Resilience through Regeneration: The economics of repurposing vacant land with green infrastructure

Abstract

Many urban areas affected by flood disasters are also becoming increasingly ecologically and socially fragmented due to the accumulation of vacant properties. While redevelopment is often viewed as the primary objective in regenerating vacant properties, they can also potentially provide ecological and hydrological land uses. Rather than chasing development- based incentives for regenerating vacant lots in high flood-risk communities, a balance should be sought between new developmental land uses and green infrastructure to help counteract stormwater runoff and flood effects, or “Resilience through Regeneration.” This paper uses landscape performance measures to evaluate the economic and hydrologic performance of green infrastructure regeneration projects for three marginalized neighborhoods in Houston, Texas, USA. Each project site is characterized by excessive vacant lots and flood issues. Results suggest that, when using green infrastructure to regenerate vacant properties, 1) flood risk continually decreases, 2) upfront economic costs increase in the short term (when compared to conventional development), and 3) the long-term economic return on investment is much higher.

The relationships between neighbourhood vacancy, probable PTSD, and health-related quality of life in flood-disaster-impacted communities

“…Estimating the factors that hinder or facilitate redevelopment outcomes allows for the identification of neighbourhoods prone to long-term vacancy, as well as the design of more efficient disaster mitigation and recovery plans. Neighbourhood revitalisation components should utilise strategies that target both the environment and human health, such as implementing green infrastructure regeneration projects (Newman et al, 2019), preparing emergency land banking and vacant property acquisition and greening (Accordino and Johnson, 2000).…”

Adapting to Climate Change: Leveraging Systems-Focused Multidisciplinary Research to Promote Resilience

“…Researchers at the TAMU SRP Center are using urban planning and citizen science, in which community members are trained to collect and analyze data, to make Houston communities more resilient to frequent flooding, air pollution, and health concerns stemming from natural disasters. For example, they worked with communities in the greater Houston area to develop a master plan for installing green infrastructure, such as water-absorbing rain gardens, on vacant lands [ 119 ]. Using a similar approach, they developed a community-scaled master plan for Manchester, Texas, to increase flood resiliency and decrease exposure to contaminants [ 120 ].…”

Citizen Science-Informed Community Master Planning: Land Use and Built Environment Changes to Increase Flood Resilience and Decrease Contaminant Exposure

“…Urban design, in essence, is a problem-solving venture, which makes it well suited to a service-learning or problem-based learning approach [25] In academic settings, service-learning is an alternative teaching model that goes beyond traditional lecture-based teaching to include learning through engagement with community groups to provide students with engaged projects [26][27][28]. Due to the high costs involved with typical urban design projects, marginalized communities can work with university faculty and students to develop conceptual designs that address neighborhood problems and reduce the costs associated with the development of the initial designs [29,30]. Through these types of participatory approaches, faculty and students interact with local residents, community organizations, and other stakeholders [31].…”