Urban resilience in post-disaster reconstruction: Towards a resilient development in Sichuan, China

Abstract

This article discusses the post-disaster urban resilience design framework in the case of post-disaster urban reconstruction in Sichuan after the Great Sichuan Earthquake (also known as the Wenchuan Earthquake) in May 2008 in China. The focus is on three main aspects of post-disaster urban reconstruction: sociospatial coherence, temporal continuity, and multistakeholder integration and communication. Critical interpretation of the government-guided reconstruction reveals that reconstruction was limited to the generic production and implementation of top-down planning. From the perspective of urban resilience, and through an alternative design scenario developed in this research, this article highlights an urban resilience design framework based on post-disaster development in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan. By identifying the deficiencies of the governmental reconstruction where in many aspects resilience has not been considered, and by proposing the alternative where resilience has been considered to develop a better living, this research seeks to integrate urban resilience as a key aspect in the Sichuan reconstruction and as essential for developing the post-disaster city towards a more coherent, sustainable, and integral urban future.

Keywords

Dujiangyan / Great Sichuan Earthquake / post-disaster reconstruction / design for urban resilience

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