Resilient Louisville Effort To Start With Focus On Education, Racial Equity, Economy And Sustainability

Louisville’s resilience efforts will initially focus on strengthening education, racial equity, economic development and sustainability throughout the city — challenges identified in partnership with more than 200 citizens, Mayor Greg Fischer announced today.

Louisville is a member of 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation, which seeks to build resilience to economic, social and physical challenges in cities worldwide. Each city is tasked with identifying its own “shocks” — sudden events such as natural disasters — and long-term challenges, or “stresses.”

“Louisville is on a rapid trajectory, with 63,000 new jobs and $11 billion in capital investments since 2011,” Mayor Fischer said. “That’s all the more reason we need to be strengthening ourselves against the stresses and shocks that could slow or even halt our momentum – be it a natural disaster, like a flood, or economic distress, like a major employer leaving the city. We can do this by working with partners to build resilience in education, racial equity, economic development and sustainability.”

Louisville identified education, racial equity, economic development and sustainability as the initial focus of the resilience efforts during a workshop in January that included city leaders and representatives from dozens of local agencies, nonprofits and businesses. A full report on the Agenda Setting Workshop was released today and can be read at https://louisvilleky.gov/sites/default/files/asw.pdf

Eric Friedlander, who was named the city’s chief resilience officer in April, will use the Agenda Setting Workshop report as he leads the crafting of a resilience strategy — an outline for how the city will strengthen itself against shocks and stresses that could disrupt or slow the city’s momentum. This begins the process of identifying, with the larger community, and preparing for, the most impactful shocks and stresses that Louisville will need to address.

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“For Louisville to thrive as an entire community, we must be able to respond to inevitable shocks and address and minimize stresses,” Friedlander said. “That will be accomplished by examining how to build on our ongoing initiatives in the areas of education, racial equity, economic development and sustainability, and to launch new efforts that will lead to as stronger, more resilient Louisville.”

Mayor Fischer will discuss the city’s resilience efforts at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 6, at the Ali Center during the community conversation Capturing Ali’s Spirit: Creating a City of Peace.