Laura

“Rigidity traps are sustained by increasing control exerted by large-scale processes and minimizing or eliminating small-scale processes. Rigidity traps are the result of sustained hierarchical controls (in the form of power, resources, and manipulation) that suppress innovation, diversity, and experimentation (Gunderson et al. 2018). In contrast, systems in poverty traps can be characterized by the lack of critical types of larger-scale inputs (memory, resources) and the inability to constrain or adapt to small-scale perturbations. When a system is in a poverty trap, small-scale disturbances lead to crises and reorganizations that sustain trajectories of continued poverty conditions.”
― Lance H. Gunderson, Applied Panarchy: Applications and Diffusion across Disciplines

“For urban systems, growth rate is a fast variable, governance is a medium variable, and infrastructure is a slow variable, with slow variables ultimately determining the resilience of a system (Allen and Holling 2008).”
― Lance H. Gunderson, Applied Panarchy: Applications and Diffusion across Disciplines

“A system in a rigidity trap has high capital, high connectivity, and high resilience (Holling 2001). A system in a poverty trap has low levels or amounts of these three properties. A system caught in an eroding or lock-trap has low capital but high levels of connectivity and resilience. The fourth trap is the least well understood of these four and is called an isolation trap, as it has high capital or potential but is not highly coupled or resilient.”
― Lance H. Gunderson, Applied Panarchy: Applications and Diffusion across Disciplines