Planning Responses to 'Shock' and 'Slow-Burn' Events: the Role of Redundancy in Regional Resilience

这个提议是在2012/13年期间在英国和日本分别举办两次研讨会，由伯明翰大学和早稻田大学联合组织。研讨会的主要目的是研究区域弹性的理论和实践，以及冗余在适应“冲击”和“慢燃”事件中的作用。两个核心概念“弹性”和“冗余”在物理科学和自然科学中得到了很好的发展。研讨会的目的是探讨这些概念与城市和区域的社会经济系统（规划、经济、住房市场等）的相关性。弹性被定义为承受破坏性挑战或冲击并从中反弹的能力，这是一个主要来自自然科学和物理科学的概念。在20世纪70年代，Buzz Holling将其定义为系统“吸收变化和干扰并仍然保持种群或状态变量之间相同关系”的能力（Holling, 1973，第14页）。在个人层面上，社会心理学强调了必要的行为调整，以保持对生活事件（离婚、残疾等）和日常“麻烦”的适应力。因此，出现了一种综合社会心理学和物理科学的定义，将弹性定义为通过保持稳定状态并迅速恢复“平衡”来承受变化和抵御冲击的能力。“冗余”的概念被认为是维持生态和工程系统平衡的关键组成部分。然而，大多数人可能会把裁员与失业和失业联系在一起。这是因为冗余可能意味着某些东西是多余的。生态系统中的冗余已被确定为在冲击期间系统元素可以被替代的方式，或者在中断事件中适应满足功能需求的方式。例如，细菌在2010年墨西哥湾漏油事件后的清理工作中所起的作用，或者飞机上的备用电子导航系统在系统故障时发挥作用。因此，冗余可以被看作是一种防止灾难的保险政策，作为在冲击事件期间建立平衡的手段。但是，确定冗余是一个时间和判断的问题——谁来决定什么是冗余，什么时候是冗余，这对于确定社会和经济系统的弹性至关重要。因此，在本研究中有重要的政策考虑和资源，这些事件将探讨这些概念和潜在的政策结果，以应对城市-区域规模的冲击。霍林关注的是主要的生态和生物系统以及这些系统对“冲击”的反应。毫无疑问，在9/11或日本东北地震等突发事件发生后，衡量平衡的目的是：让人们重返街头，减少恐惧，重新启动企业，重新安置和重新分配受洪水影响的人，这些都是有效的反弹和平衡措施。但是在区域和城市的尺度上城市和地区的冗余在达到平衡或发展到新状态中的作用又如何呢？我们关注的是与城市和区域的相关性以及必要的长期应对措施。我们将研究2011年日本地震后的经验，以及英国长桥（Longbridge）等“缓慢燃烧”的冲击，以及最近的紧缩和衰退。通过观察受到不同冲击影响的背景下的区域规划和经济特征，我们可以开始回答这些重要问题中的一些。日本的全球重大事件将被第一手探索，并与英国的缓慢燃烧冲击进行比较，以了解城市区域规划系统的哪些要素可以帮助恢复过程。

This proposal is to stage two separate seminar events in the UK and Japan during 2012/13 organised jointly by the University of Birmingham and Waseda University. The principal aim of the seminars is to examine theory and practice on regional resilience and the role of redundancy in adapting to 'shock' and 'slow-burn' events. The two core concepts 'resilience' and 'redundancy' are well developed in the physical and natural sciences. The aim of the seminar is to explore the relevance of these concepts to socio-economic systems (planning, economy, housing markets etc..) across cities and regions. Resilience has been defined as the capacity to withstand and rebound from disruptive challenges or shock, and is a concept that has largely grown out of the natural and physical sciences. It was defined in the 1970s by Buzz Holling as a system's ability to "absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables" (Holling, 1973, p.14). At the individual human level, social psychology has emphasised the behavioural adjustments necessary to maintain resilience to life events (divorce, disability etc.) and daily 'hassles'. There has therefore emerged a synthesis of definitions from social psychological and physical science that has defined resilience as the capacity to withstand change and resist shocks by maintaining a steady state and returning quickly to 'equilibrium'. The concept of 'redundancy' is recognised as a key component of maintaining equilibrium in ecological and engineering systems. However, most people would probably associate redundancy with unemployment and job loss. That's because redundancy can mean that something is superfluous. Redundancy in ecological systems has been identified as the way in which elements of a system can be substituted during a shock or something which adapts to satisfying functional requirements in the event of disruption. Examples may include the role that bacteria played in the cleansing of the Gulf of Mexico following the oil spill of 2010 or back-up electronic navigation systems in aircraft which come in to play when there is system failure. Redundancy can therefore be viewed as an insurance policy against disaster which acts as a means of establishing equilibrium during shock events. But, determining redundancy is a question of time and judgment - who decides what is redundant and when it is redundant is crucial to determining resilience in social and economic systems. Therefore there are important policy considerations and resources at stake in this research and the events will explore these concepts and the potential policy outcomes responses to shock at the urban-regional scale. Holling was concerned about major ecological and biological systems and the response of these systems to 'shocks'. The purpose of measuring equilibrium following a sudden shock event such as 9/11 or the Tohoku (Japan) earthquake is undoubted: getting people back on the streets and reducing fear, restarting businesses and re-housing and reallocating people affected by flood are all valid measures of rebound and equilibrium. But what about at the regional and city scale and the role of redundancy for cities and regions in arriving at equilibrium or evolving to a new state? We are concerned with the relevance to cities and regions and the longer term responses necessary. We will look at the experience following the 2011 earthquake in Japan as well 'slow-burn' shocks such what has happened in Longbridge (UK) and recent austerity and recession. By looking at the features of regional planning and economy in contexts that have been affected by different shocks we can begin to answer some of these important questions. The globally significant events of Japan will be explored first-hand and compared with slow-burn shocks within the UK to understand what elements of the urban-regional planning system can assist in the process of resilience.