What Direction New Orleans?

Well, I started work this week. Getting down to it, starting the job that I came here for, has given me a little boost...I suppose it is actually possible to have too much vacation. At least if you don't have an unlimited supply of money.

But I digress. Starting work has brought my thoughts back around to the issues I wanted to confront by working here, namely urban planning, the lack of affordable housing, and the rebuilding of New Orleans. I was also reminded by my good friend Rich Seng (producer of the fantastic Rhymespitters documentaries) of the thoughts that are on the minds of many concerned citizens around the country: that the city will become a haven for the rich, a Las Vegas of the South at the expense of the displaced; that infrastructure will be provided to a population too sparse to justify the expense; and that those that return to the city will not be of a different class and color than those who left.

I have to say that living in New Orleans has removed most of these questions from my mind; more pressing thoughts have availed themselves instead, such as, When does the garbage get collected?, How is rebuilding in my neighborhood progressing?, and Can I drink the water? However, before I moved, I was beset by the very questions Rich raises above. How do we make sure the city retains its essential New Orleans-ness, that inspires and infatuates the rest of the country? How can we rebuild it better than before, with opportunities for all of its residents? How will the city plan for its recovery? Hearing from Rich and being back at work have brought these questions and more like them once again to the fore of my consciousness.

Let me state, for the record, that we don't have to worry about New Orleans becoming a haven for the rich anytime soon. We don't have to worry about rich America flocking to the city mostly because the city right now is barely functioning, and just looks, feels, and is too much like a 3rd-world city for big-money vacationers to want to be here. This is my feeling about the short-term.

However, I am sure that one long-term result of the storm will be a significant alteration of the city's demographics: fewer blacks, fewer elderly, and fewer poor. New Orleans before the storm was about 67% African-American, with relatively high populations of elderly (11.7%) and poor - below the federal poverty line - (27.9%) with respect to similar-sized cities. Though official counts are unavailable, it is thought to be currently closer to 50% black. I have no data on the elderly and poor, and they are still prevalent, but in what must be reduced numbers. It was, of course, primarily the black, old, and poor who were most affected by Katrina, as they overwhelmingly did not have the resources to evacuate and the city made no effort to help them. As for those that did get out, some want to come back and some don't. Whether or not they return seems primarily to be based on individual decisions about what's best for each family, a process that is not helped by the lack of official city planning.

This may mean that in the future, New Orleans will be moderately whiter, wealthier, and younger, but I do not expect that it will become the Disneyland that many fear. In some ways, it already was, so separate were the tourist areas from the shanty-towns that comprised the majority of the city. New Orleans lacks major industry, apart from tourism and shipping (and to a lesser extent, the oil and natural gas industry), has terrible public schools and a suspect police department, and some of the worst infrastructure in the country - besides shoddy levees and floodwalls, basic streets are sometimes impassable due to potholes. None of these factors are encouraging for attracting a wealthy population - no Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in New Orleans, with the exception of now-bankrupt Entergy New Orleans, which means no large corporate class (not necessarily a bad thing) and bad schools and a reputation for crime keep others away. Without education, infrastructure, reduced crime, and economic improvements, the city is not likely to become a place for the rich.

The changes to the city are going to be felt for a long time; 10 years won't be long enough to know how the city will recover, and if it gets hit by another Big One, it may not recover at all. The city is just now digging itself out from under the debris of Katrina; people will be starting to receive their "hurricane money" from the state this fall, and I expect to see another burst of people returning and either rebuilding or relocating within the city. Whether the parts of the city most affected (Lakeview and the 9th Ward), come back, well, that's something that remains to be seen. Though it is tough to say, and not at all politically possible to mention, I do not think that rebuilding the 9th Ward is viable; there is simply too much destruction and desolation to bring people back. Even if you had lived there all your life, if your family was there for generations, as was common, one look around would surely convince you that this was not a place fit for human habitation. But emotions and their subsequent behaviors are notorious for their inconsistency with logical thought. Can the city sustain or justify infrastructure in depopulated areas? I don't see how, but that hasn't prevented politicians and administrators in the past. The next year will be telling in how the city addresses the worst-hit areas.

As for the rest of the city, the part that did not flood is experiencing something of a real estate boom, with home values up over 25%, while rents are up 40% city-wide. I don't see homes in areas that flooded sustaining their pre-Katrina values, let alone their post-Katrina prices, which spiked initially due to the first wave of returnees. If you know that an area flooded, and you know that the levee system is not fully in place (and even if it were, would you trust it?), what would make you think that you would be safe in the future? On the other hand, places that did not flood have become more valuable than they were in the past, based on the same logic, and these places were already relatively more expensive (think of the French Quarter, St. Charles, the Garden District, parts of Uptown, the Marigny).

Will the city benefit from the flood, like San Francisco after the 1906 quake, or Chicago after the 1871 fire? It certainly has the potential to benefit, if its leaders can gather the will to do so. But the problems are many and complex, and the political climate has been one that has suppressed, rather than encouraged, civic improvement. Education, industry, crime, infrastructure, and of course, affordable housing will be the issues that New Orleans must confront in order to make a sustained recovery and create a city that is better than it was before. These are major issues for every city, and a tall order even for one not trying to recover from the worst urban disaster in American history. Can the city do it? I believe it can, but it's going to take a long time and a lot of love (and money) from a lot of people, including the federal government, which has been grudging at best in this category.

There is much more to say on this, but I can't do it all now. Be confident and stay true, readers: there will be more to come in the future.

Make Levees not War,
Noel