Lack of spatial resilience in a recovery process: Case L'Aquila, Italy

•Lack of involvement of the collaboration networks existing in the community.•The allocation of facilities neglected several needs of the community.•Negative correlation between the number of urban facilities, and dissatisfaction.•There is no resilience in a city where relocated people are not willing to stay.•Lack of spatial resilience in the recovery process in L'Aquila.

The lack of coordination between government agencies, involvement of the collaboration networks existing in the community, and incorporation of spatial planning in the location of the new settlements around L'Aquila (Italy) after the 2009 earthquake has delayed reconstruction of the city centre. The displaced population was relocated to 19 new settlements. These new settlements are characterized by a lack of urban facilities. The aim of this paper was to analyze the relationship between urban facilities, collaboration networks and lack of spatial resilience in the recovery process in L'Aquila. Specifically, we focused on the preferences of inhabitants to search for alternative housing sites to the settlements they were originally relocated to, as a proxy for dissatisfaction in the new settlements around L'Aquila. Our approach consisted of three steps: 1) fieldwork, 2) survey and 3) correlation/regression analysis. The results demonstrated a strong relationship where preference to search for another housing site decreases with increasing number of urban facilities in the settlement and increases with travel distance to the urban core of L'Aquila. We can conclude that the allocation of facilities was oriented to supply basic services, but neglected other needs of the community during the recovery process, which reduces its resilience.