CITYBUILDER Values: Community Resilience is Built Incrementally
Student fellow Kyaira Boughton breaks down one of CITYBUILDER's eight values in this ongoing series.
CITYBUILDER is built on our values. In this ongoing series, student fellows explore one of the eight CITYBUILDER core values.
Community Resilience is Built Incrementally
Adaptability isn’t something you pour with concrete. It doesn’t arrive with the ribbon-cutting of a mega-project or emerge fully formed from a master plan. It’s built slowly. Increment by increment, resilience is shaped by real people making real decisions over time. When done right, this kind of change doesn’t just add buildings. It builds trust. It builds flexibility. It builds a stronger future.
In an era of climate pressure, housing shortages, and shifting urban economies, resilience can’t be something we only plan for at scale. It has to be practiced locally, day by day, one small piece at a time. That’s the power of incremental development.
The Case for Growing Small
Incremental development is far more than a buzzword. It’s a mindset, and an approach to city building that favors steady, adaptable growth rooted in the unique needs of a place.
Incremental Development can look like:
An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) built in a backyard so a grandparent can live closer to family.
A duplex on a corner lot, adding two new homes without overhauling the neighborhood.
A new business filling in a long-vacant storefront, bringing life back to a block.
Each of these changes might seem small. But together, they shape the rhythm of a neighborhood’s future.
In the Triangle region, we've already seen how these small steps towards incrementalism can add up. Policy shifts have already opened the door for more flexible housing (ie. ADUs, duplexes [link], triplexes) are starting to fill long-standing gaps in housing choice. These changes are helping us move towards the goals of increased affordability, enhanced walkability, and more ways for residents to stay rooted in their communities.
Why Monolithic Doesn’t Work
Many American cities are still shaped by a legacy of large-scale, one-size-fits-all development. Think suburban tracts of identical homes, walled-off apartment mega-blocks, and corporate plazas surrounded by seas of parking.
These are places designed for maximum efficiency, not for the experience and enjoyment of people. They’re often isolated, car-dependent, and disconnected from the communities they claim to serve. And once they’re built, they’re hard to adapt. There’s little flexibility to meet changing needs or unexpected challenges.
While this type of monolithic development can be built quickly, it rarely offers any type of sustainability in the long run. Not the social, economic, nor ecological. And when growth outpaces local infrastructure or prices out longtime residents, resilience suffers.
The Power of Infill and Flexibility
Incremental development flips the traditional large-scale development model on its head. Incremental development starts with what's already there: the people, the blocks, the networks. It finds the gaps: vacant lots, underused buildings, or zoning that could be loosened just enough to invite something new without overwhelming what already works.
Image of recently constructed infill housing pulled from Winnipeg regional real estate news.
Infill housing, such as a new duplex on an empty lot or a small fourplex in a former single-family zone, can increase density without erasing neighborhood identity. It helps create the “missing middle” that bridges the gap between single-family homes and large apartment buildings.
And unlike large-scale development projects, these smaller increments can respond far more quickly. If something doesn’t work, smaller projects may be able to pivot. If a good idea thrives, it can be scaled. Groups like our friends at the Incremental Development Alliance have been instrumental in showing how small-scale projects can create long-lasting value without displacing what already works. It’s a return to neighborhood development that grows from the inside out, and the flexibility that growth brings is what keeps a city adaptable and resilient over the long haul.
Building a City That Can Evolve
Resilience doesn’t mean resisting change. It means being able to adapt to it. That requires more than sturdy infrastructure. It requires communities that are flexible, inclusive, and empowered.
Incremental development supports that vision by:
Keeping the door open for local builders and small-scale developers
Creating space for different income levels, family types, and life stages
Letting neighborhoods evolve gradually, without displacing the people who’ve shaped them
And perhaps most importantly, it allows growth to be a conversation, not a decree. Instead of arriving all at once, change unfolds over time and is more visible, tangible, and shared.
Final Thoughts
If we want our cities to be resilient, we have to rethink what growth looks like. Not as a single leap, but as a series of intentional steps. Not as something imposed from above, but something grown from within.
Change doesn’t have to be dramatic to be powerful. That’s why we celebrate every small build, every new neighbor, and every community voice that says yes to a more flexible future. Join us in building it — one increment at a time.
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Kyaira Boughton is a visiting student from Duke Kunshan University, pursuing a dual degree in Computation and Design with a focus on Social Policy.
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