Financing rapid community reconstruction after catastrophic disaster: lessons from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China
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Financing rapid community reconstruction after catastrophic disaster: lessons from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China Yu Xiao1 · Robert Olshansky2 · Yang Zhang3 · Laurie A. Johnson4 · Yan Song5 Received: 1 June 2018 / Accepted: 10 September 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Catastrophic disasters can change the course of urban development and challenge the longrun sustainability of cities and regions. How to rapidly reconstruct communities impaired by catastrophic disaster is a world-wide challenge. The reconstruction after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China was an unusual case of very rapid reconstruction after a catastrophic disaster. Over US$147 billion was invested to rebuild the damaged areas within 3 years. The reconstruction was not simply building back what was destroyed, but was used as an opportunity to advance national goals for urbanization, rural transformation, and poverty reduction. In this article, we review how the reconstruction was planned, budgeted, and financed in the sociopolitical context of 2008 China. Particularly, we discuss two innovative programs, namely pair assistance and land-based financing. Despite the unique circumstances of China, lessons can be learned to speed up post-disaster reconstruction and urban development in other countries. Conversely, this case illustrates that a narrow focus on physical reconstruction may overlook broader economic and social issues. Keywords Disaster finance · Rapid reconstruction · Wenchuan earthquake · Disaster recovery
* Robert Olshansky [email protected] 1
Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
2
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
3
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
4
Laurie Johnson Consulting, San Rafael, CA, USA
5
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
13
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Natural Hazards
1 Introduction 1.1 Financing reconstruction Planners and policy makers worldwide face repeated challenges to effectively mobilize limited resources for successful post-disaster community reconstruction after catastrophic disasters. The financing challenges of community reconstruction are immense because the capital investments that are usually spread out over decades must all be made available in a much shortened time frame (Olshansky et al. 2012). Johnson and Olshansky (2017) describe money as the first priority of recovery management. The need for large infusions of money is at the heart of recovery. Despite the desire for a speedy recovery, communities struck by catastrophic disasters usually take years to rebuild their housing stock and economic base. The processes of finding funds and diverting them from other purposes, moving and auditing the flows of money, and dealing with the inevitable politics of resource allocation and redistribution are usually at the center of reconstruction delays that disappoint the expectations of residents. Given that disaster recovery exacerbates income inequality (Howell and Elliott 2019), the effects of such delays generally
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