Louisville Resilience Strategy
This project was completed prior to JFG Cities. Images are the property of Perkins&Will. Text is adapted from the final project report.
Learn. Thrive. Live. Engage.
Positioned between Midwestern and Southern traditions, Louisville has a distinct cultural identity that also faces a range of structural challenges common to many U.S. cities. Financial constraints, increasing climate vulnerability, and entrenched disparities, particularly within communities of color, continue to influence policy priorities and planning efforts.
Through participation in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, Louisville developed a resilience strategy designed to bring together economic development, climate adaptation, and social equity into a more integrated framework for the city’s future.
Louisville Context Map
Louisville’s top shocks and stresses as identified during the strategy engagement process
A historic timeline of Louisville’s key shocks and stresses
To achieve a successful long-term strategic plan, Louisville Resilience set forth the following list of goals :
Ensure transparency in communications with and among all stakeholders;
Openly acknowledge current gaps in both the support and provision of services identified within the City Resilience Framework;
Facilitate and institutionalize a collective community conversation around resilience with the perspective of identifying opportunities from our challenges; and
Advocate for resilience in all policies for both internal and external stakeholders.
Working groups participate in discovery area meetings
The Louisville Resilience Strategy was integrated with the existing framework established by the mayor’s strategic planning priorities. While some adjustments were required, the core themes of the mayor’s agenda provided a foundation for shaping the city’s resilience efforts.
The Resilience Strategy is organized around four guiding visions, each supported by a set of goals and recommended actions. These priorities reflect insights gathered through community engagement and are aligned with existing plans and initiatives. Louisville has already begun advancing efforts to strengthen resilience, emphasizing equity, compassion, and trust while encouraging residents to recognize the value of a more resilient city.
Louisville’s Resilience Strategy focused on four key pillars that were created to address issues of inequity and lack of trust: Embrace Lifelong Learning, Ensure a Safe + Healthy City, Build a Vibrant Economy + Place, and Innovate in Civic Engagement. These pillars, along with the goals and actions outlined under them, provide a roadmap for how Louisville will grow in the coming decades.
“We are only as resilient as the least resilient of us. It’s easy to generalize, but if one person is left behind, it’s up to us all to lift them up. In a city, everything and everyone is connected.
— City of Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer
My role: Project Manager
Client: City of Louisville, as part of the 100RC (100 Resilient Cities) network
Images Credit: Perkins&Will