Earthquake Recovery and Urban Resiliency: Lessons toward Sustainability

In this paper post-quake urban development issues are discussed. The paper is based on some studies on urban development after some main earthquakes events in Iran. Considering seismic proneness of the country and consequently high levels of damages and difficulties, main issue in rehabilitation and recovery plans to improve urban resiliency are discussed. The main objectives of this paper are:• How disasters could affect resiliency in urban and regional areas?• What matters could be addressed in urban rehabilitation and recovery plans toward resiliency improvement?The paper includes four sections as: First, introduction: including main topic, objectives and methodology. Second, disasters and developments in cities: how disasters affect development trends and how development plans in cities could affect potential disasters, are discussed. Resiliency as one of the main topics in urban development is discussed as well. This section information is based on literature review and studying some cases on post-quake development. Third, case studies in Iran: some main events including Manjil (1990) and Bam (2003) are presented. In this section a brief review on stricken cities and regions and the events impacts are presented. Then urban development issues in each event are studies. This section information is based on national statistics, published reports, field visits and interview with authorities.Fourth, conclusion and future tasks: based on literature review and case studies experiences, the main elements in improving urban development and consequently achieving sustainable development in cities are presented. This paper could give helpful guidelines for urban sustainable development in hazard prone cities. Besides it gives some instructions for urban development actors in similar situations and experiences.

Keywords:

sustainable development , urban recovery , urban safety