attempted to use collaborative planning approaches in recovery, useful assessments and guidance on collaborative recovery planning is sparse. To bet-ter understand the nuances of a collaborative recovery, we document and evaluate the effectiveness of the collaborative processes behind the planning of the ESCR resilience project, initiated as BIG U in New York City, which emphasizes community participation and collaborative decision-making. The project is unique because of its innovative and interactive multi-stakeholder processes. The authors have studied the case longitudinally over the past decade, using a variety of research methods to gather relevant information. The ESCR collaborative efforts suggest that, first, there is a disconnect in the dominant rationalities behind climate resilience efforts between the planning and implementation phases. Second, given the disconnect between the planning and implementation phases, collaborative efforts must be refined to remain relevant in the implementation phase. Third, even after project implementation, there are different types of rationality employed, and thus varying levels of satisfaction, depending on the benefits that participants receive. While planners must recognize the disconnect between collaborative planning and project implementation and seek ways to mitigate any abrupt shifts, we conclude that collaborative approaches to recovery planning can be effective and manageable, even in unique recovery situations.