FEATURING:
Rick Bell
Executive Director, AIANY
Andrew Castaldi
Senior Vice President & Head of Catastrophe Perils, Swiss Re
Patrick Crittenden
Director, Sustainable Business Pty Ltd
Michael De Chiara
Founding Partner, Zetlin & De Chiara LLP
Jill Eisenhard
Founder & Executive Director, Red Hook Initiative
Caswell Holloway
Deputy Mayor for Operations, NYC Mayor's Office
Richard Kauffman
Chairman, New York Energy Policy and Finance, NYS Governor's Office
Douglas C. Mass, P.E.
President, Cosentini Associates
Raymond T. Mellon
Senior Partner, Zetlin & De Chiara LLP
Jack S. Nyman
Executive Director, The Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute, Baruch College
Frances B. Reid
Chief Sustainability Officer, Town of North Hempstead
Andrew Revkin
Environmental Journalist, The New York Times
Jennifer Rimmer
Director of Strategic Initiatives and Sustainability, Northeast Region, AECOM
Robert Schubert
Senior Vice President, Construction Boston Properties
Craig Schwitter
Managing Partner, Buro Happold
William Solecki
Director, CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities
Elizabeth Brooke Stein
Attorney, Environmental Defense Fund
Robert K. Watson
CEO and Chief Scientist, ECON Group
Elizabeth Zeldin
Program Director, New York Office, Enterprise Community Partners
Futureproofing Our Cities
Urban Resilience, At What Cost?
March 14, 2013
8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
SUBJECT: Problems, Solutions and Pathways to Implementation
Event Location:
The William and Anita Newman
Conference Center
151 East 25th Street, Room 750
New York, NY 10010
The Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute (NREI) of Baruch College at the City University of New York is proud to present a timely and topical half-day conference entitled: Futureproofing Our Cities: Urban Resilience, At What Cost?
Three basic options have been articulated in how to confront climate change:
- Mitigate
- Adapt
- Suffer
For approximately the last two decades, the emphasis has been on "sustainability," which principally has a mitigation focus. The emerging scientific consensus is that the window to avoid unmanageable climate impacts is rapidly closing; therefore, additional attention must be paid to the adaptation option.
"Resilience," as a concept and term, has received a great deal of attention since Superstorm Sandy pounded the New York metropolitan area. Indeed, months after the event large tracts of area still look like disaster zones and thousands of people continue without energy or water and, in many cases, homes. Resilience addresses both mitigation and adaptability, while at the same time addressing minimization of, or relief from, economic and social suffering. As the functional realities of the weather impacts of accelerating climate change become more apparent, resilience increasingly seems to be an appropriate replacement concept for sustainability as an organizing principle for urban planning and growth.
This important half-day NREI conference will focus on the economic challenges, opportunities, and pathways to creating urban regions that are more resilient physically, socially, and economically. In a dynamic and multifaceted way, diverse experts will address the key economic problems, discuss potential economic solutions, and the potential pathways that can bridge these problems and solutions. Using the New York metropolitan region as a case study, the goal of this high-level meeting is to focus on the costs and benefits of remaking our urban built and natural environments into areas that can effectively confront a future of a "new normal."
Image credit: John de Guzman
