Built to Endure: Advancing Infrastructure Resilience from the Ground Up

Small and mid-sized cities face escalating climate shocks—flooding, extreme heat, wildfire smoke—while federal resilience funding grows less predictable. The central question for local leaders is no longer whether to build resilience, but how to do so now—with constrained resources, limited staff capacity, and urgent risk.

Grounded in the recently released Built to Endure: A Smart Guide for US Cities to Build Resilient Infrastructure That Lasts, this panel will focus on practical pathways to system-level infrastructure resilience for smaller jurisdictions. Rather than emphasizing isolated projects or post-disaster recovery, the discussion will explore how cities can integrate stormwater, transportation, energy, land use, and public finance into coordinated strategies that reduce long-term risk and lifecycle costs.

Key themes include:

• Acting without federal certainty: Reforming policy and procurement, leveraging state and regional partnerships, mobilizing private capital, and sequencing investments.

• Technology as an enabler: Using accessible digital tools—integrated data platforms and scenario modeling—to prioritize investments, test tradeoffs, and communicate risk.

• Governance and capacity: Breaking down silos and aligning leadership to move from project-by-project upgrades to system-level change.

• Political feasibility: How mayors and local leaders can frame resilience as fiscal responsibility, economic competitiveness, and public safety. 
  

View a more detailed description.

Advance registration is required as this event has limited capacity.

 
This DC Climate Week 2026 event is organized by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability and Pratt School of Engineering and Bentley Systems, and is aligned with the Duke Climate Commitment.

Questions about this event? Contact Elizabeth Losos, [email protected] 
 
View other events organized by Duke University at DC Climate Week 2026. 
 
DC Climate Week is not responsible for this event. It is organized by the organizing group, and being listed on the DCCW calendar is not an endorsement of content or partners.

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