I have a funny story for you. It's about how I ended taking a class on disasters as one unfolded globally. Ok, maybe it's not funny. But I still need to tell you about it.
One of the last classes I took for my degree is called "Resilient Cities". I find choosing elective classes such an adventure. I will read the course description and think "I have no idea what that means, but sounds interesting and fun!".
This class ended being the most important, most consequential class I have ever taken at any moment of my life.
This class started in January 2020. In the beginning, I was completely overwhelmed and confused by it, as it kept happening to me with other non-hard science classes. How could I know if my answers were correct if there are no right answers in a conversation with classmates?
In any case, it was a very interesting and engaging class. In the first few weeks, we learned about general resiliency aspects of a city; we talked about the importance of sidewalks as space where neighbors interact, and what makes an individual and a community take care of the space they live in. We then moved on to discussing specific disasters, and what experts considered helped or hindered the recovery of the communities. We talked about very old events, such as the 1923 Kanto Earthquake in Japan, where a great part of the city was destroyed by the earthquake, and what remained was destroyed by fires. We also talked about more recent events, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that devastated the coast of India as well as Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
And then came the pandemic. As we prepared to leave for Spring Break, concern was beginning to grow around the world. Italy was entering the first wave at full speed. Countries were beginning to control the entrance of foreigners coming from certain countries. Our professor, Dr. Daniel Aldrich, an expert in disasters and resilience, explained to us the pandemic protocols in case we were thinking of traveling abroad for the break. If you are planning on traveling abroad, be advised that you might not be able to come back to the US. If you visit a country that the CDC catalogs as Level 3 during your absence, your entrance to the country will be denied, and we don't know for how long. Dang, we were planning on leaving the country for the break. Would we be able to return?
We decided to risk it and go on our trip. At this time, the situation was still very uncertain. Our destination was barely registering any cases when we arrived, and since it's considered "the first world", we thought we wouldn't have to really worry about a pandemic getting out of control there. We were going to visit my sister, so if we did get trapped abroad, we would be with family. And I am so grateful that we did. Now, we don't know when the next time we'll see each other will be, or when we'll be able to travel again.
Fortunately, we were able to go on our trip and return safely to the US. But there was something in the air (besides the virus of course, which we miraculously avoided). It was like the calm before the storm, like the ocean receding before a tsunami. People were still conglomerating all around us; we were doing lines to enter historical monuments shoulder to shoulder with strangers, but you could feel the uncertainty in the air.
We barely made it back. We returned on Monday, March 9th, and by Wednesday night, the White House announced the closing of borders with Europe.
From then on, the class wasn't the same anymore. Not only because we were now taking classes online rather than in person, but because no matter what past disaster we were talking about, the conversations would inevitably end on current events. Because everything we had been discussing in a retrospective mindset, we were now using as guidance for ourselves. We weren't discussing the impacts of these disasters on the lives of others, we were talking about the impacts of the Pandemic on our own life. We weren't talking anymore about what made communities resilient, we were looking for tips on how to be resilient ourselves.
So, what did I learn makes a city or a community resilient?
Turns out, many things make a community resilient. Its infrastructure; its economy; its bureaucracy and government systems. But the most important thing I found that makes a community resilient? Its people, and their social capital.
You don't know what social capital is? Don't worry. I didn't know either before this class.
Social capital is all the relationships you can count on whenever a disaster happens on any scale. We all have social capital, some more than others, just like financial capital. Your social capital goes from your direct family -parents, siblings, spouses, children- to your connections to people in positions of power, say, your high school friend who is currently the head of the national emergency management agency. It's all those you can lean on in your moment of need. Social capital is important because it functions as a sort of informal insurance when other forms of insurance are not available.
We all know that our relationships are not all equal. You wouldn't ask for a loan from your coworker, and you know that even though your parents would move heaven and earth for you, they might not be able to help you with a bureaucratic process. This is why experts have categorized social capital into three types. There's bonding, bridging, and linking capital. Bonding and bridging are said to be horizontal relationships, those to your family or your community -religious or cultural-, while linking is vertical, meaning those relationships to people in positions of power -local or national government, or international organizations-.
Different situations will require different social capital to make people resilient. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, many families drove to stay with family outside of New Orleans, making use of their bonding capital. The current pandemic has meant for a lot of us reaching out to our neighbors because we are now unable to be with our families, increasing our bridging capital.
What does your Social Capital look like? Do you know who you can count on in times of need?
If you want a little help starting to think about your social capital, here is a short questionnaire I developed for the class.
Let me know in the comments what you think about it!
Picture by United Nations Covid-19 Response