Urban disaster recovery: a measurement framework and its application to the 1995 Kobe earthquake

TLDR

A systematic framework is needed to understand how cities recover from disasters. This paper provides a framework for assessing empirical patterns of urban disaster recovery using statistical indicators. The framework defines recovery, filters out exogenous influences, enables cross‑area comparisons, and is applied to document Kobe City’s recovery after the 1995 earthquake. Population returned to pre‑disaster levels in ten years but shifted away from the older core; economic recovery featured a 3‑4 year reconstruction boom followed by a 10 % below‑pre‑disaster plateau, port activity declined, services and large businesses grew, and overall patterns accelerated pre‑disaster trends.

Abstract

This paper provides a framework for assessing empirical patterns of urban disaster recovery through the use of statistical indicators. Such a framework is needed to develop systematic knowledge on how cities recover from disasters. The proposed framework addresses such issues as defining recovery, filtering out exogenous influences unrelated to the disaster, and making comparisons across disparate areas or events. It is applied to document how Kobe City, Japan, recovered from the catastrophic 1995 earthquake. Findings indicate that while aggregate population regained pre‐disaster levels in ten years, population had shifted away from the older urban core. Economic recovery was characterised by a three to four year temporary boost in reconstruction activities, followed by settlement at a level some ten per cent below pre‐disaster levels. Other long‐term effects included substantial losses of port activity and sectoral shifts toward services and large businesses. These patterns of change and disparity generally accelerated pre‐disaster trends.