Resilience for whom? Demographic change and the redevelopment of the built environment in Puerto Rico

Abstract

As Puerto Rico ('PR') makes long-term investments in the reconstruction of its built environment following Hurricanes Maria and Irma, a fundamental research question remains unanswered: who will benefit from these recovery and resilience efforts? The article presents 30-year demographic projections (2017-2047) that show current fiscal and infrastructure planning efforts overestimate the size and composition of the future PR populations who may be the direct and indirect beneficiaries of post-Hurricane recovery and resilience investments in the built environment. Our projections suggest long-term projected depopulation are inconsistently applied in the fiscal and infrastructure planning, shaping both recovery and resilience efforts. As PR moves forward with long-term plans and capital investments, consistently deployed, long-range population projections are critical for determining the optimal stewardship of public resources and as a check on the construction of a built environment that might be beyond the sustainable capacity of PR to utilize, maintain, and pay for.