Community Resilience, Money, and Infrastructure

Adapt: Climate Change and the Built Environment

Mónika and Jessica talk to Shalini Vajjhala, the Executive Director of Pre Collective and a nationally recognized infrastructure and climate resilience expert with more than 15 years of experience designing, funding, and financing community-centered resilient infrastructure solutions. Shalini discusses the questions she likes to ask every client at the beginning of a project, the different “colors of money” that can be available for a project, and the ways in which adaptation and preventative healthcare struggle from the same problem–it’s hard to measure successes when they’re measured by problems avoided.

Over the last decade, Shalini founded and led the design firm re:focus partners and co-founded The Atlas, an online platform for local government collaboration and innovation. Previously, Shalini held multiple positions at the US EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She is currently a Board Member of Smart Growth America and a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution Metro Program. Shalini holds a B.Arch in Architecture and PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Resources and links discussed include:

Pre Collective: About – Pre Collective

The Atlas: Atlas - a free online community for local government leaders (the-atlas.com)

Hoboken and Flooding Disasters Avoided: A Climate Change Success Story? Look at Hoboken. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)