Mayor Fischer, 100 Resilient Cities Release Comprehensive Louisville Resilience Strategy

Mayor Greg Fischer and The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) today released Louisville’s first citywide Resilience Strategy, a new approach to address the city’s most pressing and interconnected challenges.

Entitled Resilient Louisville, the strategy serves as a roadmap to better adapt city systems and institutions to the challenges of the 21^st century, and prepare the city and its citizens for both expected and unexpected challenges. It includes an actionable set of visions, goals and targets that address the region’s most pressing stresses and seeks to build capacity among residents and city systems alike to better withstand future shocks.

Nearly 3,000 individuals contributed ideas and recommendations that fed into the development of the strategy, which focuses on human resilience and is supported by a 38-person Resilience Steering Committee comprised of leaders from across Louisville’s public, private, academic and non-profit sectors.

“City resilience is about making a city better, in both good times and bad, for the benefit of all its citizens,” Mayor Fischer said. “We are stronger and more resilient when we work together. This strategy sets out long-term objectives and immediate actions that residents, communities and organizations can take to build a Louisville that can continue to thrive.”

Led by Louisville’s Chief Resilience Officer, Eric Friedlander, and the Office of Resilience and Community Services, in collaboration with Mayor Fischer’s leadership team, Louisville’s Resilience Strategy proposes an integrated response to various urban vulnerabilities.

Every vision, goal and action reflect the Louisville Resilience Equation: Equity plus Compassion plus Trust (R=E+C+T). 

“Resilient Louisville is the culmination of the process to cultivate partnerships and develop actions that increase Louisville’s resilience,” Friedlander said. “It is also the beginning of a greater citywide commitment to continue to collaborate, form new partnerships, and design new initiatives in a process that will contribute to a safer and stronger Louisville.”

Resilient Louisville is organized around four visions, 10 goals and 46 action steps:

1. Embrace Lifelong Learning: Includes two goals that aim to ensure equitable education attainment for all residents; and to attract, retain and develop talent for the workforce of the future.
2. Ensure a Safe and Healthy City: Includes three goals that seek to address the needs of Louisville’s most vulnerable populations; implement trauma-informed violence reduction strategies; and strengthen built and natural infrastructure to promote health and well-being.
3. Build a Vibrant Economy and Place: Includes three goals that endeavor to ensure inclusive and equitable economic growth in historically marginalized communities; increase individual financial stability and opportunity for economic mobility; and build upon Louisville’s cultural assets.
4. Maximize Innovation and Civic Engagement: Includes two goals that strive to cultivate social-change agents and foster greater community cohesion; and implement shared transparency and accountability measures with the community.

Resilient Louisville links and reinforces the goals in the Mayor’s Strategic Plan for Louisville’s growth and prosperity. Each vision also ties to the global sustainability community by aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and deepening the connection of this work with partners at the University of Louisville and its Envirome Institute.

With its strategy established, Louisville joins the ranks of approximately 65 cities around the world, including Paris, New York, and Bangkok, that have worked with 100 Resilient Cities to publish similar strategies, which they are working to implement.

Financial and technical assistance for Resilient Louisville were made possible through a partnership between Louisville Metro Government and 100 Resilient Cities, in which Louisville has been a member since 2016.

“Resilient Louisville may be produced by Louisville Metro Government, but it is truly a strategy whose creation and implementation are owned by the city’s residents,” said Michael Berkowitz, president of 100 Resilient Cities. “Along with the global 100RC Network, we look forward to watching this work progress, with the power to transform Louisville into a more resilient city, where all residents can learn, live, thrive and engage today and for generations to come.” 

As a living document, Resilient Louisville will continue to be updated as action steps are added, supplemented by report cards for assessing progress in partnership with the Louisville Metro Office of Performance Improvement and Innovation. 

Read the full Resilience Strategy here. Learn more about the Resilience Louisville development process at  https://louisvilleky.gov/resilience.