Urban Resilience and Post-Disaster Reconstruction. Evidences from Mexico and France

Abstract

This paper relates resilience to post-disaster reconstruction phase. The concept of resilience (in the urban-architectural field and in the field of disaster risk) is understood as the ability of a complex system to maintain or rapidly return to desired functions in the face of impacts of natural or human origin. The reconstruction process of a given territory is one of the post-disaster stages, in which the above societal conditions must be restored. The reconstruction is then a phase of the ``disaster risk'' cycle where exist the opportunity to decrease risk and therefore, to increase resilience. Resilience through reconstruction is recognizable in two cases: the later French reconstruction after World War II (governmental and centralized) and the Mexican reconstruction after the earthquakes of September 1985 (also vertical and centralized, while at the same time spontaneous and solidary).