Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1095 DAYS
AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA,
NEW ORLEANS IS COMING BACK.
BUT WHAT KIND OF CITY WILL
EMERGE FROM THE RUBBLE?
By Mike Longman and Jarrett Murphy
A stopped clock inside a ravaged Lower Ninth Ward high school. Cover image: Steps to a vanished house. Photos: Jarrett Murphy
PUBLISHER’S NOTE SPECIAL EDITION
This special edition of City Limits Investigates is a departure for us as our focus shifts from AUGUST 29, 2008
New York to another great American city: New Orleans. As chroniclers of critical urban is-
sues, we felt the third anniversary of Katrina could not pass without our taking a close look
at the current state of affairs in the Crescent City.
New York’s horrific experience of 9/11, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake or the great
Chicago fire of 1871 notwithstanding, Katrina is the greatest urban disaster this county
SHIFTING
has ever experienced. The hurricane and its flooding left more than 1,800 dead, caused
more than $80 billion in damages and forced more than one million people from the central
WINDS
Gulf coast to migrate. Katrina precipitated the largest Diaspora in the history of the United
States. It also was the occasion of arguably the worst emergency response to a major disas-
New Orleans,
ter in U.S. history. The images of those left behind at the Convention Center or the faces of
the desperate stranded on rooftops in the Lower Ninth Ward remain etched by anger and
Three Years Later
shame into the consciousness of the nation.
CHAPTERS
Now three years later, after much of the attention and initial outpouring of concern has
begun to fade and the last of the $105 billion in federal assistance to the Gulf Coast is in I. The forecast p.5
the pipeline, New Orleans faces new challenges. Rebuilding the city successfully requires II. Best-laid plans p.6
answers to a set of complex questions: How to reconcile big plans and individual initiative, III. Radical surgery p.9
how to harness private action and responsibly guide public investment, and how to balance IV. After math p.12
the fragile state of many neighborhoods and grassroots striving with efficiency, business
growth and infrastructure needs. V. HOPE and fear p.15
As meaningful large-scale planning efforts have only just now worked their way through
VI. Safety first? p.18
the thickets of politics and process, the face of progress up until to this point has been the VII. Guess who’s coming p.21
dedicated efforts of individuals. Since 2005, 80 percent of the building permits in New Or- VIII. Salvage operation p.26
leans have been filed by owners of one- or two-family residences. Mike Longman and Jarrett
Murphy take a look in this issue at how these efforts are shaping New Orleans and how the IN FOCUS
efforts of the city, state and feds collide to empower or frustrate such individual and com- Katrina on the Stump p.8
munity based initiatives. The nominees on New Orleans
Besides dealing with the transformative hand of nature and the consequences of fed- Ready or Not p.15
eral malfeasance, the city struggles now as before with a crippling crime rate and troubled In NYC, waters and risks rise
schools. New Orleans lies in a flood plain. It also remains the cradle of indispensible pieces
Firm Plans? p.19
of our culture and national identity. Thousands call it home. Thousands have left and we
A vote on post-storm visions
don’t know if they will ever come back.
This issue tries to get at just what kind of city is being made. Whose interests are protected
and whose neglected? What forces will determine the character of the “new” New Orleans?
New Orleans is a city filled with questions—questions we all have a stake in answering.
—Andy Breslau,
Publisher
CITY LIMITS STAFF
Jarrett Murphy
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES is published quarterly Subscriptions to City Limits Investigates are Investigations Editor
(Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) by City Futures, provided with a one-year $50 donation to City Karen Loew
Inc., 120 Wall Street–floor 20, New York, NY 10005, Futures for individuals, nonprofits and community Web and Weekly Editor
a nonprofit organization devoted to rethinking, groups. Supporters will also receive our e-mail
reframing and improving urban policies in New publications and reports from the Center for an Abraham Paulos
York City and, by extension, other cities throughout Urban Future. As City Futures is a 501(c)(3), a portion News Assistant/Reporter
America. For features, news updates and analysis, of your donation is tax deductible. To join, and for
events and jobs of interest to people working in more information, e-mail support@citylimits.org. CITY FUTURES STAFF
New York City’s nonprofit and policymaking world, Businesses, foundations, banks, government agencies Andy Breslau
sign up for the free City Limits Weekly on our and libraries can subscribe at a rate of $50 for one year. Executive Director/Publisher
website at www.citylimits.org. To subscribe, e-mail subscribe@citylimits.org.
City Futures is also home to Center for an Urban Mark Anthony Thomas
We welcome letters, articles, ideas and submissions.
Future (www.nycfuture.org), a think tank dedicated Deputy Director
Please send them to investigates@citylimits.org.
to independent, fact-based research about critical
Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Ahmad Dowla
issues affecting New York’s future. Administrative Assistant
General support for City Futures has been provided City Limits
by Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation, 120 Wall Street–fl. 20 | New York, NY 10005
T: (212) 479-3344 | F: (212) 479-3338
CITY FUTURES BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Deutsche Bank, The F.B. Heron Foundation, Fund for
the City of New York, The Scherman Foundation, Inc., E: investigates@citylimits.org Margaret Anadu, Michael Connor, Russell Dubner,
and Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Design by C. Jerome, Design Confederation Ken Emerson, David Lebenstein, Gail O. Mellow,
Rock. Additional funding for City Limits projects has Copyright © 2008. All Rights Reserved. No portion or Gifford Miller, Lisette Nieves, Andrew Reicher,
been provided by the Ira W. DeCamp Foundation. portions of this journal may be reprinted without the Ira Rubenstein, John Siegal, Karen Trella,
Periodical postage paid express permission of the publishers. City Limits is Peter Williams, Mark Winston Griffith
New York, NY 10001 indexed in the Alternative Press Index and the Avery
City Limits (USPS 498-890) (ISSN 0199-0330) Index to Architectural Periodicals and is available on
microfilm from ProQuest, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. WWW.CITYLIMITS.ORG
Like blank slates, slabs from destroyed houses dot the landscape
in hard-hit New Orleans neighborhoods. Photo: JM
4
SHIFTING
WINDS
BY MIKE LONGMAN AND JARRETT MURPHY
with research by Kalyn Belsha
6 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
While much of the city suffered, the devastation in the Lower Ninth was most dramatic because the water moved through at high velocity. Photo: JM
eas of the city like the Carrollton neigh- homes. In some cases, the storm made the third-worst performance in the
borhood on the city’s western flank, a existing problems worse. Thanks to Ka- state. Civic leaders said they wanted
street of healthy-looking houses might trina, local analyst Peter Reichard tells the post-storm plan to address these
include a vacant lot or a severely dam- City Limits, “All this rotten infrastruc- pre-Katrina problems. The slogan was
aged residence. ture was marinating for weeks under that New Orleans should come back
New Orleans neighborhoods have al- salty water.” from Katrina, but come back better.
ways had a patchwork feel. Before Ka- The pre-storm decay was on the Since then, New Orleans has certainly
trina, one could walk through a block of minds of people who, as the waters not wanted for plans. The Federal Emer-
gorgeous Garden District homes, cross dropped, began thinking about the city’s gency Management Agency (FEMA)
a street, and find oneself among struc- future. For all its singular charms, New drew up a plan for the whole city. Har-
tures resembling shacks more than Orleans was a city plagued by poverty, vard students crafted one for the Broad-
houses. The very rich and the very crime and failing schools. The city’s moor neighborhood. The Association
poor lived across the street from each poverty rate was roughly 23 percent in of Communities Organizing for Reform
other; the postcard shot was always a 2004, higher than New York City’s 20 Now (ACORN) made a plan for the Low-
quick camera-pan from an illustration percent. In 2004, a New Orleans resi- er Ninth. New Orleans East had already
of urban decay. That pre-existing mix dent was eight times more likely to be drafted a Renaissance Plan before the
makes it hard to discern why a par- murdered than a person in New York. storm. Other neighborhoods also forged
ticular house looks wounded. “Was it And among U.S. states on fourth grade their own visions of post-Katrina rebuild-
always like that, or is that because of math and reading scores in 2005, Louisi- ing. These efforts have taken a back
the storm?” is something Abrams often ana ranked 47th and 48th, respectively; seat, however, to three successive waves
asks herself when she sees damaged that year, New Orleans students posted of citywide planning.
SPRING 2008 7
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
City government launched its first which became known as the Lambert
planning process with the Bring New Plan, produced 42 separate strategies
KATRINA ON Orleans Back commission, which
Mayor C. Ray Nagin appointed in
for the city’s neighborhoods.
But by the time the Lambert Plan
THE STUMP September 2005. In January 2006, the
commission issued a battery of reports
had been completed in October 2006, a
third and separate planning process was
The nominees on covering everything from land use to underway—the Unified New Orleans
New Orleans infrastructure, culture and economic Plan, run by the Greater New Orleans
When Sen. John McCain visited the Lower development. The plan called for a fast- Foundation and anchored by a $3.5 mil-
Ninth Ward in April, he made a promise. track neighborhood planning process lion grant from the Rockefeller Foun-
“Never again, never again will a disaster of to be completed by May 2006. It also dation. Support for UNOP grew out of
this nature be handled in the terrible and recommended a moratorium on build- a sense that neither Nagin’s nor the
disgraceful way this was handled,” he said. ing permits in heavily flooded areas and Council’s plan would contain the level
At a New Orleans rally in February, Sen. called for the consolidation of lightly of detail needed to convince the Louisi-
Barack Obama had almost the same cri- populated sections. The plan said that ana Recovery Authority to release mil-
tique of what happened in 2005, describing neighborhoods would have to prove lions in federal recovery funds.
“a trust that was broken—the promise that their viability as loci of redevelopment From July until the following Janu-
our government will be prepared, will pro- before the city would invest in them. ary, the UNOP process unfolded in doz-
tect us, and will respond in a catastrophe.”
Planners now look back on the ens of community meetings and design
In September 2005, both McCain and
BNOB with some admiration for its am- sessions. Residents got to model what
Obama voted for a bill providing emer-
gency assistance to the Gulf Coast. Later bition and its attempt to reduce the pop- their area could look like. Different re-
that month McCain opposed extending ulation’s exposure to floods and create covery scenarios were discussed. The
unemployment insurance for people af- denser neighborhoods to which a cash- Nagin administration, however, was
fected by the storm; Obama backed it. strapped city could actually provide ser- cool to the UNOP idea. One of the plan-
Obama also voted for and McCain against vices. But when the Bring New Orleans ners who worked on UNOP was Laurie
a commission to investigate the govern- Back plan emerged, only 150,000 peo- Johnson, a disaster planner who’d done
ment response to the storm. ple were back in town—a third of the work in Los Angeles and Kobe, Japan
Since then, most funding for Gulf Coast pre-storm population. The plan seemed after devastating earthquakes, as well
recovery has been attached to bills provid- like a prelude to writing some areas of as Grand Forks, Iowa after their 1997
ing supplemental appropriations for the the city off before people had a chance floods. The tepid support from City
war in Iraq. On the first such bill in late
to return and fight for them. Hall complicated the UNOP effort. “It
2005, McCain called $29 billion in hurri-
cane recovery money “non-germane” to
The backlash was intense. Nagin, was hard to know who your client was
the Iraq mission. He did not vote on final who faced re-election later in the year, in that atmosphere,” says Johnson.
passage. Obama voted “yes.” immediately pulled back, disavowed In early 2007, UNOP presented its
In a speech in April, McCain applauded the moratorium on building permits report—a nearly 600-page epic that de-
state-led efforts to improve workforce de- and added red-ink addenda to the plan, scribed the assets, damage and wish-list
velopment in New Orleans and called on including a promise that, “The areas of every planning district, as well as a
businesses to invest in areas like the Low- where people are investing and rebuild- citywide infrastructure plan. There was
er Ninth. He said he’d ask corporations to ing now are where the city will invest an emphasis on sustainable development
help with the response to future emergen- in immediate neighborhood redevelop- and a greener city: bike paths, green ma-
cies. And he decried post-storm spending. ment. That is not to say that all areas terials, mass transit. The Lower Ninth
“In the conduct of Congress in the year won’t be rebuilt.” Ward plan, for example, called for better
after Katrina and Rita, we saw the same
With the mayor’s plan stalling, the flood protections, wetlands restoration,
excesses, lack of focus, and short-term
thinking that left New Orleans vulnerable New Orleans City Council in April 2006 an improved community center, busi-
in the first place,” he said. launched a rival planning process. This ness incubation, parks rehabilitation,
Obama’s position paper on New Or- was controversial from the start: The rental assistance, better mass transit,
leans sets an “ultimate goal of protecting Bureau of Governmental Research, a and senior housing, among other items.
the entire city from a Category 5 storm.” It local watchdog group, said the Coun- On the crucial question of whether to
also calls for incentives to lure doctors to cil violated city rules by awarding $2.9 rebuild in severely damaged neighbor-
to the city, more rental housing and having million to the planners without taking hoods, UNOP charted a path between
the federal rebuilding coordinator report bids. But unlike the mayor’s plan, the the mayor’s plan, which suggested
directly to the president “so that rebuild- council effort had a substantial out- some areas might never return, and the
ing remains a national priority.” —JM reach component, involving dozens council plan, which simply assumed that
of community meetings. The effort, every area would. “One of the things
8 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
[UNOP] started to say was that all the release of $117 million in federal one of New Orleans quieter neighbor-
neighborhoods were coming back—a Community Development Block Grant hoods. Its racially diverse population is
portion of the Lower Ninth would come funds—and opening a new debate over so laid back that in better times, it was
back, it just might not all come back,” whether the months of community considered a prime spot for families to
says Johnson. For flood-prone areas, planning will actually shape how New take their kids to Mardi Gras parades,
the UNOP district plans backed a volun- Orleans rebuilds. which elsewhere can range from in-
tary land-swap to concentrate smaller tense to downright raunchy.
populations in safer zones. People with Now, the area is the target of state
property close to the floodwall would
III. Radical surgery and city leaders who want New Or-
exchange their land for a vacated parcel In one neighborhood in the heart of town, leans to have a new, better version of
on higher ground and closer to other that debate is playing out in sharp relief. “Big Charity.”
returning residents. If you have ever taken the cab ride Louisiana has a method for providing
The UNOP effort, which the Bush- from Louis Armstrong International healthcare to the poor that differs from
Clinton Katrina Fund joined Rockefeller Airport into New Orleans, odds are you most other states; rather than running
in funding, triggered some resentment remember the city swinging into view insurance programs to cover uninsured
on the ground—reflecting a suspicion from the elevated expressway. If you people, the state funds a system of public
that outsiders wanted to use New Or- happened to glance to your left while hospitals to which indigent people can
leans as a laboratory. “Most of the you topped that span you could spy the go for care. The origins of this system
nonprofits and organizations that have old Dixie Brewery and then blocks of go back to 1736, when the first Charity
come to New Orleans have come with houses, restaurants and corner grocery Hospital opened in New Orleans only
their own agendas, instead of asking stores that make up the neighborhood six weeks after New York’s Bellevue,
the people what they want,” says Ward called Mid-City. the oldest continuing public hospital in
McClendon, head of a grassroots re- In the heart of Mid-City is a corner joint the United States. That “charity system”
building organization called the Lower called Luizza’s that still cooks up fried expanded in the 1920s and 1930s under
Ninth Ward Village. But as a planning potato Po’ Boys, a starchy concoction Huey Long, who founded Louisiana
document, UNOP was crucial to con- of French fries on French bread that is State University’s medical school to lure
vincing state officials to release federal served dripping in beef gravy. According doctors for the state’s poor. After several
funds to New Orleans. “The state and to local lore, the small morsels of meat in earlier structures were destroyed or out-
federal government said we’re not go- that gravy were a regular source of suste- grown, Charity Hospital in New Orleans
ing to give you money until you’ve got nance for longshoreman and other blue took its modern form in 1939 as a loom-
a plan in place,” says Al Petrie, a com- collar workers who settled into working ing art-deco structure on Tulane Avenue
munity leader in the Lakeview section, class neighborhoods like Mid-City. in downtown. Nicknamed “Big Charity,”
“Thank goodness for Rockefeller.” Most of the dock work was mecha- it was an anchor of poor peoples’ health-
The City Council passed the UNOP nized and those types of jobs were care in the metropolitan area.
and the Louisiana Recovery Authority gone long before Katrina came swirling LSU runs the statewide charity hospi-
accepted it last June, paving the way for through this part of town. Mid-City is tal network and for years argued that it
SPRING 2008 9
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
While some of the footprint of the proposed LSU/VA hospital is blighted, other parts are repaired and occupied. Photo: Bobbi Rogers
needed a new hospital in New Orleans. during the disaster, which flooded the no corporate base since the oil industry
“Certainly the physical structure, the building, but shortly after the storm, fled in the 1980s, the city has been look-
layout, is just not the layout of a mod- LSU shut Big Charity down, saying the ing for an economic engine that could
ern hospital. The ward structures. The storm had done irreparable damage. power the city the way the old wharves
spread-out nature,” says Fred Cerise, Cerise says the hospital system had lit- did—something offering higher-wage
chief of LSU’s health care system, about tle choice. “The fact is that LSU did not work than the tourist and entertain-
Big Charity. “There’s a fair amount of close Charity after Katrina,” he says. ment industry on which the city now
inefficiency built in to the Charity cam- “Katrina closed Charity.” depends. The LSU/VA proposals’ back-
pus.” The physical shortcomings led to The closure of Charity and other ers say constructing, running and ser-
financial problems and difficulty main- hospitals in town, including the U.S. vicing the hospital will bring plenty of
taining accreditation, Cerise says. Re- Department of Veteran Affairs facility new jobs and, they hope, lure the biosci-
ports from the Joint Commission, the downtown, built momentum for a new ences industry to New Orleans. Beyond
national body that accredits hospitals, facility—a much larger one than con- the economic argument, there’s a medi-
show that Charity received accredita- ceived before the storm. In mid-2007, cal one: A top-notch hospital will bolster
tion “with conditions for improvement” the LSU hospital proposal suddenly the appeal of local medical schools and
in 1996, 1999 and 2002. swelled to cover 70 acres in order to reduce or reverse Louisiana’s shortage
In 2005 a consultant hired by LSU accommodate a new VA hospital next of doctors. Says Louisiana Secretary of
suggested that 35 acres of Mid-City door. The proposed side-by-side hospi- Health and Hospitals Alan Levine: “We
would be the right place to locate a new- tals would cost $2 billion to build. Pro- do need to have a destination teaching
er, more modern hospital. Then came ponents see that as a worthy investment hospital in New Orleans.”
Katrina. Staff kept Big Charity running in New Orleans’ economic future. With But Mid-City is not a blank slate.
10 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
critical question facing all New Orleans: as in nearby Jefferson Parish. LSU says
How much of its past should the city sac- it’s looking at other options from doing
rifice in the name of progress? nothing to rebuilding on the current
Even supporters of the plan acknowl- Charity site. The review process is just
edges that the proposal is far-reaching. getting underway, with the FEMA orga-
“They’re not talking about eliminat- nizing public hearings about the plan.
ing a historic building here,” says health But New Orleans government is
secretary Levine. “They’re talking about clearly already preparing the Mid-City
eliminating an entire historic district. site for a new hospital complex. Last
There’s bound to be hard feelings.” November, it inked a memorandum of
Some of the area’s value is of more agreement with the VA in which the
recent mint—it’s the work of volunteers city agreed to acquire and clear land
Republican Gov. Jindal backs the hospital
plan. Photo: McCain 2008 who helped rebuild houses there. Wes- for the new facility, complete a site as-
ley Bayas picked up a hammer, working sessment, shift water and sewer lines,
While pocketed by blight and damaged the past year for The Phoenix of New improve nearby roads, run new gas
by the post-Katrina flooding, a neigh- Orleans, a non-profit founded by a Tu- and power lines and move businesses,
borhood exists now on the 25 blocks lane Medical student that gutted and residents and even a sewer pumping fa-
that would be bulldozed for the hospital then rebuilt homes in Mid-City. “We’ve cility—all at no cost to the VA. The VA
complex of the future. already estimated that we’ve saved $1.3 is also granted exemptions from local
million dollars in labor costs,” says zoning and building codes. In return,
SPRING 2008 11
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
Cost of
$800 AMOUNTS IN BILLIONS
Iraq War
to Date
700 Cost of ($648)
Medicare
600 Prescription
Drug benefit
500 2004-2013
Cost of '01
and '03 ($394)
400 tax cuts
Post- in 2008
Iraq’s price tag tops Katrina’s. Photo: DOD 300 ($233)
Hurricane
Post-9/11 aid to
FOLLOWING THE MONEY
The federal government has allocated a lot of money to
200
100
aid to
NYC
Louisiana
($76)
the Gulf Coast, but plans to rebuild New Orleans are still ($20)
underfinanced. Here’s how the funding sent to Louisiana
compares to other recent big ticket items: Sources: Louisiana Recovery Authority, Congressional Budget Office,
NYC Independent Budget Office, Army Corps of Engineers
ability to grab and sell properties—if that are coming in seizing private recovery czar in late 2006. Blakely
the properties were deemed blighted. homes, small businesses in an histor- worked on recovery planning for
There are indeed some blighted parcels ic district—in fact, lopping off a good Oakland and Los Angeles after earth-
in the footprint. Bayas argues that the third of that public district,” says Mary quakes in 1989 and 1991, respectively,
City Council, by banning any new work Howell, a civil rights attorney whose as well as in post-September 11 New
in the area, is exacerbating that blight. office is near the footprint, and who York City. Blakely is a former dean of
“There are people who want to come describes the hospital plan as “the first the Milano School at New School Uni-
back home, but they can’t because they great post-Katrina land grab.” versity in New York.
have put on stop on any permits in the Jack Stewart, a member of the In March of 2007—before the City
area,” he says. The moratorium, in oth- Deutsches House, the German cultural Council or LRA approved UNOP—
er words, could lay the groundwork for center, echoes Howell. “If it has to be Blakely articulated his vision for how the
the city to seize the land as “blighted,” done, and we need the room for the ex- city would rebuild. He picked 17 “target
and avoid Amendment 5. pansion—that’s one thing. But to do it in areas” across New Orleans where the
Meanwhile, private investors are grab- such a ridiculous, heavy-handed manner city would invest its own money and pro-
bing parcels in the area. Cesar Burgos, is another thing,” he says. City leaders, vide incentives for the private sector to
the chairman of the Regional Transit he adds, “are going, from saying, ‘Here’s follow suit. “When one area starts to do
Authority whose law firm has donated the plan’, to saying, ‘There is no plan’, so well, investors will want to invest near-
$12,500 since 2006 to Mayor Nagin’s you don’t know who there is who can be by,” Blakely said at the time. “This will
campaign fund, in late 2006 purchased trusted.” Adding to the confusion is re- allow the city to redevelop wisely and
a $2 million building on the site that he cent word that the VA is considering an will help residents make smart choices
says he wants to turn into condos for entirely different site in Mid-City. about where to rebuild.”
nurses who will work at the new hospi- The target areas include “Renew”
tal. LSU itself bought up a chunk of prop- zones where modest public investment
erty in the footprint last July. And Pincus
IV. After math can bolster ongoing development, “Re-
Friedman, a real estate investor who lo- While a hospital proposal was included develop” neighborhoods that have the
cal media reports say is from New York, in UNOP discussions for Mid-City, the raw materials for recovery but need a
has purchased at least 28 parcels within talk concerned a campus of 35 acres— more substantial nudge in the right di-
the area from 2006 on. not the 70-acre plan currently on the rection, and two “Rebuild” sections that
The moves by city agencies and table. Now other neighborhoods are need intense help—the Lower Ninth,
private investors in the absence of wondering how much bricks-and-mor- where the plan calls for a new fire-
any real public discussion about the tar reality will match the Unified New house, restoring blighted housing and
plan—more than the hospital proposal Orleans Plan that they helped shape. assisting small businesses, and New
itself—is what gets people angry. “You Much of that question will be an- Orleans East, where Blakely’s plans in-
are having developers come in, both swered by Dr. Edward Blakely, whom clude a renovated park and library as
private developers and public plans Mayor Nagin appointed New Orleans’ well as streetscape improvements. The
12 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
VA Facility
LSU Hospital
*
1
2
MAP KEY
*
1. PROPOSED LSU/VA HOSPITAL
2. FRENCH QUARTER
3. LOWER NINTH WARD
4. NEW ORLEANS EAST
5. GENTILLY
* 6. LAKEVIEW
Public housing redevelopment
*
©2008 Google – Imagery ©2008 Digital Globe, GeoEye
SPRING 2008 13
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
14 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
SPRING 2008 15
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
the LSU/VA plan will unfold. Iberville is more reparable than most of the hous- Orleans’ (HANO) redevelopment plan
the only large, traditional public housing ing. The problem is more of a contract- isn’t just about improving public hous-
development left in the city that stands ing problem,” explaining that a flooded ing. It’s also about shrinking it. Today,
as large as when it was built. Last De- building is unattractive to contractors New Orleans public housing shelters
cember, the City Council approved the or insurers because it is difficult to only 1,800 families, compared to the
demolition of the four other large public guarantee that mold will not surface 5,100 families who lived in HANO hous-
housing projects to make way for mixed- years down the road and force an ex- ing before the storm. Even before Ka-
income developments. pensive repair. trina, HANO had shut more than 2,000
Much about the state of public hous- Housing advocates, however, dispute units of public housing that were in
ing in New Orleans is in dispute and that verdict. Bill Quigley, a lawyer active disrepair. Some 5,000 units were still
has been since Katrina, when residents in the fight against the demolitions, says in service. If the redevelopments go ac-
were barred from returning to many the worries about mold are overstated. cording to plan, only 3,340 public hous-
of the projects. With rents soaring “That is totally untrue and absurd,” he ing units will remain in the city, along
after the storm and low-income New says. “If that was true, no house in New with 1,770 new low-income rentals or
Orleanians trying to get back to the Orleans would be rebuilt.” Section 8 units (some of which might be
city, advocates wondered why more New Orleans has been looking at re- off-site), 900 new market-rate units and
units weren’t opened for people’s re- vamping its public housing since well 900 new homeownership units. At the
turn. HUD says the physical state of before Katrina; as early as 1988, the four sites where demolitions are under
the buildings made that impossible. city considered destroying half its pub- way, the number of public housing units
“We realized the urgent need for any lic housing. In the years since, Iberville will drop by a combined 70 percent.
and all housing. However, after careful (located on valuable land just blocks According to a 2004 survey by the
environmental and economic review, from the French Quarter) was eyed as a Urban Institute (a nonpartisan research
we decided it simply made no sense to potential Saints football stadium by one organization) of literature on the first
restore these dilapidated buildings that developer and a mixed-income commu- decade of HOPE VI, the program’s per-
now had even more serious problems, nity by another. Then along came the formance is the subject of contentious
including mold, mildew and severe HOPE VI program, launched by HUD debate. Since each city that undertakes
structural damage,” wrote then-Hous- in 1992 to replace traditional public HOPE VI designs a slightly different
ing and Urban Development (HUD) housing with mixed-income, develop- program, it’s hard to draw broad con-
Secretary Alphonso Jackson in an edi- ments. By housing the poor and more clusions about success or failure. What
torial last year. affluent together, HOPE VI strives to is undisputed is that most residents of
There is no denying that many of the alleviate the economic isolation of the the projects that get demolished do not
projects took on some water. A person projects and improve their manage- return to the redeveloped sites, despite
involved with one of the redevelopment ment by creating a more sustainable some survey evidence that most intend-
teams tells City Limits, “Frankly, the balance betweens rents and costs. ed to. It is an open question whether
public housing buildings were probably But the Housing Authority of New those residents simply changed their
16 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
SPRING 2008 17
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
The Corps of Engineers replaced the floodwall that collapsed and inundated the Lower Ninth Ward. Photo: U.S. Army
ers complain of such troubles. The they could, happy instead to have a sec- error, as opposed to natural events.”
Lafitte projects, which are being rede- tion 8 voucher to use. Others won’t or That’s a reasonable feeling. New Or-
veloped by Catholic Charities-affiliated can’t return to the city. leans flooded not just because of Ka-
Providence Community Housing, have trina’s might, but because flawed levees
partnered with Enterprise, a national and floodwalls built by the federal gov-
tax credit syndicator, whose experi-
VI. Safety first? ernment gave way or were overtopped.
ence gives Lafitte a leg up. According to Fear is probably keeping some away. What’s more, federally constructed
Providence CEO James Kelly, the new One study found that 40 percent of peo- waterways built for the shipping indus-
Lafitte will replace all public housing ple treated by doctors in the days after try—like the Gulf Intracoastal Water-
units with either new public housing or Katrina showed symptoms of post-trau- way and the Mississippi River Gulf Out-
low-income units in an enlarged devel- matic stress disorder. A 2006 Harvard let—helped pipe the storm surge from
opment. And former residents will have survey found that one in four survivors the Gulf of Mexico to the city’s shores.
first dibs on the new units. had nightmares about the disaster, These manmade waterways also con-
Some of the other public housing which killed more than 500 people in tributed to the loss of wetlands that
redevelopment plans also boast that the city. A separate survey of college would have formed a barrier against
former residents will get preference students displaced by Katrina found Katrina’s surge.
over new ones, but they aren’t building that “over one-half of students experi- New Orleans residents believed
enough units for everyone to exercise enced a significant degree of fear from this system of levees and canals would
that right. Perhaps they don’t need to. the storm.” That poll also found that shield them. Instead, it exposed them to
Some former residents of the projects “over one-half felt that the disaster was destruction. “Before Katrina we thought
wouldn’t return to public housing if largely caused by human/technological we were protected from the worst storm
18 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
SPRING 2008 19
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
20 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
borhood but on safer ground. The city hasn’t adopted the idea.
“There was never the money to relocate the interests that were
there prior to the storm,” says Greg Rigamer, a demographer.
He thinks such a relocation could happen anyway. “I think
what you will see after time are market-driven considerations
driving that. Insurance is more expensive, the lack of services
available. The market speaks louder than policy.”
The fits-and-starts and politics of the planning and rebuild-
ing process haven’t helped New Orleans’ recovery, but they
haven’t stopped it dead, either. “I think we’re sort of drift-
ing towards the right track,” says Rob Couhig, a prominent
lawyer. “The citizens are leading the charge, which is good.
Government is struggling to catch up and as a result it’s not
as supercharged a recovery as many would hope.”
But there is one great mystery hovering over Blakely’s
strategy, the master plan, the hospital proposal and every
other vision for the New Orleans of the future: How big will
that New Orleans be?
Rushing water apparently tore the wall off this Lower Ninth Ward
school, photographed in 2007, but did not reach high enough to dis-
turb the lesson on a second-floor blackboard. Photo: JM
SPRING 2008 21
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT EQUIPPED to rebuild, and to stay or pay higher
rents, the healthy who can get by de-
FOR THE DAILY BATTLE. “THEY spite a disrupted health care system,
the young who can do the heavy lifting
DON’T HAVE THE EDUCATION SKILLS of rebuilding their house, people with
cars who don’t depend on a reduced
AND THE SOCIAL SKILLS TO FIGHT,” mass transit system. Other people are
not equipped for the daily battle. “They
SAYS MELVIN JONES, A PASTOR IN don’t have the education skills and
the social skills to fight,” says Melvin
MIDDLE-CLASS, MAJORITY BLACK Jones, a pastor in middle-class, majority
black New Orleans East. “Older people,
NEW ORLEANS EAST. “OLDER PEOPLE, they’ll give up.”
The bright side, says Greg Rigamer,
THEY’LL GIVE UP.” is that people who are in New Orleans
now must really be committed to the
Those who paid rent on time, those tem,” says Jennifer Jones, a resident city; you wouldn’t chose to move to a
who held a job and those who worked.” of New Orleans East who evacuated to place with high crime and poor servic-
Then-City Council president Oliver the East Bronx. “Because I have two es unless you really wanted to.
Thomas said in early 2006, “We need young children, I’m not sure I want to
committed people. We don’t need soap
opera watchers all day.”
But a wide array of New Orleanians
put them through moving and entering
a substandard school system.”
But individual choices to return or
O n the neighborhood level, advo-
cates we interviewed still insist
that more people will return. After all,
voiced support for “right to return”— stay away aren’t made in a vacuum. many homeowners are just now getting
lingo that local activists borrowed from Virginia, who asked us not use her last the rebuilding grants that will allow
international law and applied to the name, was allowed back to her Gen- them to restore their homes. Jones, for
claim that pre-storm residents had on tilly Terrace neighborhood just before one, is optimistic about New Orleans
living in post-storm New Orleans. Na- Halloween 2005. After 30 years on that East. “It’s coming back,” he says. “We
gin publicly embraced the concept. In street, she told herself she’d rebuild were a neighborhood of hard-working
his letter introducing the Bring New her house, which had taken on 12 feet people that, no matter what, we were
Orleans Back plan, the mayor wrote of water. Her family, however, worried going to come back.”
that the plan’s goal was to make it pos- about the 65-year-old surviving the A recent survey by the University of
sible for “all citizens can return to and next big storm. “So I started thinking New Orleans found that rebuilding was
reclaim their citizenship as members of about it and then the question almost complete or underway on 62 percent of
this unique city that we call home.” got answered automatically because all the city’s parcels, a very hopeful sign.
That is not happening. If New Or- of a sudden nobody’s going back,” she Some neighborhoods, though, are see-
leans’ population settles at its current says. A few of her neighbors are return- ing more of that activity than others;
level, it means about a third of the pre- ing. Many aren’t. “You don’t want to Along Dublin Street in the middle-class
Katrina city is not coming home. be the only person living within a few Carrollton neighborhood, more than
To some in the city, that fact does blocks,” she says. About once a month, 95 percent of the houses are rebuilt
not reflect a policy failure. “People she looks online to find an apartment or in process. On Delery Street in the
who wanted to come back could come that she can afford close to the city, traditionally black, lower-income Lower
back,” says one prominent New Orlea- but nothing has been within reach. Ninth, more than half are still derelict.
nian who asked not to be named when “Make no mistake about it: I love New But even in the Lower Ninth, the dif-
discussing the third rail of local politics. Orleans. I love Louisiana. It has many, ference between last summer and this
“Was the city supposed to pay for them many faults—many—but there is a feel- one is visible to even a casual visitor—
to come back?” ing there, and people do care on a daily the progress is slow, but it’s there. Slabs
Clearly, some people have decided basis and they are interested and I just are being laid for new houses. Utilities
to leave New Orleans behind—those miss that,” she says. “I really learned a service is improving. The neighborhood
who are afraid of the next hurricane, or lot more about missing New Orleans is still devastated, but organizer Mary
who’ve found a better life, job or schools than I ever thought I would.” Croom-Fontenot sees hope. “Citizens,
for their kids. “One of my biggest con- In post-Katrina New Orleans, per even a week after the storm, wanted
cerns is the New Orleans school sys- Darwin, the fitter are more likely to to come back. We are not only coming
22 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
A large homeless encampment under Interstate 10, which cuts through the city’s center, drew national attention this year. Photo: Lizzie Ford-Madrid
back, we are back,” she says. In recent months, the city has an- many people “are just waiting to get their
Across the city in Lakeview, a middle- nounced an aggressive anti-blight check from Road Home.”
class, majority white neighborhood, all campaign of fines and citations, as well
7,000 houses were flooded, says Lakev-
iew Civic Improvement Association pres-
ident Al Petrie. “It’s going to continue,”
as a deadline for people to vacate tem-
porary trailers.
The impact of such measures is com-
T he Road Home program was fund-
ed by the federal government but
designed and administered by the state
he says of the resurgence, but adds, “We plex. Homeowners who have been un- to help homeowners whose property
will never get back to 100 percent.” able to return might be hurt by the anti- was damaged by the storm rebuild or
Indeed, for all the hope, huge obsta- blight effort, but blight is undeniably relocate. The program, which a com-
cles remain. Some date back to the first a barrier to the recovery of the hard- pany called ICF International has been
days of the recovery: trouble with insur- est hit areas. “It has to happen,” says paid more than $900 million to run,
ance companies, FEMA, the Small Busi- Tom Pepper, a leader of the Common has encountered problems since it was
ness Administration, high construction Ground Collective that has gutted and launched in 2006.
costs and fierce demand for contractors. rebuilt houses in the Lower Ninth. “It’s Some troubles stemmed from the
Legal advocates have gone to court twice a horrible thing to fine someone $500. design of the policy itself. Road Home
to get the city to revise its procedures But you have to assume responsibility offered homeowners a choice between
for demolishing properties, alleging that for securing your property. “ selling out to the state or staying in their
New Orleans was tearing down houses People also want the trailers gone, but home and receiving a rebuilding grant.
where rebuilding was underway; more it’s not as if everyone has somewhere Most people (124,000, or roughly 90
than one house in the Lower Ninth is to go. “I think it’s rushing things,” says percent of those who got awards) chose
spray-painted “Don’t Demo!” Pepper of the trailer deadline. After all, the latter. But the formula was frustrat-
SPRING 2008 23
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
ing. The maximum grant was $150,000 anything [about the appeal] and we just not possible. “That program has been
but it subtracted insurance payments. have to wait ‘til they get to us,” she says. a massive failure,” says Lovett, the law
And the award was often based on the Another 6,000 applicants are listed as professor who has tracked Road Home.
pre-storm value of a home. That left “inactive,” which advocates say probably At least low-income homeownership
many homeowners with less money includes people who still want to pursue has gotten a boost from Habitat for Hu-
than they needed for rebuilding. The their claim but have been unable to. manity, which with volunteer labor and
average award was under $59,000. Advocates like Melanie Ehrlich, donated supplies has built or is building
But even getting the grant often re- president of the Citizens Housing Ac- more than 300 homes in the New Or-
quired a long wait and a lot of documen- tion Team, which has monitored Road leans metro area for families making be-
tation from the homeowner. Fears of Home, hope that policies will be im- tween 35 percent and 60 percent of area
fraud led the state to initially award the proved in the last months of the pro- median income. But since it is a private,
money in installments, which made it gram to increase the grants the hom- nonprofit group, Habitat is constrained
hard for homeowners to pay for repairs. eowners get. There won’t be enough in how much it can do. Habitat does not
That policy was reversed last year. Until money for everyone, however. And rehabilitate houses because of worries
recently, ICF refused to accept third- while Road Home undoubtedly helped about liability for mold and because its
party assessments of property value, thousands of people move back to New construction managers are trained to
and insisted on using its own formula, Orleans, the flaws in the program may build a limited set of house designs.
which homeowners said consistently have prevented some people from com- And Habitat isn’t active in the Ninth
undervalued their property. Last year, ing home. “I know it. I know it,” says Ward right now, because it “doesn’t
ICF changed its procedures to accept Ehrlich. “We’ve lost people because have services that are needed for our
post-Katrina appraisals. As time has this program was run so poorly.” homeowners such as grocery stores,
gone on, however, the price of building Road Home also almost totally ne- schools, health care and mass transpor-
new houses has only climbed. “Road glected renters, despite a pronounced tation,” says spokeswoman Aleis Tusa.
Home was supposed to be a gap-filling affordable housing crisis in the months Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is
program,” says Annie Clark from Poli- after the storm as thousands of units active in the Lower Ninth, where it aims
cyLink, a national think tank that’s been went offline. Rent statistics tracked by to build 150 homes.
working in New Orleans, “but that gap the local Maddera & Cazalot realty firm Some critics think New Orleans’ af-
has gotten larger as time has gone on.” show rents shot up 27 percent over- fordability problem stems from govern-
The program is due to end this year, all—and 37 percent for two-bedroom ment investing in the wrong kind of
but 2,300 people are in the appeals pro- apartments—between spring 2005 and low-income housing. Rather than help-
cess—a process where the rules were summer 2007. A vital part of the afford- ing mom-and-pop landlords, Louisiana
still changing in July. Legal advocates able housing stock in New Orleans is has directed million of dollars of low-in-
are making a final push to get people the supply of so-called double shotguns come housing tax credits to new multi-
through that pipeline. “This summer in which a landlord lives in one half and unit developments in New Orleans that,
is now or never,” says Davida Finger, rents the other. Road Home offered the Bureau of Governmental Research
a lawyer who has assisted homeown- assistance to these owners, but did so says, might just create new concentra-
ers with their claims. Ivy Parker, a New through a complicated program that re- tions of poverty in the city.
Orleans resident who evacuated to New quired the owner to secure a construc- What’s more, the creation of post-Ka-
York City, is waiting to resolve a dispute tion loan that the state then paid off. trina affordable housing is not immune
over $40,000. “So far we haven’t heard For owners with poor credit, this was from the traditional worries about cor-
24 SPRING 2008
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
For some, rebuilding is an act of defiance. This home still bears the markings left by a rescue team Photo: Pangaeus
ruption in New Orleans. In early August, ery Authority (NORA), which dates to meowners will have first right of refusal
Nagin and every member of the City before Katrina, will add to those prop- on empty lots adjacent to their property.
Council received subpoenas as part of a erties to a portfolio of 2,000 blighted NORA will also bundle parcels for sale
federal investigation of the city’s afford- and tax delinquent properties that it to developers, and reserve some for
able housing agency, which was subse- already has. Beyond that, NORA esti- community facilities and green space.
quently raided by federal agents. The mates there are 20,000 to 25,000 parcels “The question is,” says John Lovett, “is
investigation concerns allegations that of blighted land that the city could end there enough demand in the real estate
contractors received funds to renovate up owning. All that empty space is raw market? The problem with all these
blighted houses but did not actually do material for New Orleans’ recovery. properties is if you can’t move them and
the work. In a plan submitted to state regula- can’t transfer them they’re just going to
tors, NORA acknowledges the difficult be albatrosses around the city’s neck.”
SPRING 2008 25
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
and crowd out low-income housing. figure out a way to help those brothers VIII. Salvage operation
“In certain neighborhoods, homeown- and sisters.”
ers are going to get a windfall, increase A 2008 survey by the Kaiser Family
their property value and there’ll be no
requirement for affordable housing in
that neighborhood,” Clark says. “And
T he shifting racial and economic
makeup in Lakeview and New
Orleans East takes place within a city
Foundation found that a narrow ma-
jority of city residents think the city’s
going in the right direction, but nearly
in some neighborhoods where land is whose overall population mix is chang- half are angry or dissatisfied with the
cheaper, they’ll be stuck with all that ing. The influx of young professionals rebuilding effort to date. Three years
affordable housing. I’m kind of wor- is a hopeful sign, in the view of archi- out, that effort is still in its early stag-
ried about the re-concentration of af- tect Allen Eskew. “I am very proud of es: New Orleans’ recovery timeline
fordable housing in neighborhoods the fact that it’s probably the greatest could be 10 to 15 years long. As Chris
that traditionally have held much of single in-migration—sort of intellec- Bonura, the Mid-City resident, puts it,
that housing.” tual migration—the most we’ve had “Although New Orleans has made sub-
NORA’s executive director, Harlem in history,” he says. “We all need to stantial progress in its recovery, we’re
native Joe Williams, says all neighbor- be vigilant that the original residents going to be living in Katrina’s shadow
hoods should welcome housing for are not only welcomed but we do ev- for a long time to come.”
working people, but adds: “One size erything we can to make that return But while much is still in flux, some
does not fit all in terms of redevelop- possible. The other issue, which is not crucial decisions have already been
ment.” Since the damage from the mutually exclusive, is the embrace of made—by residents who have opted
storm wasn’t uniform through the city, new people who come into town. “ not to return to the city, and through
the distribution of Road Home proper- The mixture of new and old New policies that failed to assist those who
ties that were sold to the state is un- Orleanians has altered the city’s wanted to come back. “The people
even. According to a count provided makeup, from 67 percent black be- who were living marginally and were
by the Louisiana Land Trust, there fore the storm to around 58 percent shipped out in buses in the end,” says
are 21 such parcels in the zip code black now. “There has been a change. Road Home scholar John Lovett, “not
that contains, among other neighbor- It has not been what you would call a much was done to help those people.”
hoods, the well-to-do Garden District, significant shift,” at least in terms of From across the political spectrum
versus more than 500 in the zip codes racial politics, says Rigamer. “We’re people have admired the role of indi-
encompassing New Orleans East. still a majority African-American city.” vidual effort in the rebuilding of New
Some neighborhoods have already A reduced majority still wields politi- Orleans. The conser vative Manhattan
resisted the construction of affordable cal power. Nagin, who did not enjoy Institute recently cheered the absence
housing. Lakeview, for one, last year the support of most blacks when first of top-down management in New Or-
tightened restrictions on building size elected in 2002, relied on their back- leans’ rebirth. When visiting in April,
to block multiunit development. Civic ing in his 2006 mayoral race against a Sen. John McCain said of the Lower
association president Al Petrie says the white opponent. Ninth, “it’s inspiring to see the labor
neighborhood is increasingly diverse For those blacks who have re- and care that is going into the rebuild-
along racial lines. But, he adds: “Peo- turned, though, there are indications ing of that community.” To radical-left
ple want to be around people who are the welcome has been less than warm. New Orleans-based journalist Jordan
in the same economic category. You The Greater New Orleans Fair Hous- Flaherty, “Ever y house in the Lower
want someone who’s going to maintain ing Action Center found in a survey Ninth or New Orleans East is an act
their property the same way you main- conducted between September 2006 of defiance.”
tain your property, after we’ve made and April 2007 that six in 10 landlords New Orleans, however, is coming to a
the investment we’ve made.” treated white renters more favorably point where the fate of those individual
That feeling is not confined to tradi- than blacks. decisions will depend upon which way
tionally white Lakeview. It’s also pres- “It’s a very different city. The black the entire city moves. As it was when
ent in historically black New Orleans people are not coming back,” says poet the waters rushed in three years ago,
East. “Something we’re concerned Kalamu ya Salaam, a Ninth Ward na- people need more than their own roof
about is the number of Section 8 peo- tive. “They gave the majority of poor to take refuge on. Levees activist Sally
ple coming in. That concerns us in that black people a one-way ticket out of Rosenthal, for one, believes her house
when we get that, we get it in large the city and no way back. And if you is safe on high ground. “However, my
concentrations,” says Mel Jones. “The couldn’t afford to leave when it was city is not. Even if my house survived,
government doesn’t prepare them to mandatory evacuation, how can you I still need a post office and a grocery
take care of houses and they live like afford to come back when no one’s store and a school for my child,” she
they live in the projects. We’ve got to making any provision for you?” says. “I still need my city.” ◆
26 SPRING 2008
The demolition of public housing this year is one of the first—and most controversial—efforts to remake New Orleans. Photo: Edwin Lopez
CITY LIMITS INVESTIGATES
CITY FUTURES 120 Wall Street, floor 20, New York, NY 10005
HOW PERVASIVE
KATRINA WAS. IT’S AS
IF SOMEBODY PUSHED
THE RESET BUTTON
ON OUR WHOLE
CIVILIZATION.”
28 SPRING 2008