Housing reconstruction after two major earthquakes: the 1994 Northridge earthquake in the United States and the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan.

The idea of pre-impact recovery planning has recently been promoted by researchers and practitioners, but very little research has been done to evaluate its effects on disaster recovery. This study compared two jurisdictions--the city of Los Angeles, California and Taichung county in Taiwan--in their recovery from earthquakes. Although the two cases also differ with respect to variables other than the presence of pre-impact recovery plans, the available data suggest that having a pre-impact recovery plan facilitates housing reconstruction and allows local officials to make more effective use of the window of opportunity after disaster to integrate hazard mitigation into the recovery process.