This week I attended the 2012 Northern California Earthquake Hazards Workshop at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park. I was particularly interested in hearing the presentations and a panel discussion on “Implementing and Exporting SPUR’s Resilient City Initiative.”

SPUR (San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association) is a non-profit organization that is intended to promote “good planning and good government in the San Francisco Bay Area.” SPUR’s Resilient City initiative is concerned about assessing and improving the earthquake resilience of San Francisco. Earthquake resilience is defined as “the extent of the habitability of homes and the continuity of services and businesses after an earthquake.”

SPUR’s preliminary estimate for the current resilience of San Francisco is 75%; that is, after a Magnitude 7.2 earthquake on the peninsula segment of the San Andreas Fault, 75% of the residential units in the City are expected to be habitable as “shelters-in-place” while they are repaired. SPUR would like to see the City’s earthquake resilience raised to 95% and it thinks this goal is achievable through careful disaster planning, strengthening of buildings, and establishment of neighborhood post-earthquake response centers.

The Resilient City initiative is driven by a fear that if a large number of residences in the City become inhabitable for an extended time following an earthquake, some people and businesses may leave the City permanently. If this were to occur, it would have a significant long-term impact on the economy of the City, its real estate market, and its living standards.

Earthquake resilience is not a concern for San Francisco only. All cities in the Bay Area are subject to similar earthquake risk, and they all have numerous soft story buildings. Furthermore, as many people live in one city and work in another, the earthquake resilience of the cities are interrelated. Such interrelation makes it imperative that other cities in the Bay Area join San Francisco’s efforts. If many cities were to pool their resources, the necessary technical work to evaluate and improve the earthquake resilience of all cities can be done better and faster. I hope they all do, and do so very soon.

I applaud SPUR’s leadership in addressing a very significant concern for the Bay Area. More information about SPUR and its activities is available at their website: www.spur.org.