Full confession: I am one of the (minor) organizers who contributed to the discourse around resiliency when it was first raised a few years back. I like the term, but, like other terms like sustainability and social entrepreneurial, it gets overused and used incorrectly.

I remember when right after Katrina when one of the architects of this resiliency stuff, Mary Rowe, was in our farmers market organization office and we told her that this “recovery”was seen as the new Reconstruction era. She was newly arrived from Canada and so nodded approvingly, or maybe absent-mindedly; we had to explain that we meant that in an entirely negative way.

To not create that situation,  all responses to crisis that are led by government or agencies operating within government cronyism need a separate, collaborative and issue-oriented citizen response.  That response must operate without interference by those within the system. So far, resiliency as as solution isn’t doing that, but it is early days, so let’s keep trying.

Link to my thoughts on resiliency from today’s Lens opinion piece. (darnola in comments)