IBTS Announces the Small Cities Resiliency Competition in Partnership with NLC
Ashburn, VA (PRWEB) November 18, 2016 -- The Institute for Building Technology and Safety (IBTS) announces today that it has teamed up with The Sustainable Cities Institute at the National League of Cities (NLC) to launch a Small Cities Resiliency Competition. Cities of 100,000 residents or less are invited to apply for direct, on-the-ground assistance to improve their resilience through local projects.
IBTS and NLC recognize that resilience broadly embraces the following three main areas:
• Economic Resilience – How a community’s economy is built is crucial to preserving it and reducing the need to re-build it.
• Social Resilience – Knowing a community’s social strengths and weaknesses helps to prioritize efforts to increase overall resiliency.
• Resilient Governance – Every community needs rules, coordination, and discipline or citizens will create surrogates if the government cannot provide them.
Applications for the Small Cities Resiliency Competition will be accepted from November 16th through January 31st and will consist of a short form, during which time the applicants will learn more about these three areas of resilience – Social, Economic, and Governance. Once all applications are received, a panel of judges will review the applications over a four to six week period and will select two to five competition finalists for an initial assessment. This assessment will consist of developing an overall resiliency baseline for the city and then the ranking of up to three projects to judge the effect on resiliency, if a project is undertaken. Once the assessments are complete, the winner will be selected.
The intention of IBTS and NLC in the selection of a winning city is to provide technical consultations, planning services, cost-benefit analysis, and community development resources necessary to complete projects that improve the overall resilience of the city. The winner will also receive assistance identifying potential sources of funding or public-private partnerships to implement a recommendation resulting from this process.
“IBTS has a long history of working with jurisdictions throughout the country and we are pleased to have the opportunity to work one-on-one with the winning city,” said Greg Seldon, Director of Development at IBTS. “Through this competition, our hope is that cities will gain the tools to improve their resiliency and create a lasting impact on the community.”
For more information, please visit IBTS in booth #325 at the 2016 NLC City Summit or http://www.nlc.org/ibts.
Dana Johnston, Institute for Building Technology and Safety (IBTS), http://www.ibts.org, +1 (703) 481-2000 Ext: 153, [email protected]
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