Resilience for whom? Demographic change and the redevelopment of the built environment in Puerto Rico

Abstract

As Puerto Rico ('PR') makes long-term investments in the reconstruction of its built environment following Hurricanes Maria and Irma, a fundamental research question remains unanswered: who will benefit from these recovery and resilience efforts? The article presents 30-year demographic projections (2017–2047) that show current fiscal and infrastructure planning efforts overestimate the size and composition of the future PR populations who may be the direct and indirect beneficiaries of post-Hurricane recovery and resilience investments in the built environment. Our projections suggest long-term projected depopulation are inconsistently applied in the fiscal and infrastructure planning, shaping both recovery and resilience efforts. As PR moves forward with long-term plans and capital investments, consistently deployed, long-range population projections are critical for determining the optimal stewardship of public resources and as a check on the construction of a built environment that might be beyond the sustainable capacity of PR to utilize, maintain, and pay for.