RESEARCH PAPER

Complexity, problem-solving, sustainabilityand resilience

Joseph A.Tainter and TemisG.Taylor

Department of Environment and Society,UtahState University, 5215OldMain Hill, Logan,UT 84322,USE-mails: joseph.tainter@usu.edu and temis.taylor@usu.edu

Societies often solve problems by developing more complex technologies and institutions. Sustainability emerges from

success at solving problems. Complexity is a powerful problem-solving tool, but increased complexity requires

resources and carries a metabolic cost. Resilience, a condition of vulnerability or the capacity to recover from a

setback, helps achieve sustainability goals. Resilient societies must have reserve problem-solving capacity to adjust to

major challenges. The abilities of ancient and modern societies to respond to crises at different states of complexity

illustrate the relationship between problem-solving capacity and resilience. Increasing complexity, effective at first,

seems inexorably to accumulate and to evolve to diminishing returns, undermining the ability to solve future

problems. These processes are illustrated through historical case studies, including urban resilience.

Keywords: built environment, complexity, energy, problem-solving, resilience, sustainability, temporal perspectives

IntroductionThe current era in most developed countries exhibits ahigh level of complexity and institutionalized inno-vation. These circumstances influence one’s perceptionof what is normal in human affairs. Yet the time inwhich we live is highly atypical. Major growth in com-plexity and innovation began with industrialization,and is made possible by fossil fuels (Brown et al.,2011; Cleveland, Costanza, Hall, & Kaufmann,1984; Tainter & Patzek, 2012). Human ancestry cancurrently be traced back by about 4 million years,and that of Homo sapiens about 200 000 years.Thus, the 200 years since the Industrial Revolutionare mathematically insignificant. Yet high complexityand institutionalized innovation are the circumstancestoday in which most people are situated. This leadsmost people to assume that complexity is normal inhuman affairs, even that it is a condition to whichhumanity has aspired.

The socialization of individuals in a complex worldinfluences both the individual and the collective under-standing of what it means to be sustainable or resilient.This topic is addressed here in the broadest sense,ranging across historical cases to illustrate whysocieties and cities maintain sustainability or resilience,or fail to do so. The discussion is linked to the builtenvironment, but the framework is larger than any

single field. The first historical case will show howthe Roman Empire used complexity to achieve sustain-ability for a time, but was later weakened by the samestrategy. The concept of reserve problem-solvingcapacity is introduced to clarify how societies and insti-tutions achieve resilience in the face of major crises.This concept is illustrated through the history ofvarious international crises from 1941 to 1973.Within the field of the built environment, the focuswill be urban systems. The discussions of complexity,sustainability and resilience are applied to exploredifferent rates of recovery after the San Franciscoearthquake in 1906 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

De¢nitionsCollapse, complexity, sustainability and resilience arecommon terms, yet they are frequently offeredwithout definition, or with definitions that are lessthan useful (Allen, Tainter, & Hoekstra, 2003,pp. 24–26; Tainter, 2001, pp. 349–350). The seniorauthor has defined socio-political collapse as a rapidsimplification, the loss of an established level ofsocial, political or economic complexity (Tainter,1988). Complexity is more challenging to define. It isuseful to conceptualize complexity in human socialsystems as differentiation in structure and behaviour,and degree of organization or constraint (Allen et al.,

BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 2014Vol. 42, No. 2, 168–181, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2014.850599

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2003; Tainter, 1988). Social systems vary in complex-ity as they diversify or contract in structure and behav-iour, and as they increase or decrease in organizationalconstraints on behaviour. Within this framework,changes in the size of an institution, or in the numberof parts, do not necessarily equal complexity. Com-plexity consists of adding different kinds of parts to asystem combined with organizational constraints onthe behaviour of those parts.

The definition of sustainability most widely cited wasoffered in 1987 by Gro Harlem Bruntland, thenPrime Minister of Norway:

Sustainable development is development thatmeets the needs of the present without compro-mising the ability of future generations to meettheir own needs.

(World Commission on Environment andDevelopment, 1987, p. 43)

While this definition will no doubt continue to bewidely cited, it has limited operational usefulness.Befitting a political leader, the definition is toogeneral to guide behaviour. It is so vague ‘as to be con-sistent with almost any form of action (or inaction)’(Pearce, Atkinson, & Dubourg, 1994, p. 457).

Resorting to the dictionary yields better results. TheShorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th ed., lists ninedefinitions of ‘sustain’, of which two seem especiallypertinent. The third reads:

Cause to continue in a certain state; maintain atthe proper level or standard.

This definition is fundamental and is consistent withcommon usage. The fifth is: ‘Support life in; providefor the life or needs of’ (Shorter Oxford English Dic-tionary, 2007, p. 3126). People sustain what theyvalue, which can only derive from what they know.Ask people what they wish to sustain, and the answerwill always involve positive or valued parts of theircurrent way of life. Thus, the current authors regardsustainability as the science of maintaining aspects ofa way of life that people value.

Resilience is a popular concept today, due in part to thegroundbreaking work of C. S. Holling (e.g. Holling,2001). Holling, and the Resilience Alliance thatformed around his work, define the term as ‘ameasure of [a system’s] vulnerability to unexpectedor unpredictable shock’ (Holling, 2001, p. 394). TheShorter Oxford English Dictionary offers three defi-nitions of resilience, of which the third seems concep-tually useful:

The ability to recover readily from, or resistbeing affected by, a setback, illness, etc.

(Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2007,p. 2546)

Although some people distinguish between sustainabil-ity and resilience (e.g. van der Leeuw, 1998, p. 13),they are not inconsistent concepts. Resilience, thecapacity to recover, is a way to achieve a sustainabilitygoal.

Economics of complexityIn any living system, increased complexity carries ametabolic cost. This is a matter of elementary thermo-dynamics: it takes energy to maintain structure, andcomplexity by definition involves increases in struc-ture. In non-human species the cost is a straightfor-ward matter of additional calories. Among humansthe cost is calculated in such currencies as resources,effort, time or money, and by more subtle matterssuch as annoyance. These currencies are all transform-ations of energy (Tainter & Patzek, 2012, pp. 77–79).While humans find complexity appealing in spheressuch as art, architecture and music, this is usuallyaccompanied by a preference that someone else paysthe cost. There is an adversity to complexity when itunalterably increases the cost of daily life without aclear benefit to the individual or household. Beforethe development of fossil fuels, increasing the complex-ity and costliness of a society meant that peopleworked harder. Energy provided by hydrocarbonshas subsidized the costs of complexity in contemporarylife, obscuring these costs.

The development of complexity is thus a paradox ofhuman history. Over the past 12 000 years humanityhas developed technologies, economies and social insti-tutions that cost more labour, time, money, energy andannoyance, and that go against humanity’s aversion tosuch costs. Given the factor of costliness, complexityclearly does not emerge simply because humans tendto invent things. Why, then, did human societies everbecome more complex?

A large part of why human societies grow morecomplex is that complexity is a basic problem-solving tool. Confronted with problems, societiesoften respond by developing more complex technol-ogies, establishing new institutions, adding morespecialists or bureaucratic levels to an institution,increasing organization or regulation, or gatheringand processing more information. While societiesusually prefer not to bear the cost of complexity,problem-solving efforts are powerful complexitygenerators. All that is needed for the growth ofcomplexity is a problem that requires it. Since pro-blems continually arise, there is persistent pressurefor complexity to increase (Allen et al., 2003;Tainter, 1988).

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In human societies that are hierarchical, the benefits ofcomplexity often accrue at the top of a hierarchy, whilethe costs are paid at lower levels. Since benefits andcosts do not connect, the cost of complexity oftencannot constrain its growth. Anyone who has workedin a large organization will understand this readily.

Societies invest in problem-solving, undertaking costsand expecting benefits in return. In problem-solvingsystems, inexpensive solutions are adopted beforemore complex and expensive ones. For example, theproduction of food, minerals and energy wheneverpossible comes from the most economical sources.Indeed, in professions such as engineering, frugal orinexpensive solutions are often praised. Similarly,most societies have changed from egalitarian relations,economic reciprocity, generalized roles, and ad hocleadership to social and economic inequality, differen-tiation, specialization and full-time leadership. Thesecharacteristics are the essence of complexity, andthey increase the costliness of any society.

The growth of complexity to solve problems is illus-trated in the response to the attacks on the UnitedStates of 11 September 2001. In the aftermath, stepstaken to prevent future attacks focused on creatingnew government agencies, such as the TransportationSecurity Administration and the Department of Home-land Security (DHS), reorganizing existing functionsinto some of the new agencies, and increasing controlover realms of behaviour from which a threat mightarise. In other words, the first response was to com-plexify – to diversify structure and function, and toincrease organization or control. The report of the gov-ernment commission convened to investigate theattacks (colloquially called the 9/11 Commission) rec-ommended steps to prevent future attacks. The rec-ommended actions amount, in effect, to morecomplexity imposing more costs in the form ofresources, time or annoyance (9/11 Commission,2004, pp. 367–428).

Not all complexity comes from problem-solving. Cer-tainly there have been occasions when humansadopted energy sources of such great potential that,with further development and positive feedback,there followed great expansions in the numbers ofhumans and the wealth and complexity of societies.These occasions have, however, been so rare thatthey are designated with terms signifying a new era:the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolu-tion. It is worth noting that these unusual transitionshave not resulted from unbridled human creativity.Rather, they emerged from solutions to problems ofresource shortages (Cohen, 1977; Wilkinson, 1973),and were adopted reluctantly because initially theycreated diminishing returns on effort in peoples’ dailylives. When surplus or inexpensive energy presentsitself, it does not last for long. Humans (and organisms

in other living systems) quickly find ways to use theextra energy, thereby reducing the surplus (Boulding,1959, p. vii).

Most of the time, cultural complexity increases fromday-to-day efforts to solve problems. Complexity thatemerges in this way will usually appear before thereis additional energy to support it (Tainter, 2011).Complexity thus compels increases in resource pro-duction. This understanding of the temporal relation-ship between complexity and resources hasimplications for sustainability that diverge from whatis commonly assumed. The common perspectiveassumes that sustainability can be achieved throughsimplification and lower consumption. The argumentadvanced here suggests otherwise: since complexityincreases to solve problems, and problems are inevita-ble, societies cannot reduce their resource consumptionvoluntarily over the long-term.

Cultural complexity can be viewed as an economicfunction. It has benefits and costs, and those solutionsimplemented first tend to be those with more favour-able benefit–cost ratios. The problem is that once themost favourable solutions are adopted, further exer-cises in problem-solving reach the point of diminishingreturns (Figure 1). More and more is invested toachieve less and less. Carried far enough, this producesfiscal weakness, disaffection of the population andineffectiveness in problem-solving (Tainter, 1988).This is as much the case in the built environment as itis in other areas.

Complexity in the built environmentCities, like other institutions, have problems that aresolved with complexity. Early human settlement pat-terns resulted from resource distribution, landform,transportation modes and human interaction. Somevillages grew into cities, with meandering, non-linearstreets, intersections with irregular angles and densitythat accommodated foot traffic as the primary mode

Figure 1 Marginal product of increasing complexity, showingdiminishing returns beyond point B2,C2

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of transportation (Scott, 1998). While travellingthrough Germany in the 17th century, Rene Descartescomplained:

These ancient cities that were once mere strag-gling villages and have become in the course oftime great cities are commonly quite poorlylaid out compared to those well-ordered townsthat an engineer lays out on a vacant plane as itsuits his fancy.

(Descartes, 1637/1980, p. 6)

The neatly ordered cities that Descartes preferred weredesigned on a grid. A grid is a layer of complexity thatresponds to the problems of designing cities, or accom-modating towns that grow. It is difficult to get fromone place to another on winding roads. Speed and effi-ciency of transportation demand better traffic flow.Changes in energy resources and newmethods of trans-portation necessitate better roads with higher capacity.Straight, wide roads and symmetric intersectionshelped solve these problems. In urban systems, com-plexity exists at the level of planning and adminis-tration, where grids are designed and imposed.Complexity simplifies behaviour. A grid is the simpli-fied outcome of complexity in institutions of planningand administration, as is the behaviour of people whouse the grid.

Transportation is not the only problem a grid attemptsto solve. Cul-de-sacs (dead end roads) and limited sightdistances provided environments for crime and insur-rection. Health improved when light and air were letinto cities. Addressing and wayfinding became moretransparent. Surveys and sales of land, aswell as record-ing property ownership, were simplified. These, in turn,facilitated governmental functions such as censuses,security and collection of taxes. City blocks alsobecame more orderly. Winding streets and alleywaysof medieval cities created blocks with odd forms. Build-ing design and structure needed to accommodate irregu-lar shapes. With regularly shaped blocks, buildingsthemselves become more predictable.

Planners and engineers in modern cities are challengedby problems old and new. Solutions include increasingdensity by building higher on smaller lots, and creatingsmaller blocks for more street frontage and walkabil-ity. Congestion is addressed with highways andpublic transportation, often with the added complexityof being above or below ground. Costs come in suchforms as taxes, increased government regulation,building codes and zoning, infrastructure expenses,and inflation of property prices. All such strategiesinevitably reach diminishing returns.

As complexity in a city increases, energy consumptionescalates. Replacing human labour with fossil energydrives energy demand. In simpler societies the

average consumption for each person was approxi-mately 2000 calories per day, while an individualliving in modern industrial societies uses an equivalentof around 230 000 calories, mainly from fossil fuels(Humphrey & Buttel, 1982). The metabolism ofcities, or rate of energy consumption, increases withsize (Bettencourt, Lobo, Helbing, Kuhnert, & West,2007).

While attempting to solve immediate troubles, citiesmust also plan for potential challenges. Defenceagainst attack now occurs with airport securityrather than with city walls. As in the past, supplies ofmaterials, labour, energy and food are criticalbecause shortages will lead to civil unrest and econ-omic distress. The concentration of people andwealth in cities increases risk from natural disasters.

One outcome of complexity can be illustrated by com-paring maps of New York (Figure 2) and Istanbul(Figure 3). These maps illustrate one of the propertiesof complexity noted above: complexity simplifies.The imposition of planning and organization simplifiesthe nature of the city, and regulates the behaviour of itsoccupants.

Istanbul is an ancient city, more than 2500 years old,and it shows its history in the irregularities formed byunplanned streets. New York, in contrast, is a youngcity, intentionally designed and highly organized. Con-sider that disasters of great magnitude were to strikeeach city. This scenario is not entirely imaginary.New York and surrounding areas have recently experi-enced Hurricane Sandy. For Istanbul, major earth-quakes have been progressing westward along theNorth Anatolian Fault, and the city can expect toexperience one within a few decades.

Should these cities experience catastrophes causingwidespread collapse of buildings, sufficient to blockstreets, New York’s prior investment in complexitywould facilitate rebuilding. Surveying land, establish-ing property lines and determining ownership wouldbe far simpler in New York. Find one part of the gridand it is possible to know where all of it will be.Repairing or designing new buildings for the regularfootprint of New York blocks could be done quicklyand easily. Re-establishing neighbourhoods in Istan-bul, in contrast, would require extensive surveying,specialized building design and skills, and non-stan-dard materials. New York could be mass produced.The new city could be superimposed over the existingstructure. Istanbul would need to be re-crafted. Whilecomplexity is expensive, the framework it providesyields a degree of resilience. Yet complexity can alsobe carried too far.

In other areas of the built environment, complexityboth solves problems and generates them. Buildings

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intended to save energy through complex designs andcontrols may actually consume more. Complexity ofdesign produces unintended interactions among com-ponents, producing further problems. Complexity incontrol systems, for example, leads to unanticipatedgrowth in the profession of facilities management.Complex interior environmental systems are suchthat many users cannot fine tune the controls, somuch energy is wasted (Bordass, Cohen, Standeven,& Leaman, 2001; Bordass & Leaman, 1997;Bordass, Leaman, & Ruyssevelt, 2001; Leaman &Bordass, 1999, 2001).

It is useful at this point to present a brief historical casestudy, the Western Roman Empire, that illustrates howresilience and sustainability arise from complexity inproblem-solving, as does collapse.

Sustainability and collapse in theRomanEmpireWhen the Romans conquered a region, typically theywould seize the accumulated surpluses of past solarenergy, transformed into precious metals, works of

art and people. Some of the manpower of conqueredpeoples, and some of their wealth, went to fund newconquests. After subjugation, however, a conquerorassumes the cost of administering and defending a pro-vince. These responsibilities may last centuries, and arepaid for from yearly agricultural surpluses.

The Roman government was financed by taxes on sub-sistence agriculture that barely sufficed for ordinaryadministration. When extraordinary expenses arose,typically during wars, the precious metals on hand fre-quently were insufficient. Facing the costs of war onthe eastern frontier with Parthia and rebuildingRome after the Great Fire, the Emperor Nero begana policy in 64 AD that later emperors found irresistible.He debased the primary silver coin, the denarius, redu-cing the alloy from 98% to 93% silver. It was the firststep down a slope that resulted two centuries later in acurrency that was worthless and a government thatwas insolvent (Figure 4).

In the years from 235 to 284 the empire nearly came toan end. There were foreign and civil wars almostwithout interruption. The period witnessed 26 legiti-mate emperors and perhaps 50 usurpers. Cities were

Figure 2 LowerManhattan andBrooklyn in1937

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sacked and frontier provinces devastated. The empireshrank in the 260s to Italy, the Balkans and NorthAfrica. The silver coinage, once 98% pure, reached alow of 1.9% precious metal. By prodigious effort theempire survived, but it emerged at the turn of thefourth century AD as a very different organization.

In response to the crises, the emperors Diocletian(284–305) and Constantine (306–337) designed agovernment that was larger, more complex and morehighly organized. These emperors subdivided pro-vinces, creating many new ones, to prevent governorsfrom rebelling. Each new province required a newadministration, staffed with personnel. The size ofthe government expanded, and the number of capitalcities went from one to, at some times, four. The

empire was increasingly ruled by separate governmentsin the east and the west. The empire doubled the size ofits army and increased the proportion of cavalry, thelatter being particularly expensive. There were alsoincreasing controls on behaviour. Workers werefrozen into hereditary occupations that the governmentdeemed essential, including the army. The governmentconscripted workers and guilds for such things as ship-ping and building new walls around cities. Farmerswere tied to their land.

This was costly and required higher taxes. The govern-ment assessed every plot of land across the entireempire – every field, every orchard, every pasture –for tax. This had to be done within a few years, andthe recording alone must have been an enormous

Figure 3 Central Istanbul (thenConstantinople) in1904

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task. Taxes doubled between the years 324 and 364.Villages were responsible for the taxes on theirmembers, and one village could even be held liablefor another. Despite several monetary reforms astable currency could not be found (Figure 5). Asmasses of worthless coins were produced, prices rosehigher and higher (Figure 6).

With the rise in taxes, population could not recoverfrom plagues in the second and third centuries. Therewere chronic shortages of labour. Marginal landswent out of cultivation. Faced with taxes, peasantswould abandon their lands and flee to the protectionof a wealthy landowner. By 400 AD most of Gauland Italy were owned by about 20 senatorial families.

From the late fourth century the peoples of CentralEurope could no longer be kept out. They forcedtheir way into Roman lands in Western Europe andNorth Africa. The government came to rely almostexclusively on troops from Germanic tribes. Whenfinally they could not be paid, they overthrew the lastemperor in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 (Boak,1955; Duncan-Jones, 1990; Harl, 1996; Hodgett,1972; Jones, 1964, 1974; MacMullen, 1976; Russell,1958; Tainter, 1988, 1994; Wickham, 1984; Williams,1985; Williams & Friell, 1994).

In response to the crises of the third century, a resilientRoman Empire engaged in a sustainability effort thatsucceeded for a time, but that could succeed only for

Figure 4 Debasement of the Roman denarius to 269ADSource: Tainter (1994)

Figure 5 Reductions in the weight of theRoman follis, 296^348AD. The follis was a bronze coin with a silver surface. Source:Data fromVanMeter (1991), p.47

Figure 6 In£ation in the price of wheat in Egypt in the fourthcentury ADNote: amodiuswasanancientRomanmeasurement of just under9 litres.Source: Data from Jones (1964), p.119

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a limited duration. The strategy of the later RomanEmpire was to respond to a near-fatal challenge inthe third century by increasing the size, complexity,power and costliness of the primary problem-solvingsystem: the government and its army. The highercosts were undertaken not to expand the empire norto acquire new wealth, but to maintain the statusquo. The benefit–cost ratio of imperial governmentdeclined. Complexity as a problem-solving strategysucceeded for a time, but ultimately set the conditionsfor the empire’s collapse.

Lessons for sustainabilityThe Roman Empire is a single case study in complexity,problem-solving and resilience (for others, see Allenet al., 2003; Tainter, 1988, 2006), but it is an importantand representative one. It illustrates the basic process bywhich societies increase in complexity, becoming at thesame timemore costly. In thenormal course of economicevolution, this process at somepointwill producedimin-ishing returns (Figure 1). Once diminishing returns setin, a society must either find new resources to continuethe activity, or fund the activity by reducing the shareof resources available to other economic sectors. Thelatter is likely to produce economic contraction,popular discontent and eventual collapse.

The usual approach to sustainability is based on theassumption that it emerges from conservation and/orefficiency (e.g. Brown, 2009). By this reasoning,society should be able voluntarily to forego complexityand the resource consumption that it entails. Sustain-ability supposedly requires no more than will. Thus,the efforts of sustainability thinkers are typicallydirected toward critiques of consumption, exhorta-tions to conserve and encouraging the use of more effi-cient technologies.

The case study of the Roman Empire, and other casestudies (Allen et al., 2003; Tainter 2006), lead to adifferent set of conclusions about what it means to bea sustainable society:

. Sustainability is a function of success at solvingproblems. It does not emerge, as is commonlythought, as a passive consequence of consumingless.

. Complexity in human societies grows through themundane process of solving problems, as dis-cussed, including problems of sustainability. Thiscan be seen not only at the societal level but also,as discussed above, in the design and building ofcities.

. Complexity is an economic function, with benefitsand costs, and can reach diminishing returns.

. Since sustainability depends on solving problems, itpromotes the growth of complexity and complex-ity’s associated costs. Sustainability may thereforerequire greater consumption of resources, not less.

. Under diminishing returns, complexity inproblem-solving causes damage subtly, unpredic-tably and cumulatively.

. A society or other institution can be destroyed bythe cost of sustaining itself.

Problem-solving and resilience in recenthistoryProblem-solving causes complexity to grow, and com-plexity and problem-solving require resources. Resili-ence, the ability to recover, involves solving problemsand requires resources too. Faced with problems thatare large-scale, important and urgent (i.e. existential pro-blems), a resilient society must have reserve problem-solving capacity. This means that a society (or otherinstitution) can mobilize the resources needed toaddress a crisis, and can do so in a timely manner. Inthe case study described above, the Roman Empire hadsuch reserve resources in the third century AD, butappears to have lacked them in the fifth century. Giventhe problems arising from increased taxation followingthe third-century crisis, further increases in taxationwere probably impossible when new challenges arose.The empire’s reserve problem-solving capacity hadbeen exhausted, and collapse was the only possibility.

Reserve problem-solving capacity can exist in severalforms. It can consist, for example, of having resourceson hand to address a problem. As seen in governments’response to the recent financial crises, it can consist ofthe capacity to borrow funds. It can consist of thecapacity to innovate rapidly. It can arise from insti-tutions that foster problem-solving. Yet all that isdone, whether spending, borrowing or innovating,depends ultimately on energy (Tainter & Patzek,2012). Therefore, the concept can be illustrated by dis-cussing the role of oil in various international crisesbetween 1941 and 1973, as discussed below. Thesecrises were not caused directly by complexity, but bythe need for the resource that sustains our complexity.

To understand the effect of reserve problem-solvingcapacity, consider US oil production capacity at the startof the Second World War. The US entered the war witha surplus capacity of over 1 million barrels per day,almost one-third of US production (Ickes, 1943, p. 121;Painter, 1986, p. 34). Oilmen boasted at the time thatthey could increase US oil production by 30%merely byopening valves (Ickes, 1943, p. 121). During the 1930sthe problem in American oil was how to avoid overpro-duction (Painter, 1986, p. 6). This margin of capacity

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was so great that it allowed theUS to fuel not only its ownwar effort but also that of its allies.

The UK faced a different problem. The Suez Canal was itlifeline to Persian Gulf oil. The German and Italian cam-paign inNorth Africa in the SecondWorldWar had, as aprincipal objective, to capture the canal and sever Brit-ain’s most direct route to the Gulf. When GamalAbdul Nasser of Egypt later seized the Suez Canal inJuly 1956, Britain took the loss very seriously.

At the same time as the Suez Crisis, Israel had been con-spiring with France to attack Egypt, and on 29 October1956 launched an attack across the Sinai Peninsula. By 5November, Israel’s forces had consolidated control ofthe Sinai exclusive of the Canal Zone. On that sameday, British and French forces invaded Egypt to regainthe canal. World reaction was highly negative, and atthe end of the next day a ceasefire went into effect.

These military actions threatenedWestern Europe withan oil shortage. Saudi Arabia embargoed oil shipmentsto the UK and France. European stocks of oil were suf-ficient only for several weeks, and winter wasapproaching. Without the canal, oil would have tocome longer distances, but there was a shortage oftankers. Europe responded with measures to restraindemand. The US still had extra capacity and, aftersome delay, Texas producers were allowed to pumpextra crude. This ameliorated the crisis, and the Arabembargo failed (Yergin, 2009, pp. 465–477).

In 1967, Israel fought Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the Six-Day War. On 6 June, the day after the war began, Araboil ministers called for an embargo against nations sup-porting Israel. Several Arab countries banned oil ship-ments to the US and the UK, and partially bannedshipments to West Germany. By 8 June the flow ofArab oil had been reduced by 60%, about 6 millionbarrels per day. The Suez Canal was closed by thewar, and Arab states shut off pipelines to the Mediterra-nean. Civil war in Nigeria removed another 500 000barrels per day from the market. All of WesternEurope was affected by the reduction in oil flow.

As in 1956, the major problem was not supply but alack of tankers and appropriate logistics. Yet the logis-tical problem was solved more easily than in 1956because supertankers had been developed, in responseto the 1956 crisis. Soon the deficit was down to 1.5million barrels per day. This was met mainly byincreasing American production by 1 million barrelsper day, and by higher production elsewhere. By July1967, a month after the war, the embargo had failed(Yergin, 2009, pp. 536–539).

In October 1973, Israel fought Egypt and Syria again.In response, Arab oil producers instituted an embargoagainst the US and other countries. They also cut pro-duction by 5% to prevent oil from being movedaround, as had been done in 1956 and 1967.Members of the Organization of Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) began, at the same time, to raise the

Figure 7 US ¢eld production of crude oil. Source: USEnergy Information Administration

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price of oil. Within a few months the price stood atfour times its previous level.

The tactics employed by the Arab oil producers in 1973had been tried in 1956 and 1967 but, as described, hadnot worked. By 1973, though, the world oil supply situ-ation had been transformed. US production had peakedin 1970 (Figure 7). In that year, the US imported 3.2million barrels per day. In 1972 that rose to 4.5million barrels per day, and by the summer of 1973the figure stood at 6.2 million barrels. The MiddleEast, rather than the US, was now the producer withreserve capacity. Moreover, world production overallwas near capacity. In 1970 there was still about 3million barrels of oil per day of excess capacity world-wide. Demand was rising, though, and by 1973surplus production capacity was only 500 000 barrelsper day, a mere 1% of consumption outside the Com-munist countries. For these reasons, the Arab oilembargo of 1973 was effective, and the price increasesstuck (Yergin, 2009, pp. 591, 597–599, 607).

The excess production capacity that the US held in1941 amounted, in the terminology suggested here,to reserve problem-solving capacity. This capacitycarried the Allies through the Second World War,and then the oil-consuming nations through the crisesof 1956 and 1967. The reserve problem-solvingcapacity gave the consuming nations resilience – thecapacity to recover – and allowed them to sustainthe way of life and level of economic activity thatthey desired. Sustainability arose from resilience,itself dependent on reserve problem-solving capacityin the form of potential to produce more oil. By 1973this capacity had been depleted, reducing resilience.

Resilience and the built environmentThe worst natural catastrophes in modern times havebeen cascading events, where initial disasters are com-pounded by the failure of a human system (Grossi &Muir-Wood, 2006). To illustrate the achievement ofresilience through problem-solving in the builtenvironment, a comparison is presented of tworesponses to disasters. The recovery in San Franciscoafter the earthquake and fire of 1906 is comparedwith the recovery in New Orleans and the Gulf Coastafter Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

The San Francisco earthquake and fire, and the recov-ery afterward, have been extensively studied. The costof the damage has been estimated at between US$350million and US$500 million (in 1906 US$), orbetween 1.3% and 1.8% of nominal gross domesticproduct (GDP). After some initial reluctance, insur-ance companies mainly honoured claims by the city’sproperty owners. British companies underwrote thelargest share of the city’s fire insurance policies, with

a value estimated at US$108 million (Odell &Weiden-mier, 2004, p. 1003). The global insurance industryultimately paid about US$235 million (Grossi &Muir-Wood, 2006).

Payment of the insurance claims had far-reaching con-sequences. Many nations at this time adhered to thegold standard, and US$70 million worth of goldflowed from Britain to the US. This was a massiveshock to the British monetary stock, and almostcaused a panic in London. In response, the Bank ofEngland nearly doubled its discount rate, and discrimi-nated against further capital flows (in the form offinance bills) to the US. These actions almost haltedfurther transfers of gold from Britain to the US,causing the Panic of 1907. This was one of the shortestbut most severe recessions in US history. Ultimately, inresponse, the US created the Federal Reserve System(Odell & Weidenmier, 2004; Tallman, 2012).

Hurricane Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans,damaging or destroying 105 000 housing units. Morethan 380 000 New Orleans residents were displaced.Katrina caused an estimated US$81 billion in damageto New Orleans (Gagne, 2007), and US$150 billionto the Gulf Coast (Jervis, 2007). Between 2005 and2007, Congress appropriated US$116 billion to GulfCoast recovery, of which US$34 billion is intendedfor long-term rebuilding (Jervis, 2007). Private insur-ance costs are estimated at US$45 billion.

As shown in Table 1, the San Francisco earthquake andfire caused damage equal to about 1.4% of GDP, whileKatrina caused damage equal to about 1.2% of GDP.Both damage figures are imprecise estimates, so boththe San Francisco 1906 disaster and Hurricane Katrina2005 can be regarded as catastrophes of similar relativemagnitudes. Disasters of this scale affect the entirecountry, indeed much of the world. As describedabove, the 1906 earthquake and fire affected globalmonetary flows and caused increasing complexity –the creation of the Federal Reserve System – yearsafter the fact (Odell & Weidenmier, 2004). How resili-ent was the recovery after each catastrophe?

It is difficult to draw simple comparisons between recov-ery in San Francisco after 1906 and New Orleans after2005. These were different cities with different econ-omic bases. San Francisco in 1906 was a growing city,while NewOrleans in 2005 had for several years experi-enced a small population decline. Both are rather smallcities compared with the megacities of today, but eachhas a reputation at the national and internationallevels that exceeds other cities of comparable size. Thepublic wanted these cities rebuilt.

What, though, is the proper measure of resilience, of theability to recover? It would be awkward to comparecities a century apart for their physical infrastructure.

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There are too many confounding variables, not the leastbeing their different economies. Yet in one way they arefully comparable: A city must have people. Populationrecovery is an important measure of resilience in theface of such disasters, perhaps the most important indi-cator. In this regard the two cities are very different.One year after the 1906 earthquake and fire,San Francisco’s population stood at 97% of the pre-dis-aster level. For New Orleans, the comparable figure is46% (Table 1). Both recoveries were facilitated byexternal resources, so the recovery rates indicate some-thing about resilience in the larger society. By thismeasure there seems to have been greater resilience acentury ago than today.

Resilience alone does not account for the difference inrecovery, but the authors propose that it helps toexplain this difference. New Orleans residents, for onething, were not allowed to return for two months.Racism has been implicated in the slow rebuilding,and indeed the slowest recovery has been in the LowerNinth Ward, where the occupants are poor and Black.Yet detailed analysis suggests that the relevant factorhere was not race but housing damage (Fussell, Sastry,& VanLandingham, 2010). Other factors include thefailed intention to formulate a rebuilding plan, thegeography of poverty, the ineptitude of the FederalEmergency Management Agency (FEMA), uncertaintyabout repairing levees, the hurdles of government regu-lations, the challenge of rebuilding a complex, modern

city, the complexity of the way of life in the US (andarguably, other developed countries), and (as discussedbelow) the scope and complexity of the things that gov-ernments do. In one way or another, all the factors in theprevious sentence involve complexity.

It was argued above that complexity increases aspeople and institutions solve problems. But complexityin problem-solving inevitably reaches diminishingreturns and becomes ineffective. When this point isreached, complexity itself becomes disadvantageous,and institutions may no longer be able to solveproblems effectively. As this happens, both resilienceand sustainability are reduced. This process helps toclarify the difference between San Francisco in 1906and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In response to the 1906 earthquake, the federal govern-ment appropriated US$60.5 million (in 1906 US$). Ofthis, US$2.5 million was for relief, including bulk food-stuffs (Epstein, 2006), while US$58 million was forfederal expenses. Nothing was appropriated forrebuilding. From 2005 to 2007, the federal govern-ment appropriated US$116 billion (in 2005 US$) forrelief and rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina (Jervis,2007). Yet despite these very large appropriations,recovery in New Orleans has been notoriously slow.As of July 2011, the population of New Orleansstood at 360 740, only 79% of the pre-disaster popu-lation (Table 1, note e).

Table 1 Comparative statistics: San Francisco earthquake in1906 andHurricaneKatrina in 2005

SanFrancisco,1906 Katrina, 2005

Estimated damage US$350^500milliona US$150 billionb,c

Population (n) April 1906: about 450 000 July 2005:455188April 1907:435 000d July 2006: 208 548e

First year population recovery (%) 97d 46e

Nominal gross domestic product (GDP) US$31037 billionf US$12 623 trilliong

Damage cost as a%of GDP 1.4a,h 1.2b,c

Federal spending as a%of GDP 2.23 19.58

All government spending as a%of GDP 6.79 34.83

Federal appropriations in response US$60.5millioni US$116 billionb,g,j

Federal response as a%of the federal budget in the year of disaster 10.6 3.1

Federal response as a%of GDP 0.2 0.9

Notes: aIn1906 US$ (Odell &Weidenmier, 2004, p.1003).bGulf Coast region.cJervis (2007).dGrossi &Muir-Wood (2006), pp. 4,7.eNewOrleans only (see http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds%3Dkf7tgg1uo9ude_%26met_y%3Dpopulation%26idim%3Dplace:2255000%26dl%3Den%26hl%3Den%26q%3Dpopulation%20%22new%20orleans%22).fIn1906 US$ (see http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_2016USp_XXs1li111mcn_F0f_US_Federal_Spending_since_the_Founding).gIn 2005US$.hCalculated as the midpoint of the estimated damage range.iIn1906 US$ (Epstein, 2006).j2005^2007 (Jervis, 2007).

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Much has changed between 1906 and 2005. The US hasgrown more complex, as has global society as a whole.As a more complex society, the US is also a costliersociety, although often this is not perceived becausethe costs are largely subsidized by inexpensive fossilfuels. Automobiles, computers, telecommunications,recreation, children’s activities, and much else nowoccupy our time and finances in ways that past peoplenever experienced (e.g. Tainter & Patzek, 2012,pp. 67–72). The same is true of government at alllevels. As problem-solving institutions that inherentlyattract challenges, governments today have an intrinsictendency to grow in size, complexity and costliness.1

As governments spend more and more of nationalincome, and borrow more and more, the capacitydeclines to spend and borrow still more. As sovereigndebt problems have mounted, governments in Europeand the US have adopted programmes of austerity,forced by the impossibility of continuing to take ondebt. This is an admission that many national govern-ments no longer have as much reserve capacity to solveproblems as they once had. Due to increases in the scaleand complexity of government and society as a whole,there is a potentially large loss of resilience.2 When aproblem (such as Hurricane Katrina) arises, there isno longer a reserve capacity to respond effectively.

The administrative history of FEMA illustrates theproblem. Once an independent agency, and an effectiveone in the 1990s, after the attacks of 11 September2001, FEMA was incorporated into the DHS. DHS isenormous, incorporating 22 agencies, with more than180 000 employees. As a result of this reorganization,FEMA lost authority, power, budget, active pro-grammes and skilled personnel. The focus of DHS isnational security, not natural disasters. The approachto natural disasters has been militarized; in turn, themilitarization of disaster planning increased complexity.

Looking beyond the organizational issues of govern-ment, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistandrained resources. Funding declined for flood controland hurricane recovery. Part of the responsibility ofthe US National Guard is to assist in disasters. But atthe time of Hurricane Katrina, more than 30% of theGuard, and half of its equipment, was in the MiddleEast. As Woldoff & Gerber (2007) observe:

The policy choice to deemphasize natural disas-ter preparedness initiatives is tantamount toincreasing the probability that highly vulnerablepopulations will be at greater risk . . . .

(p. 185)

Perhaps predictably, planning for future natural disas-ters will apparently involve further complexity(Cooper & Block, 2006; Koughan, 2007; Morris,2007; Picou & Marshall, 2007; Reifer 2007; Tierney

& Bevc, 2007; Trichur, 2007; Woldoff & Gerber,2007). Increasing complexity and costliness to respondto terrorism and conduct wars reduces the ability torespond to other problems, including natural disasters.

It is suggested that reduced problem-solving capacityhelps to account for the difference in resilience inresponse to the disasters of 1906 and 2005. Along theGulf Coast, for example, the slowest rebuilding hasbeen among communities dependent on public funding(Jervis, 2007). Some of the slow response, as noted,can be attributed to the complicated nature of the recon-struction task, and to slowness imposed by governmentprocedures. There are also underlying economic pro-blems generated by complexity in problem-solving.

Following the San Francisco catastrophe, the federalgovernment appropriated amounts equal to 10.6% ofthe one-year federal budget, while after HurricaneKatrina, government assistance came to only 3.1% ofthe one-year federal budget (Table 1).3 At the sametime, the share of GDP spent on these catastropheshas increased. The federal government allocated only0.2% of GDP to the San Francisco disaster, but 0.9%of GDP to Katrina recovery (Table 1). This reflects thenature of the complexity problem affecting the govern-ment. As problems are confronted, there is a natural ten-dency to attempt to solve them. The additional cost ofaddressing problems seems affordable, and the solutionreasonable, and so complexity grows. The cumulativecosts do the damage. The federal government tookresponsibility for relief and rebuilding in 2005, whichit did not do in 1906. Hence, it allocated a largershare of GDP to the catastrophe of 2005, althoughmuch of this was funded through debt. In 1906, thefederal government had a surplus of US$25 million.When responding to Katrina, the federal governmentwas responsible for funding the cumulative complexityto which it was already committed, as noted above.Thus, while the government could allocate more ofGDP to the 2005 catastrophe because it controlledmore of the economy, it was constrained in the pro-portion of the federal budget that it could appropriate.There were too many competing demands for funds.This illustrates the dilemma of complexity: it grows bysmall increments, each seemingly appropriate at thetime, until cumulatively we can no longer afford tosolve the problems as effectively as we once did.

Correlation, of course, does not prove causation, and therole of complexity in the Hurricane Katrina recoveryremains indistinct. There is only the general process ofincreasing complexity inmany sectors of society and gov-ernment, combined with an apparent loss of resilience,the two being arguably connected. This is the nature ofcomplexity. Complexity is not intrinsically good orbad. It is useful and affordable, or it is not. Where thelatter condition prevails, complexity causes damagesubtly, cumulatively and in ways that are difficult to

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discern. John Maynard Keynes once described an analo-gous dilemma concerning government expenditures.Keynes’s elegant prose can be modified to express theproblem of understanding complexity:

There is no subtler, no surer means of overturn-ing the existing basis of society than to [increasecomplexity unaffordably]. The process engagesall of the hidden forces of [societal and] econ-omic law on the side of destruction, and does itin a manner which not one [person] in amillion is able to diagnose.

(Keynes, 1920, p. 236)

ConclusionsComplexity operates at many levels of problem-solving, from individuals to households, firms,communities, nations, and the world system.Architects, planners and disaster specialists work gen-erally at intermediate levels of this hierarchy, rangingfrom individual structures to cities and regionalsystems. These professionals solve real problemsthrough design, and avert others through preparation.Yet problem-solving requires resources, and typically itinvolves increasing complexity. This general processoperates at all levels of problem-solving.

Increasing complexity, effective at first, seems inexor-ably to accumulate and to evolve to diminishingreturns, undermining the ability to solve future pro-blems. Citizens and professionals are largely unawareof this process because complexity grows by smallincrements, and because the cost is subsidized (primar-ily through inexpensive fossil fuels). Yet the cost is stillthere, and the strategy of paying for complexity withfossil fuels has a finite future (Brown et al., 2011;Hall & Klitgaard, 2012; Tainter & Patzek, 2012). Itis necessary to think long-term about the evolution ofcomplexity, and to understand that problem-solvingthrough complexity has effective limits. Resiliencerequires reserve problem-solving capacity. Left unrec-ognized, complexity ultimately compromises the resili-ence that underlies sustainability.

AcknowledgementsThe authors are pleased to express their appreciation tothe Editor, Richard Lorch, for editorial suggestions; tothree anonymous reviewers; and to Karen Shacklefordfor research assistance.

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Endnotes1Between 1906 and 2005, the US government took on increasedresponsibilities in such areas as education, welfare, infrastructure,regulation, medical care, pensions, public lands, scientificresearch, space exploration, environmental protection, agricul-tural support, urban development, and national security. In1906 the federal budget amounted to 2.23% of GDP, and govern-ment at all levels cost 6.79% of GDP. The corresponding figuresin 2005 were 19.58% and 34.83%. At the federal level much ofthis spending is funded through borrowing.

2The authors are aware that this is a topic with substantial politi-cal overtones and wish to state emphatically that they imply nopolitical stance with these observations.

3The one-year federal budgets used for these calculations are1906 and 2005.

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