Cynthia Cannon: Resilient Planner

By Alex Morse 04/04/2022

Women’s History Month may be over, but we still want to highlight Cynthia Cannon for her outstanding work in resiliency planning and zoning for the City of Pensacola for almost three years!  

We wanted to know more about Cynthia, so we asked her a few questions: 

1. Can you tell us about any exciting developments in the city of Pensacola?  

The city recently completed their first Vulnerability Assessment through a grant funded by the FDEP Resilient Coastlines Program to prepare for impacts of sea level rise.  The findings have been very well received and have resulted in ongoing community outreach events.  It also led to another successful FDEP grant award which funded two stormwater capital improvement projects in downtown Pensacola. 

It’s really increased momentum and how the city is approaching coastal resiliency and bringing community leaders together for very impactful discussions. There are a lot of great new developments in and around downtown Pensacola that further an already vibrant community.  We’re excited to see this continuation of high-quality development in our community. 

One of the final products of the VA was to create an online story map so that it was easily accessible to the general public: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e812723f69ad4a618c8f5f8b08cb208e 

2. How do you utilize GIS in your city? 

We use GIS daily in the Planning Department to answer general planning questions in regard to zoning and to illustrate the spatial relations between zoning districts and the varying types of uses throughout the city.  We have multiple data layers that allow us to tell visual stories and better illustrate issues to elected officials and citizens. 

3. What can you tell us about your most challenging project? 

It was when I was working for the City of Northampton, MA, as a Conservation & Land Use Planner; I was the project lead for relocating a beaver dam that was flooding a neighborhood (built on filled-in wetlands). It was PETA vs. the neighborhood. I worked with a local trapper to relocate the beaver dam and ultimately everything worked out for the beavers and the residents.  It was the ultimate man vs. nature contest and definitely my most interesting field work to date! 

4. Who is the inspiration/role model for your work? 

My father. He is a retired chemical engineer, and he has always said that any incremental improvement you can make for a better environment is time well spent. He has always said it’s just as important to count your small successes as it is to count the large ones.   

5. What do you hope to accomplish most in your career? 

Helping residents recover from natural and manmade disasters, especially for citizens in less advantaged neighborhoods who have a much harder time bouncing back from devastating storms. I also want to focus on the “social” vs. “built” environment during the aftermath of storms.  We tend to focus on the built environment, but we need to shift that trend and tend to the people first.   We need to get better resources to individuals and families to offset and repair emotional damage.  These emotional impacts are often invisible, and people grow less resilient when too much time passes and they get overlooked in the system.