Local Parks, Libraries, and Schools as Resilience Hubs: The Next Generation of Community Infrastructure

When communities think about infrastructure, they typically think about roads, bridges, utilities, hospitals, fire stations, communications systems, and other physical assets that keep society functioning. Emergency managers similarly focus on the systems required to preserve life and restore essential services after disruption. Those investments are indispensable. But a growing body of resilience research suggests that communities also depend on another form of infrastructure that is easier to overlook: the familiar places where people gather, obtain information, build relationships, and seek help.

Libraries, schools, parks, recreation centers, community centers, health clinics, faith spaces, senior centers, and other public or community-serving facilities can become what resilience practitioners increasingly call resilience hubs—trusted neighborhood institutions intentionally equipped to strengthen communities before, during, and after emergencies.

This represents an important evolution in how local governments should think about public infrastructure. The question is no longer simply whether a community has enough emergency facilities. It is whether the places residents already use every day can continue serving them when normal systems are disrupted.

The Urban Sustainability Directors Network defines resilience hubs as community-serving facilities enhanced to support residents and coordinate resources and services before, during, and after hazards. Importantly, the model is not limited to emergency response. Successful hubs operate year-round, strengthening community relationships and providing services during normal conditions so that residents already know where to go and whom to trust when disruption occurs (Urban Sustainability Directors Network, 2018).

That distinction matters. A building does not become resilient merely because an emergency plan identifies it on a map. A true resilience hub combines place, capability, relationships, and trust.

From Hard Infrastructure to Social Infrastructure

Traditional infrastructure planning tends to emphasize engineering performance: Can the bridge remain standing? Can the electrical grid remain energized? Can the water system continue operating? Can emergency vehicles access affected neighborhoods?

Resilience requires those questions, but it also requires others: Where will residents obtain reliable information? Where can someone charge a medical device when electricity fails? Where can an older adult escape extreme heat? Where can families receive food after transportation and commercial systems are disrupted? Where can residents without reliable internet complete disaster-assistance applications? Where will neighbors gather after an evacuation order is lifted?

These questions move resilience planning into the realm of social infrastructure.

Aldrich and Meyer (2015) argue that social networks and social capital are fundamental components of disaster resilience because relationships help people obtain information, assistance, financial resources, childcare, emotional support, and other forms of help when formal systems are strained. Physical places matter in part because they allow those relationships to form and persist.

Evidence increasingly suggests that this is more than theory. In a quantitative analysis of more than 550 neighborhoods affected by Japan’s March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Aldrich (2023) found that community centers, libraries, parks, and other forms of social infrastructure were associated with reduced mortality among vulnerable populations. The finding challenges the assumption that resilience investments should be judged only by conventional engineering standards. Infrastructure that builds relationships may also save lives.

More recent research following the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake in Japan similarly examined community learning centers as social infrastructure and found that places supporting everyday community activity can contribute to disaster resilience by strengthening social capital and community-based preparedness (Ishiwatari et al., 2026).

The lesson is significant for local planning: the buildings communities rely on during emergencies should not be strangers to them before emergencies.

What Makes a Resilience Hub Different?

A resilience hub should not be understood simply as another name for an emergency shelter or cooling center.

Emergency shelters are typically activated because of a specific incident. Cooling centers may operate only during periods of extreme heat. Commodity points of distribution may open only after disasters. Resilience hubs are different because their emergency function grows from an established everyday role within the community.

The Urban Sustainability Directors Network describes three broad operating conditions: normal conditions, disruption, and recovery. During normal conditions, hubs may host community meetings, educational programs, health services, food programs, preparedness training, recreation, workforce development, or civic activities. During disruption, they can expand into information centers, charging locations, cooling or clean-air spaces, supply distribution sites, or neighborhood coordination points. During recovery, they can help connect residents with assistance, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, case management, and community meetings.

This creates continuity.

Residents do not have to learn about a new government facility during the worst day of their lives. They already know the library. Their children already attend the school. Their family already uses the recreation center. They already worship at the church, mosque, synagogue, temple, or other faith institution. They already attend programs at the senior center.

Trust built during ordinary times becomes operational capacity during extraordinary times.

Libraries as Information and Communication Hubs

Few institutions illustrate this potential better than public libraries.

Libraries already provide many of the capabilities needed during disruptions: internet connectivity, computers, electrical outlets, climate-controlled space, public restrooms, knowledgeable staff, meeting rooms, information resources, and accessibility to residents regardless of income.

Research by Veil and Bishop (2014) found that public libraries can strengthen community resilience by providing technology resources, meeting space, information, communications capacity, and adaptable services during emergencies and recovery. The authors also identified an important limitation: communities can easily expect libraries and library staff to assume responsibilities for which they have not been adequately trained or resourced. Resilience planning therefore cannot simply declare libraries emergency assets and assume personnel will absorb new duties.

More recent research reinforces libraries’ resilience role. Laurian, Doyle, Vamanu, and Logsden examined survey responses from 415 library directors across 13 Midwestern states and found that libraries routinely provided services that strengthened resilience during economic hardship, extreme weather, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Libraries helped residents access social services and employment resources, provided daytime refuge during extreme temperatures, and expanded information access through services such as Wi-Fi connectivity (Laurian et al., 2025).

Los Angeles County already demonstrates part of this model in practice. During extreme heat, county library locations can serve as cooling spaces, providing air-conditioned environments, water, restrooms, and Wi-Fi. During an excessive heat warning in July 2026, LA County Library activated designated locations as cooling centers while its broader library network remained available during normal operating hours.

The next step is to move from temporary activation to intentional resilience design.

A library designed as a resilience hub might include backup power, battery storage, upgraded HVAC and air filtration, emergency communications equipment, device-charging capacity, potable water, multilingual information resources, emergency supplies, and agreements establishing how agencies and community organizations will operate there during prolonged disruptions.

Schools as Neighborhood Resilience Anchors

Schools offer a different but equally powerful set of capabilities.

School campuses are geographically distributed throughout communities. Residents recognize them. Many contain large indoor spaces, kitchens, restrooms, athletic fields, parking areas, communications infrastructure, and rooms that can be adapted for multiple purposes. Families also have established relationships with teachers, administrators, parent organizations, and other school-based networks.

Research by Mutch (2023), drawing on disaster experiences across multiple countries and hazard types, found that schools contribute to resilience before, during, and after disasters. They may become relief centers, accommodation sites, information hubs, and sources of stability for communities. Reopening schools after disasters also has broader recovery implications: it restores routine for children, allows parents and caregivers to address recovery needs, and signals a return toward normal community functioning.

But Mutch also identifies a warning applicable to every type of resilience hub: schools often assume enormous post-disaster responsibilities while feeling underprepared, under-resourced, and insufficiently recognized for those roles.

That should change how cities, counties, school districts, and emergency managers plan together.

If schools are expected to become evacuation centers, family reunification locations, information sites, feeding locations, or recovery-support facilities, those functions should be addressed before disaster. Agreements should establish staffing, security, access control, custodial support, communications, transportation, liability, supply storage, backup power, and the transition back to educational operations.

Resilience cannot depend on improvising a second mission for a facility after the emergency begins.

Parks and Community Centers as Flexible Platforms

Parks remain an important component of this system, but resilience-hub planning allows their role to be understood within a larger network.

Parks offer outdoor gathering space, staging capacity, shade, recreation, evacuation assembly areas, distribution space, and opportunities for mobile services. Recreation and community centers located within parks add indoor capacity for cooling, communications, public information, wellness services, meetings, and temporary program delivery.

The strongest model may therefore be neither the park alone nor the building alone. It is the campus.

A recreation center can provide climate-controlled interior space while adjacent fields accommodate distribution operations or emergency staging. Parking areas can support mobile medical units. Outdoor areas can manage crowds without overwhelming indoor facilities. Kitchens may support feeding operations. Nearby playgrounds and recreational areas can support families during prolonged recovery activities. This potential is not merely theoretical. During the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, City Terrace Park became part of a broader community-stabilization network supporting sheltering, public safety, family services, and other needs arising from the emergency.

Thinking at the campus scale also helps planners separate functions that should not occupy the same operational area. Emergency-vehicle staging, public distribution, behavioral-health services, family reunification, media operations, and general community gathering may all require different access and security arrangements.

Resilience planning therefore becomes partly a land-use and site-design exercise.

Faith Spaces and the Infrastructure of Trust

Not every resilience hub needs to be government-owned.

In many communities, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other faith institutions possess something government cannot construct through capital spending alone: longstanding relationships.

Faith-based organizations frequently provide food assistance, volunteer networks, counseling, gathering space, outreach to older residents, multilingual communication, and connections with households that may not routinely interact with government institutions.

Research has long recognized their disaster role. Muller and colleagues (2014) described faith-based organizations as established sources of community stability that frequently serve residents following disasters, while also finding opportunities to improve their formal preparedness and integration into disaster systems.

Their value is especially important in communities where distrust, language barriers, immigration concerns, disability, transportation limitations, or cultural differences make residents less likely to access centralized government services.

Government’s role should not be to absorb these organizations into a government-controlled system. It should be to build partnerships that allow trusted institutions to maintain their community identity while gaining access to training, communications, planning support, equipment, and clear coordination mechanisms.

That is consistent with the broader philosophy of resilience hubs: community capacity should be supported, not displaced.

Connecting Resilience Hubs to FEMA’s Community Lifelines

The resilience-hub model becomes even more powerful when connected to FEMA’s Community Lifelines framework.

FEMA defines lifelines as the most fundamental services that enable society to function. The framework organizes incident stabilization around eight lifelines: Safety and Security; Food, Hydration, and Shelter; Health and Medical; Energy; Communications; Transportation; Hazardous Materials; and Water Systems (FEMA, 2023).

A neighborhood resilience hub will not replace these systems. It can, however, become a local access point to them.

A library with backup power can support the Energy and Communications lifelines by providing device charging and internet access. A community center may support Food, Hydration, and Shelter through commodity distribution and temporary refuge. A school may support public information, family reunification, feeding, or transportation coordination. A faith organization may identify residents requiring wellness checks or help communicate trusted public-health information.

This is an important conceptual distinction. Communities do not need to transform every neighborhood building into a miniature emergency operations center.

They need a distributed network of places that help residents connect to essential services when normal access breaks down.

Resilience Hubs Should Be a Network, Not a Single Building

A single centralized resilience center cannot meet every community need.

Disasters disrupt transportation. Roads may close. Transit may stop operating. Power outages may disable traffic signals. Extreme heat may make long walks unsafe. Older adults and people with disabilities may have difficulty traveling even a few miles. Households without vehicles may be effectively isolated from resources that technically exist elsewhere in the city.

For these reasons, resilience planning should move toward a hub-and-spoke network.

A major community center might function as the primary hub with backup energy, significant supply storage, communications systems, and agency coordination capacity. Smaller libraries, schools, parks, faith spaces, nonprofit facilities, and neighborhood centers could operate as spokes providing narrower but geographically accessible services.

One location might specialize in cooling and charging. Another might support food distribution. Another might provide clean-air refuge during wildfire smoke. Another might serve as a trusted public-information location.

Redundancy becomes a strength.

If one building loses power, another may remain operational. If one neighborhood becomes inaccessible, another site may serve residents from the opposite direction. If communications fail, designated sites can become physical locations where verified information is posted and exchanged.

Resilience, after all, is partly the capacity to continue functioning when individual components fail.

A Sign on the Door Does Not Create a Resilience Hub

There is a danger that the popularity of resilience hubs will lead communities to designate buildings without making the investments necessary for them to function.

A resilience hub without reliable electricity during an outage is simply a building in the dark.

A cooling center without adequate HVAC capacity is not a heat strategy.

A food-distribution site without loading access, refrigeration, traffic management, staffing, or storage is not operationally ready.

A communication hub without redundant communications becomes vulnerable to the same outage affecting everyone else.

Facilities considered for resilience-hub roles should therefore be evaluated for backup power; solar and battery storage where appropriate; heating, cooling, and air filtration; potable water; restrooms and sanitation; broadband and redundant communications; emergency lighting; refrigeration; food preparation; supply storage; accessibility; transportation and pedestrian access; emergency-vehicle access; crowd management; security; and the ability to operate during extended utility disruptions.

FEMA’s 2025 Local Mitigation Planning Handbook similarly emphasizes that the continued operation of lifelines and critical facilities influences both the severity of disaster impacts and the speed of recovery.

Infrastructure resilience is not simply whether a building survives the hazard. It is whether the building can still perform its community function afterward.

Equity and the Geography of Resilience

Where resilience hubs are located may be as important as what they contain.

Communities experiencing high heat exposure, limited tree canopy, poverty, disability, social isolation, unreliable transportation, energy insecurity, food insecurity, poor air quality, or limited health-care access may require greater neighborhood-level capacity.

This makes resilience hubs both an emergency-management strategy and a community-development strategy.

California’s Community Resilience Centers program explicitly reflects this approach. The program funds neighborhood-level facilities that can provide resources and shelter during climate and other emergencies while also providing year-round services that strengthen communities. Eligible community-serving sites can include schools, libraries, youth and community centers, clinics, places of worship, and other trusted facilities. The program also emphasizes collaboration with residents and community-based organizations in governance and decision-making.

California’s current investment underscores how quickly the idea is moving from theory to policy. In July 2026, the Strategic Growth Council opened the second round of its Community Resilience Centers program, with approximately $55 million available for planning and implementation grants. Implementation awards can support new construction, facility upgrades, campus amenities, and year-round resilience programming.

This is an opportunity for local governments to rethink capital improvement planning itself.

Instead of asking only, Which recreation center needs a new roof? decision-makers might also ask: Could that project include solar and battery storage?

Instead of asking only, Which library needs an HVAC replacement? they might ask: Could the upgraded system support clean-air and cooling operations during an extended emergency?

Instead of asking only, Which school needs modernization? planners might ask: Can the campus support neighborhood communications, reunification, feeding, or emergency power?

Resilience becomes less expensive when it is incorporated into investments communities already need.

Planning the Next Generation of Community Infrastructure

Local governments do not need to wait for the next disaster to begin building this network.

Several actions can move the concept from aspiration to operational capability.

First, communities should inventory existing social infrastructure. Maps should identify parks, libraries, schools, community centers, senior centers, nonprofit facilities, clinics, faith institutions, and other community-serving locations alongside hazards, demographic vulnerability, transportation access, and infrastructure dependencies.

Second, candidate facilities should undergo resilience assessments. Planners should evaluate structural condition, power, water, communications, HVAC, accessibility, storage, kitchens, restrooms, parking, public transit, emergency access, staffing, and neighborhood trust.

Third, emergency managers should define realistic functions for each site. Not every facility needs to do everything. One might serve as a cooling and charging center; another as a distribution site; another as an information hub. Assignments should reflect actual capabilities.

Fourth, resilience hubs should be incorporated into existing plans. Hazard mitigation plans, emergency operations plans, climate adaptation plans, heat action plans, general plans, capital improvement programs, park master plans, school facility plans, public-health strategies, and recovery frameworks should identify how these facilities fit together.

Fifth, the people who operate these facilities must be included in planning and exercises. Librarians, teachers, custodians, recreation staff, nonprofit leaders, clergy, health workers, volunteers, public works personnel, emergency managers, and residents should understand what activation actually requires.

Finally, resilience hubs should remain valuable when nothing is wrong. The strongest investment is one that improves daily life while simultaneously preparing for disruption.

That might mean a community room that hosts preparedness classes today and recovery meetings tomorrow. Solar panels that reduce utility costs during normal operations and power communications during an outage. A commercial kitchen that supports youth programs during the week and mass feeding after an earthquake. A library Wi-Fi network that helps students complete homework today and helps families apply for disaster assistance after a wildfire.

The ordinary and emergency functions should reinforce each other.

Conclusion

The next generation of resilience infrastructure may already exist.

It is the library where residents search for jobs and connect to the internet. It is the school where families gather for performances and parent meetings. It is the park where neighbors exercise and children play. It is the recreation center where seniors attend classes. It is the community organization distributing groceries. It is the faith institution whose volunteers know which older resident has not been seen in several days.

These places are often discussed separately—education infrastructure, recreational infrastructure, civic facilities, nonprofit facilities, cultural institutions, or houses of worship. Resilience planning reveals something they have in common: they are places where communities already know how to gather.

The challenge for planners, emergency managers, public officials, nonprofits, school districts, and residents is to transform that familiarity into capability.

Doing so requires more than emergency supplies stored in a closet. It requires reliable power, communications, cooling, clean air, water, accessibility, staffing, transportation, planning, exercises, partnerships, and clearly defined responsibilities. Most importantly, it requires preserving the relationships and trust that made these places important before anyone called them resilience hubs.

The future of community infrastructure should therefore be measured not only by what buildings are designed to withstand, but by what communities are able to do inside them when other systems fail.

A resilient community is one where people know where to go for information, where to cool down, where to charge a phone, where to find food, where to reconnect with neighbors, and where recovery can begin.

Parks, libraries, schools, community centers, faith spaces, and public facilities can provide that network.

They should no longer be treated merely as amenities surrounding a community’s critical infrastructure.

They are part of the critical infrastructure.

References

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Aldrich, D. P., & Meyer, M. A. (2015). Social capital and community resilience. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(2), 254–269. doi:10.1177/0002764214550299.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2023). Community Lifelines Toolkit, Version 2.1.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2025). Local Mitigation Planning Handbook.

Ishiwatari, M., Nomura, S., Kanbara, S., Matharage, S., & Aldrich, D. (2026). The role of social infrastructure in community-based disaster resilience: A case study of the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 134, 106033. doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106033.

Laurian, L., Doyle, E., Vamanu, I., & Logsden, K. (2025). Libraries are resilience hubs: Evidence from the Midwest. Journal of the American Planning Association, 91(1), 58–71. doi:10.1080/01944363.2024.2343670.

Los Angeles County Library. (2026). Cooling Centers.

Muller, V. M., Burke, R. V., Berg, B. M., Lin, A. C., & Upperman, J. S. (2014). A mixed-methods pilot study of disaster preparedness and resiliency among faith-based organizations. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 29(2), 127–133. doi:10.1017/S1049023X14000120.

Mutch, C. (2023). How schools build community resilience capacity and social capital in disaster preparedness, response and recovery. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 92, 103735. doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103735.

Strategic Growth Council. (2026). Community Resilience Centers Program.

Urban Sustainability Directors Network. (2018). Resilience Hubs: Shifting Power to Communities and Increasing Community Capacity.

Veil, S. R., & Bishop, B. W. (2014). Opportunities and challenges for public libraries to enhance community resilience. Risk Analysis, 34(4), 721–734. doi:10.1111/risa.12130.