Collaborative Research: Interdependency in Decision Making, A Holistic Approach to Understanding Community Recovery from Catastrophes

本研究分析了飓风桑迪在纽约市的灾后恢复过程，以更好地从理论上理解居民、企业和政府决策者之间相互关联的决策和行动是如何相互影响的，从而创造了成功或失败的恢复结果。重大灾害后的长期恢复一直是灾害周期中研究最少的阶段之一，由于其复杂性，在很大程度上只以零敲碎打的方式进行了研究。然而，正如最近发生的许多灾难所表明的那样，恢复计划者面临着巨大的挑战，需要更好地了解这一进程的具体动态。这项研究分析了纽约市三年来的复苏情况，以更好地理解有效的社区复苏是如何发生的，以及为什么会发生。通过大规模调查、深入案例研究和政府政策分析收集的数据将用于测试综合灾难恢复决策的概念框架，该框架基于以下问题：哪些因素有助于家庭恢复决策？它们与企业恢复成功有何关系？哪些因素对企业复苏决策有贡献？它们在多大程度上与家庭复苏成功相关？这些关系是如何随着时间的推移而改变或发展的？政府和机构的政策和计划是否在一开始和一段时间内抓住了家庭和企业的复苏需求和优先事项？更好地理解家庭、企业和政府决策相互关联的方式，对于帮助规划者、政治家和恢复管理者建设更强大、更有弹性的社区至关重要。这项研究将有助于灾后恢复过程中研究不足的一个方面，并有助于改进对受灾社区的政策和援助反应。这些发现将增加仍在不断发展的关于城市和特大城市应对灾难性灾害的复杂性的知识基础，这些灾难继续影响着美国的城市，如纽约，一个似乎在长期规划和风暴前准备方面勤奋的全球首要城市，但仍然受到桑迪的严重影响。这说明需要更好地了解对灾害的反应和恢复，这项研究的结果将直接有助于更好地规划和决策。

This study analyzes the recovery process from Hurricane Sandy in New York City to develop a better theoretical understanding of how the inter-related decisions and actions of residents, businesses and government policymakers intersect in creating successful or failed recovery outcomes. Long-term recovery from major disasters has been one of the least studied phases of the disaster cycle, and because of its complexity it has largely been studied only in a piecemeal fashion. Yet, as numerous recent disasters have shown, recovery planners face enormous challenges and require better understanding of the specific dynamics of this process. The research analyzes New York City's recovery over a three-year period to better understand how and why effective community recovery happens. Data collected through large-scale surveys, in-depth case studies and analysis of government policies will be used to test a conceptual framework of integrated disaster recovery decision-making based on questions such as: What factors contribute to household recovery decisions and how are they related to businesses recovery success? What factors contribute to business recovery decisions and to what extent are they related to household recovery success? How do these relationships change or evolve over time? Do government and institutions' policies and programs capture the recovery needs and priorities of households and businesses initially and over time? Better understanding the ways in which household, business and government decisions interrelate is critical to helping planners, politicians and recovery managers develop more robust and resilient communities. The study will contribute to a mostly under-studied aspect of the disaster recovery process and help improve policy and assistance response to disaster-affected communities. These findings will add to the still evolving knowledge base on the complexities of urban and mega-urban responses to catastrophic disasters that continue to impact American cities such as New York, a premier global city that was seemingly diligent in long-term planning and pre-storm preparation but was still severely affected by Sandy. This illustrates the need for better understanding of response and recovery to disasters and the findings from this research will directly contribute to better planning and policy-making.