Resilience

City of Tallahassee down town during the day

City of Tallahassee down town during night time

City of Tallahassee night time concert at Cascades Park

A resilient city is one that ‘bounces forward’ from shocks and stresses with a smarter infrastructure, a stronger economy, and a healthier community.

Urban resilience is about making a city stronger, in both good times and bad, for the benefit of all its citizens, particularly the poor and vulnerable. As a capital city in one of the fastest growing states, a regional health and educational hub, and a diverse city with a storied past, Tallahassee is in a unique position to lead in urban resilience.

For Tallahassee, resilience is about strengthening the reliability of our infrastructure, protecting a robust natural environment and local economy, building up our adaptive capacity, and empowering self-sufficiency across the community. The City has implemented several strategic initiatives and continues to enhance efforts to build a more resilient community.

Community Resilience Plan
The City's first comprehensive strategy to strengthen public safety and adapt to a changing urban climate is underway!

Neighborhood Prep
The Neighborhood Affairs division has created a training and capacity building tool for community leaders to build resilience in the face of a disaster.

Electric Reliability Project
Electric Utility implements strategic initiatives to ensure our electric system is smart, reliable and adaptive to meet the needs of the community.

Neighborhood Public Safety Initiative
Law enforcement and other city departments partner with neighborhood leaders to improve public safety through crime prevention, community beautification, and community empowerment and volunteerism.

Emergency Management
The Fire Department collaborates closely with County Emergency Management to support emergency preparedness, response and recovery.

Cascades Park
Constructed by Blueprint 2000 in partnership with the City of Tallahassee and Leon County, Cascades Park is a stormwater facility that doubles as a unique urban park.

Urban Forest Master Plan
The Planning department has hired an Urban Forester and is gathering data and community input to develop a roadmap of actionable steps.

Emergency Housing Repair Assistance
Community Housing department provides zero-interest loans to help low income residents remove health and safety hazards from their homes.

FAMU Way
One of the most beautiful streets in town is also packed with environmental and safety amenities.

ABOUT THE RESILIENCE OFFICE

The Resilience Office partners across city government and stakeholders to develop strategies to build our community’s capacity to thrive in the face of acute shocks (disruptive or disaster events) and chronic stresses (socio-economic, infrastructure or institutional weaknesses).

Under the leadership of the City’s Chief Resilience Officer, the Resilience Office identifies, assesses and analyzes the greatest threats to the Tallahassee community and builds partnerships across agencies and community partners to create a more secure and sustainable future for Tallahassee.

CHIEF RESILIENCE OFFICER

The Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) develops a cohesive resilience strategy and oversees the integration of effective high-priority initiatives across city plans, programs, and policies. The CRO is the City’s ‘resilience point person’ ensuring that the City applies a resilience lens so that projects are planned and resources are used collaboratively for optimal impact.

Abena Ojetayo is the first Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Tallahassee, taking on the role in October 2017. She has researched and worked in various countries, including working as an energy and infrastructure planner of a town in Greece following a devastating earthquake, and managing an urban design team for the flood prone Anam New City, Nigeria, a project that was recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative as a promising approach to international sustainable development.

Before coming to Tallahassee, Abena worked on climate action planning at Cornell University and supported the green building and infrastructure design effort for its NYC Tech Campus in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. She moved to Tallahassee in 2014 to serve as FAMU’s first Chief Sustainability Officer and the founding Executive Director of their Sustainability Institute, tasked with building resilience across all academic and operational aspects of the university.

Abena has an interdisciplinary background, receiving a Bachelor’s degree in sustainable infrastructure and a Master’s in engineering management, both from Cornell University. She is a LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) accredited professional, and was named among the "10 New Faces of Civil Engineering" by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), highlighting her as one of the industry's next leaders.

WHAT IS RESILIENCE?

Resilience is often defined as the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow, no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.

Shocks are typically considered disruptive, single event disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, terrorism, disease outbreak or extreme heat.

Stresses are factors that pressure a city on a daily or reoccurring basis, such as aging infrastructure, climate change, violent crime, homelessness or concentrated poverty.