Following the tragic events of 9/11, the national government has pursued a top down, one size fits all approach to building national preparedness.  This approach is based on false assumptions and will ultimately lead to bad policy.  I have written extensively about all this and will post those papers here in the near future.  Today, however, in an effort to get this page up and running, I will offer that local governments need to become less dependent on the national government for handouts and build capacities at the local level.  This can be done by planning and building networks of mutual support with other local jurisdictions.  I have a couple of papers to describe how communities can build their resilience and sustainability over time.  More very soon.