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Making Groceries: Food, Neighborhood Markets, and Neighborhood Recovery in Post-Katrina New Orleans By Jeffrey E Schwartz BA, Economics (2004) BA, History (2004) University of Wisconsin—Madison Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2008 © 2008 Jeffrey E Schwartz. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author ……………………………………………………………………………… Department of Urban Studies and Planning 22 May 2008 Certified by ……………………………………………………………………………… Lawrence J Vale Professor and Department Head Thesis Supervisor Accepted by ……………………………………………………………………………… Langley C Keyes Ford Professor of City and Regional Planning Chair, MCP Committee Making Groceries Food, Neighborhood Markets, and Neighborhood Recovery in Post-Katrina New Orleans by Jeffrey E Schwartz Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on 22 May 2008 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in City Planning Abstract In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, several neighborhoods in New in that city—until much later into the twentieth century than any Orleans created neighborhood markets. Given the fact that only one other US city. such market existed prior to the storm, this was surprising. This the- Interviews with market shoppers, vendors and market sis hypothesizes that neighborhood markets are responding in part organizations for each of the eight extant neighborhood markets are to the changing and uneven development of the food geography of used to explore claims about the roles of neighborhood markets in New Orleans before the storm, and the lack of access to fresh food in neighborhoods after the storm. Further interviews with city planners many of the most deeply impacted communities after Katrina flooded and recovery officials, as well as with non-profit and other community the city. stakeholders, suggest three broad lessons from the experience of the In order to understand why these neighborhood markets neighborhood markets: one, that disaster has recapitulated and deep- were established, this thesis places neighborhood markets in the ened the uneven geography of food access after the storm; two, that larger context of the changing history of the food system in the US, as the continuing inability of markets to meet food access needs speaks well as within the broader patterns of urban development and urban to the fragile and tenuous nature of recovery; and three, that the city vulnerability, resilience, and risk. New Orleans’ neighborhood markets government has failed to effectively respond to the storm. The thesis are further contextualized by looking at the particular history of urban concludes with general recommendations about the importance of development in New Orleans and the unique food system that the the food system and neighborhood resilience for planners and policy- city enjoyed—particularly the robustness of the public market system makers, as well specific proposals for the New Orleans food system. Thesis Supervisor: Lawrence J Vale Title: Professor and Department Head, Department of Urban Studies and Planning Contents Introduction | Making Groceries 7 Chapter 4 | Markets and Failures 111 Neighborhood Markets 9 Food Access 112 Aim and Plan of Thesis 13 Resilience 116 Failure of Government 120 Chapter 1 | Placing Neighborhood Markets 15 A Brief History of Public Markets 15 Chapter 5 | Remaking Groceries 125 Resiliency and Vulnerability 24 The Food System 125 Planning and Food Systems 29 Complicating Resiliency and Vulnerability 127 Summary: Food, Planning, and Disaster 36 Recommendations 128 Chapter 2 | New Orleans Food Access 37 Acknowledgments 133 A Post-Katrina Geography of Food 49 A Place for Neighborhood Markets 54 Bibliography 135 Chapter 3 | A Survey of Neighborhood Markets 57 Village L’Est/Versailles Vietnamese Market 63 Freret Street Market 71 Lakeview Harrison Avenue Marketplace 80 Gretna Farmers Market 85 Upper Ninth Ward Holy Angels Market 91 Lower Ninth Ward St. David Market 97 Broadmoor Heaven Sent Farmers Market 101 Broad Street Community Market 105 INTRODUCTION Making Groceries O n 30 August 2005, yahoo.com published two photographs associated press agencies’ policies (one image and caption showing people wading through Katrina’s floodwaters, drag- came from the AP, while the other was from France’s AFP), I ging groceries in-tow. Superficially, nothing differs between find the disparities between the photographs and the public the two images, save that one depicts a young black man, response to them provocative for what they say about who while the other portrays two young white adults. Yet, in what is entitled to even basic necessities of life in a post-disaster became one of the more well-known minor storylines of the context. The race of the pictured victims and the potential immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the characteriza- institutionalized biases of large media organizations stoked tion of the storm victims’ activities in the images’ captions the controversy, but that obscured what struck me as an even were markedly different. With no context provided in either more basic and obvious affront. In the wake of Katrina, these the photograph or the caption, the African American man is individuals were forced to scavenge for that which is other- said to have ‘looted’ from a grocery, while the white male and wise such a mundane consideration as to be almost invisible female merely ‘found’ their bread and soda in the same store. in daily life in cities: food. The captioning caused a furor amongst many observ- As a New Orleanian looking at the images, knowing ers who found these images to be an example of institution- the precise location of the photographs and the history of alized bias and racism. While many commentators dismissed that place, the differences in the captioning assume a much the divergent captions as the differences between two more nuanced significance. When I look at these images 7 now, the many interrelated histories of the images sugges- tively connect to one another as if in montage. The grocery store referred to in the caption is Circle Food Store, which is a venerable grocery store located in the heart of the sto- ried neighborhood of Tremé, the first free neighborhood of color in this country. The store is situated at the intersec- tion of North Claiborne and St. Bernard Avenues, which was once the epicenter of what used to be one of the wealthiest African-American commercial corridors in the country. Circle Food Store was once the St. Bernard market, a significant public market owned by the City of New Orleans as a part of The two photographs of New Orleanians wading in floodwaters outside what used to be the most extensive public market system Circle Food Store. yahoo.com. in America. The interstate overpass from which the photographs were safely taken is an urban renewal project of the 1960s that resulted in the devastation of most of the black- owned businesses on Claiborne Avenue. Almost three years after the storm, Circle Foods has yet to reopen. Looking back at Katrina through these two images evokes deep-seated questions about the ways in which political, social, and economic decisions of actors contribute to the ways in which disaster is not only experienced, but also produced. What does it mean that the Circle Food store was once a public market in New Orleans, and that the city had therefore once possessed a public interest in the food access of the Tremé? What does it also mean that, through the The captions to the images, as they appeared on yahoo.com course of the twentieth century, that same store had been 8 Making Groceries privatized and then placed in the shadow of the Interstate- 10 overpass that was bulldozed through a formerly vibrant African-American commercial corridor? That it was from this platform floating above Claiborne Avenue where photojour- nalists could take a picture in 2005 in America of three citi- zens struggling to provide for their sustenance? What is the effect on a community when a grocery store does not reopen two and a half years after a disaster? What is the significance of food access in a community, before and after a disaster? *** Making Groceries This thesis is an attempt to understand why a surprising number of neighborhood markets were created in New Or- Claiborne Avenue at St. Bernard Avenue, which used to be the center of a leans as a response to Hurricane Katrina, the extent to which vibrant commerical district, but which is now buried beneath the I-10 over- market-creation is an effort to compensate for a lack of fresh pass. Note that the circle and trees have been removed, as well as a large number of homes. Circle Food Store is to the bottom right of the frame. food access, and the political, social, and economic signifi- nutrias.org and Google Earth. cance of these markets at various narrative scales. history of neighborhood markets, the creation of these mar- Five farmers markets were extant before the storm, only one kets is notable. of which was run by a neighborhood organization. Yet after Katrina, despite that fact that only three of the pre-storm MARKETS DEFINED markets have been able to reopen, at least eight neighbor- While markets defy easy categorization, the neighborhood hood markets have been created

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