ABSTRACT
In theory, disaster resilience is inherently local. The studies in this book have shown that it is a local phenomenon in practice as well. Meanings of community resilience and the level of adaptive capacity closely couple with county characteristics. The adaptive process has been shown to be largely driven by local collective action to meet community needs, and local administrative and political elites play critical roles in coordinating these efforts. The specific findings related to these aspects of resilience contribute to our understanding of the development of resilience along the Gulf Coast. Insights from these analyses can also be used to inform future studies and possibly create strategies to encourage the development of local disaster resilience.
