POLICY and POWER in POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS by Emily Rosenman BA, Oberlin College, 2006 a THESIS
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THE ROAD AWAY FROM HOME: POLICY AND POWER IN POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS by Emily Rosenman B.A., Oberlin College, 2006 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Geography) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) OCTOBER 2011 © Emily Rosenman, 2011 Abstract In this thesis I explore several intersections of hurricane recovery, urban planning, housing assistance, and neighborhood organizing in post-Katrina New Orleans. These intersections include the mobilization of particular kinds of evidence in redevelopment planning, the construction of “community” and “neighborhood” in the aftermath of disaster, and the changing geographical scale of community development in a post-disaster environment. Hurricane Katrina has inspired a huge amount of research; much of which has been written from either a policy or hazards/disaster perspective. I argue in Chapter 2 that the disaster literature on Hurricane Katrina can benefit from engagement with literature on urban governance and the politics of civic engagement. Similarly, I propose in Chapter 3 that economic analyses of pre- and post-Katrina data must be contextualized by the post-Katrina politics and social realities of New Orleans. In this chapter, I explore the effects of depoliticizing the issue of affordable housing in New Orleans. In engendering public uncertainty about the reliability of housing data, powerful landlords and politicians avoided a debate on housing access and instead focused legislative attention on a seemingly counterintuitive question: is there too much affordable housing in New Orleans? In this chapter, I find that a preoccupation with questions about the accuracy of housing data became a tool to shut down political debate and to present subsidized housing as a nuisance to New Orleans neighborhoods and, more threateningly, to the city’s housing market as a whole. Through in-depth interviews and observations of public meetings, Chapter 4 explores neighborhood-scale participation in the governance of post-Katrina New Orleans. In this chapter I analyze the manifestations of civic involvement in three hurricane- damaged neighborhoods and find that civic participation inside or outside of formal political structures yields different results for New Orleans’ neighborhoods, and that some avenues of participation are more easily visible than others. Finally, this thesis concludes with some ii reflections on persisting inequalities in the post-hurricane recovery process and the New Orleans’ upcoming plans to standardize neighborhood participation in urban planning. iii Preface This thesis is based in part on interviews conducted in New Orleans in November, 2010. This research was approved by the University of British Columbia Office of Research Services Behavioral Research Ethics Board – Full Board. The certificate of approval is UBC BREB Number H10-01520. iv Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Abbreviations and Notes ................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction and Background ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 A brief geography of New Orleans ................................................................................ 12 1.3 Hurricane Katrina ........................................................................................................... 18 1.4 What is recovery? ........................................................................................................... 19 1.5 Government assistance after disasters ............................................................................ 20 1.6 Planning: Iterations of recovery ..................................................................................... 21 1.7 Housing after Katrina ..................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: Post-Katrina New Orleans: A Nexus of Recovery, Housing, and Governance Specificities ................................................................................................................................... 28 2.1 Disaster recovery and inequality .................................................................................... 28 2.2 Disasters as the great levelers? Racism and Katrina ..................................................... 32 2.3 Neighborhood as political unit; neighborhood as community ....................................... 34 2.4 Government through community ................................................................................... 39 2.5 The “right” of homeownership ....................................................................................... 43 2.6 Renters vs. homeowners: The newest class divide? ....................................................... 46 2.7 From government to governance: Post-WWII shifts in civic participation ................... 48 Chapter 3: Maximum Feasible Uncertainty: Politics of Housing Demand and Supply ............... 55 3.1 Housing loss and housing needs ..................................................................................... 55 3.2 Adventures in affordable housing: Can there be too much? .......................................... 58 3.3 Political implications of (lacking) statistics: Subsidized housing and the pursuit of objectivity .................................................................................................................................. 68 Chapter 4: Neighborhood Case Studies: Communities and Recovery Planning from the Ground- Up .................................................................................................................................................. 73 v 4.1 Neighborhood planning in post-Katrina New Orleans ................................................... 76 4.2 Freret Neighbors United ................................................................................................. 82 4.3 The Broadmoor Improvement Association .................................................................... 92 4.4 Lower Ninth Ward and A Community Voice .............................................................. 103 4.5 Neighborhood scale and radical organizing ................................................................. 115 4.6 What is omitted?........................................................................................................... 119 Chapter 5: Conclusion................................................................................................................. 121 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 128 Appendix: Table of interviews and meetings attended in New Orleans ..................................... 142 vi List of Tables Table 1.1: Post-Katrina Planning Efforts in New Orleans ............................................................ 21 Table 3.1: Types of Subsidized Housing in New Orleans ............................................................ 56 Table 4.1: Population Changes: New Orleans and Focus Neighborhoods .................................. 81 Table 4.2: Housing Characteristics: New Orleans and Focus Neighborhoods ............................ 81 Table 4.3: Freret pre- and post-Katrina Housing Profile .............................................................. 83 Table 4.4: Broadmoor pre- and post-Katrina Housing Profile ..................................................... 93 Table 4.5: Lower Ninth Ward pre- and post-Katrina Housing Profile ....................................... 104 vii List of Figures Figure 1.1: Percent Change in Population by Neighborhood, 2000-2010 ...................................... 3 Figure 1.2: Katrina Tattoo............................................................................................................... 5 Figure 1.3: Map of New Orleans Neighborhoods and Waterways ............................................... 14 Figure 1.4: Hydraulic Pumps ........................................................................................................ 15 Figure 1.5: Map of New Orleans Neighborhoods ......................................................................... 17 Figure 1.6: BNOB Parks and Open Space Plan ............................................................................ 24 Figure 4.1: Maps of Freret ...........................................................................................................