disasters: a case study from Auckland

New Zealand- communities understanding and managing their hazards”. When reflecting on this vision, several questions immediately come to mind: what is resilience; how can it be developed; how can it be measured; and how resilient are we right now? To try and answer these questions in the context of community1 resilience, a research project was undertaken in Auckland between 2004 and 2007 (Paton, 2007; 2008a; et al, 2008a). The overall goal of the project was to identify key generic attributes of community resilience and develop a way of measuring these, which could be used both at different levels (e.g. suburb, town, district, region) and for different demographic groups. The research has provided us with a better understanding of what resilient communities look like. It has also enabled us to realise that one of the ways we can manage risk is by influencing community members ’ ability to cope with and adapt to the consequences of disasters. As a result, a growing number of emergency managers are challenging the way they view, understand and interact with their communities.