RAPID: Can Big Ideas About Resilience Survive the Reality of a Disaster? Built Environment Policy and Recovery After the Marshall Fire

On December 30, 2021, the climate-enabled and weather-driven Marshall Fire destroyed 1,084 homes and damaged 149 more in the communities of Louisville, Superior, and unincorporated Boulder County, becoming the most destructive fire in Colorado’s history. For these and the growing number of communities facing a new set of risks due to climate change, key questions now emerge: Will these events strengthen communities’ resolve to build climate resilience, or erode public support for such policies in favor of reducing short-term recovery costs?

And do community members who live through rebuilding and recovery shift their opinions of and support for resilience policies? This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project focuses on local-level regulations that contribute to disaster and climate resilience of communities but that can make development more costly, particularly in the short-term.

Prior work has shown that public support and the availability and requirements of external resources and programs shape these local government decisions, but it is unclear whether and to what extent this support changes after a shock such as a disaster. This study seeks to understand how these policy decisions are affected by and affect individual preferences and decisions by collecting perishable data after the Marshall Fire.

This study is guided by theories of post-disaster recovery and resilience that describe how local government policies succeed or fail after catastrophic events. The post-disaster planning and policy environment is characterized by time compression, when urban development processes occur within shortened timeframes. Some plans and policies are more compatible with time compression than others; in particular, time compression is challenging for bureaucratic activities like planning and regulation that ordinarily rely on lengthy stakeholder and public engagement processes to help balance short- and long-term policy considerations.

Meanwhile, a substantial body of research shows that the process of government-led recovery – how policies are formulated and the nature, quality, and coordination of stakeholder and resident engagement – has significant influence on the breadth and scope of policy changes that local governments are likely to make after a disaster. The focusing events scholarship suggests that this relationship may be especially important after disaster when trust in government, policy preferences, and public involvement in decision making can vary significantly, sometimes being led by technocrats rather than through open consultative processes.

Trust in government – influenced by communication from government officials and staff to residents and also by the two-way consultative nature of disaster recovery processes established in a community – is also an important determinant of whether policy changes to bolster resilience are made. What is unclear is whether previously established resilience policies can survive in the time-compressed recovery process after an unanticipated and un-planned-for disaster like the Marshall Fire.

To investigate these questions, the research team will (1) administer a longitudinal survey of individuals who lived in three affected jurisdictions at the time of the Marshall Fire to assess their intent to rebuild or relocate, their engagement in the recovery process, their support for resilience policies, and their attitudes towards and trust in government over time. They will also (2) interview local government elected officials, (3) observe disaster recovery meetings, and (4) analyze recovery-related plans and documents during the first year after the catastrophic fire.

The research team will analyze these data to seek a clearer understanding of local-level resilience policy preferences and processes during time-compressed disaster recovery.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.