Community Resilience Hubs: Everyday and Emergency Infrastructure in Detroit’s Neighborhoods

Abstract

In Detroit, community hubs are emerging as essential sites for a myriad of services contributing to both short term disaster response and long term community resilience. Community hubs have long been spaces of convening, information sharing and other elements of social infrastructure for all ages. Increasingly, hubs are intentional spaces for cultural production and community cohesion, contributing to strong neighborhood networks, as well as sites for disaster response, including heating and cooling in cases of emergency and provision of health supplies and food. This paper documents an ongoing research-based professional project focusing on existing community resilience hubs in two Detroit neighborhoods that meet everyday community needs and offer opportunities for a more robust collective network that integrates emergency preparedness and building performance to enable function in times of crisis. This work includes study of hubs in other cities and considers the link between cultural and climate resilience and how community hubs are spaces for both. This project is part of a larger collaborative planning process that centers resilience and health equity outcomes, focusing on access to resources in Detroit neighborhoods of varying density. This includes visions for current and future hubs that contribute to local definitions of resiliency.