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

本计划将于2012/13年度在英国和日本举办两个独立的研讨会，由伯明翰大学和早稻田大学联合举办。研讨会的主要目的是研究区域复原力的理论和实践，以及冗余在适应“冲击”和“缓慢燃烧”事件中的作用。“弹性”和“冗余”这两个核心概念在物理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社会经济系统（规划、经济、住房市场等）的相关性。跨越城市和地区。复原力被定义为承受破坏性挑战或冲击并从中反弹的能力，这是一个在很大程度上源于自然科学和物理科学的概念。它在20世纪70年代被Buzz Holling定义为一个系统“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，社会心理学强调了保持对生活事件（离婚，残疾等）的适应力所必需的行为调整。日常的“烦恼”因此，出现了一种综合社会、心理和物理科学定义的定义，将复原力定义为通过保持稳定状态和迅速恢复“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，大多数人可能会将裁员与失业和失业联系起来。这是因为冗余意味着某些东西是多余的。生态系统中的冗余被认为是一种在冲击期间系统的元素可以被替换的方式，或者是在中断的情况下适应满足功能要求的方式。例子可能包括细菌在2010年墨西哥湾漏油事件后的清理中所发挥的作用，或者在系统故障时发挥作用的飞机备用电子导航系统。因此，可将减灾视为一种灾害保险政策，作为在冲击事件期间建立平衡的一种手段。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，这对确定社会和经济系统的弹性至关重要。因此，这项研究涉及重要的政策考虑和资源，这些活动将探讨这些概念以及在城市-区域范围内应对冲击的潜在政策结果。Holling关注主要的生态和生物系统以及这些系统对“冲击”的反应。强调了在9/11或日本东北大地震等突发性冲击事件后衡量平衡的目的：让人们重新走上街头并减少恐惧，重新启动企业，重新安置和重新分配受洪水影响的人，都是衡量反弹和平衡的有效措施。但是，在区域和城市规模上，城市和区域的冗余在达到平衡或进化到一个新的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）发生的“慢燃”冲击，以及最近的紧缩和衰退。通过考察不同冲击背景下的区域规划和经济特征，我们可以开始回答其中一些重要问题。日本的全球重大事件将被第一手探讨，并与英国的缓慢燃烧的冲击进行比较，以了解城市区域规划系统的哪些元素可以帮助恢复力的过程。

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.