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New Orleans and Katrina: One Year Later The fourth difference that shapes the South- than it once was. Entire communities such as the BARBARA L. ALLEN, Executive Editor ern identity is a connection to place rather than the Lower 9th Ward and Gentilly, each contributing disconnectedness and mobility that is more preva- significant local practices and cultures to the city’s I am a native of south Louisiana. Every visit I have lent in the rest of the United States.This distinction gumbo, are noticeably absent. While it is unrealistic made to the region since Hurricane Katrina leaves is very much part of the public and private ethos of to think that everyone will return, an effort should me more disheartened than the last. It is south Louisiana and New Orleans. Southern author be made to enable as many people as possible, from indescribable, the mile after mile of abandoned Eudora Welty wrote, ‘‘I am myself touched off by all socioeconomic and ethnic groups to return—the housing, commercial buildings, and schools place. The place where I am, the place I know ... ‘‘right of return’’ should belong to everyone that, to the naked eye, look almost habitable. place opens a door in the mind.’’1 This local ‘‘world equally. The only way that New Orleans can be Additionally, there are entire neighborhoods that view’’ might seem quaint to some and may not be brought back to life is with its people and the have been upended or destroyed by flooding and appropriate when talking about the new ‘‘sunbelt’’ vibrant civic culture that they bring. wind damage. Rebuilding these areas seems an South (i.e., Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Houston), enormous task. A year after the hurricane and the but it is important to understand when thinking flood, rebuilding questions still abound, and the about how New Orleans should be rebuilt and who Equal Access to Repatriation? future of New Orleans remains uncertain. will be able to return. Much of the pre–World War II housing stock in New The Journal of Architectural Education is Orleans was built appropriately for a floodplain. publishing this special issue on the city, a year after Besides the issue of human dignity and indi- Katrina, as a forum for architectural educators to vidual rights—to have returned something so ele- Many houses in the Lower 9th Ward, for example, think about the flood, the people, the buildings and mental to one’s identity as their place of birth, were constructed of rot-resistant cypress, raised infrastructure, the environment and, of course, the ancestry, and heritage—there is another, much two to four feet off the ground on piers, and built to future. In my opinion, two issues loom largest: more public concern. What makes a place distinct flood and drain. This neighborhood ranges in rehabitation of the city and environmental concerns. from another place and gives it a specific regional elevation from a low point of four feet below sea Following are my musings, motivated by identity is much more than local building types and level to a high point of eight feet above sea level distress, a great love for this city, and by a desire to historic coextensive urban fabric. Place distinction closer to the river. The reason the area was so see the city ‘‘return’’ in the fullest sense of the word. or regionalism is not a set of architectural types heavily flooded was because of a breach and urban forms but is, instead, a socially consti- in the canal walls, not necessarily because of tuted phenomenon. It is a collection of shared elevation. The People Must Come Back identities, behaviors, and practices that circum- Unfortunately, ‘‘many of the houses that are Louisiana (and New Orleans), prior to Katrina, had scribe local public cultures and spaces. I call this good candidates for recovery have been labeled the highest rate of nativity in the United States— concept ‘‘performative regionalism’’ and have 52% or 56% damaged by FEMA.’’3 In order to get people who are born there tend to stay there. Their argued elsewhere that regionalism is predomi- a building permit and thus money from the Federal attachment to ‘‘place’’ is part of the identity of nantly defined ‘‘performatively’’—by the local Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and your these citizens and is not easily changed. In the mid- practices of people rather than the built fabric per insurance company to rebuild as is, your house twentieth century, the renowned Southern se.2 While the urban form can enable practices, must have sustained less than 50 percent damage. historian, C. Vann Woodward, wrote about what people have an amazing ability to adapt and ret- According to one engineer who has worked with makes the Southern character and experience rofit environments for their cultural needs. So community groups in the Lower 9th Ward, FEMA’s different from the rest of the United States. although rebuilding New Orleans’ beautiful historic experts have not only overstated damage, but in He cites four areas where the Southern urban fabric is important, it is a hollow victory if some cases, they have allowed further damage to ‘‘consciousness’’ differs from the rest of the United the people who were the primary enactors of cul- occur by inaction. For example, FEMA would States. Succinctly stated, the first three of these are ture do not return. declare 100 percent roof damage when, in actuality, that Southerners, historically, have had their world To date, over half of the residents of the city the damage was very slight. This declaration meant shaped by poverty rather than by abundance, have not returned. And the people who have that FEMA would not provide blue plastic protec- defeat rather than invincibility, and slavery rather returned are not demographically representative of tive material for the roof, allowing rain to further than freedom and liberty. the pre-Katrina city.The city is whiter and wealthier damage the property.

Journal of Architectural Education, new orleans and katrina: one year later 4 pp. 4–31 ª 2006 ACSA To challenge FEMA’s damage determination, as well as neighborhoods that may be receiving too Garden District to the Irish Channel. Why would a homeowner must be present in New Orleans and much attention from developers. poor African American communities that were not present evidence contradicting their damage When inner city ‘‘flight’’ happened in the late flooded be targeted for redevelopment when sim- determination. This is difficult as many of the res- 1960s and 1970s, the white middle-class popula- ilarly dry white middle- and upper-class communi- idents are living in Houston or Atlanta and have no tion moved west to the adjacent ‘‘whiter’’ Jefferson ties were slated for immediate rebuilding? Will way to file a grievance. Furthermore, assembling Parish (home of the infamous Ku Klux Klan–affili- those of lesser economic means be pushed out a counterclaim substantiating a differing techno- ated gubernatorial candidate David Duke) and the making way for redevelopment and gentrification? logical assessment of their property is complicated black middle class fled to east Orleans Parish, at and deters many poor owners. In adjacent, majority that time uninhabited marshy land drained by Army white Jefferson Parish, many neighborhoods have Corps Engineers’ projects. While the plight of the Floods, Faults, and Environmental Folly street after street of houses with a small FEMA Lower 9th Ward, home to a large poor and working- In the myriad pre-Katrina hurricane predictions and trailer in every yard, enabling the owner to rebuild class black population has received ample press, the disaster scenarios, the levees of the great while living on site.There is no such evidence of this plight of New Orleans East has been mostly invis- Mississippi River are breached or the water of Lake scale of activity in Orleans Parish. Many neighbor- ible. It was, like the 9th Ward, one of the last sec- Pontchartrain is dumped in the city by a huge storm hoods still have no electricity or water that they tions of the city to open after the flooding and has surge.This did not happen in New Orleans. Instead, could connect to a FEMA trailer, even if they had still not had infrastructural services restored. Unlike the catastrophic flooding was caused by a failure one. Where will these residents live while repairing the 9th Ward, however, the houses and apartment of a more mundane type—several of the city’s their homes? buildings in this large area of the city are still very drainage canals gave way. The U.S. Army Corps of Another issue is: What happens when the much intact, having not suffered the ravages of Engineers’ (ACE) designs for these canals were residents of a community are dispersed and have turbulent water from a canal breach. Mile after mile flawed and evidence of the ‘‘slow failure’’ of these difficulty forming a cohesive voice? This is one of of previously flooded slab-on-grade suburban walls had been reported for years, if not decades. the largest problems Katrina presents. Communities homes are sitting vacant with no signs of life any- Seepage under the walls resulting in spongy bogs in are asked to assemble a list of those willing to come where in this section of the city. No FEMA trailers residents’ backyards was a common complaint— back and rebuild in order to receive assistance.This as telltale signs of homeowners’ return. What is to but no corrective action on the part of the ACE or task is much easier for wealthier residents who have happen to this significant portion of New Orleans’ levee board officials was ever taken. Was this Internet access and other means of communication. black middle class? criminal negligence, as Ivor Van Heerden, coastal The poor are at a definite disadvantage here and Another curious issue was brought to light geologist and Deputy Director of the Louisiana that disadvantage may mean that their when New Orleans’ mayor, Ray Nagin, unveiled the State University Hurricane Center, convincingly neighborhoods do not get needed funding and rebuilding plan generated by his ‘‘Bring New argues or was it something else?4 federal assistance. Orleans Back Commission.’’ The plan organized the The ACE is certainly one of the main culprits in city into four zones: immediate rebuilding, targeted this disastrous event even though they have, thus for new development, building moratorium, and far, escaped the public disgrace that FEMA’s new parks (drainage). Typically these zones fol- response to Katrina has evoked.Yet, year after year, Race, Class, and Color Coded Plans lowed the flood maps. Unflooded areas are slated the Congress’ dependence on Corps projects to Much has been written in the press regarding for immediate rebuilding, and historically important funnel money to their states often meant that funds race, class, and rebuilding. Pundits have predicted flooded areas are targeted for new development. A went to states with powerful legislatures rather everything from the developer-inspired building moratorium was put on badly flooded than to those with greater need. The problem was Disneyfication of New Orleans to the areas, some set aside for new parks to serve as flood further compounded by President Reagan’s 1983 ‘‘whitewashing’’ of the city, reinhabiting only those control areas during heavy rains. Notable excep- executive order (trying to undermine environmen- parts on the high ground in the historic areas of the tions to this taxonomy were several poor, predom- talists) which instructed the ACE to only consider city that are predominantly white.These are serious inantly black neighborhoods on high ground that economic development in the cost-benefit analysis concerns, and I would like to illuminate some were not flooded, namely the stretch of communi- of proposed projects. It was the Corps’ drainage specific examples of neglected neighborhoods ties near downtown along the river from the Lower projects that promoted development on low-lying

5 allen land, and it was those projects that also helped partly financially responsible for the devastation. In many neighborhoods has yet to be decided and destroy the coastal wetlands that were the city’s the Netherlands, he explained, if you could prove with each passing the month the likelihood of those natural protection system. What was the cost to that their actions (dredging) were partly to blame, residents returning diminish. Homes sit abandoned, New Orleans and the region, in economic terms, of they would share in the financial responsibility.This and some lacking proper weather protection, will the flooding? Will environmentalists’ concerns, ‘‘option’’ is not even on the table. further deteriorate. The levee system is not com- such as wetland protection, now be factored into Fast-forward to the politics of the post-Katrina pletely repaired, and there has been no decision on ACE decision making? I am doubtful. city. Everybody has a plan for rebuilding the city. its redesign to higher standards. The city’s infra- The mayor and the governor have competing plans. structure is still in shambles—from schools, to tel- Others proposed alternative plans or criticized ecommunications to power grids—none are close Paralyzing Politics existing plans. Then, the mayor would shift his to being fully restored. Local New Orleans and Louisiana politicians have endorsement of certain plans, and the federal While it is true that the city is slowly coming a well-earned questionable reputation. In the government shifted their endorsements too. Whose back to life, the questions of what kind of city it will 1960s, after Hurricane Betsy, funds earmarked by plan was more popular? Whose was affordable? be and what kinds of culture it will support remain Congress for storm protection were partially Which citizens were shortchanged and whose vot- unanswered. The next few years will surely seal the diverted by state legislators for other ‘‘pet’’ water ers were denied their reentry ticket—a home? The fate of this unique city. We will all have to wait and projects. The grandiose-scale dredging of tens of shifting sands of city plans are dizzying and, at see—and most of all, have our voices heard. thousands of acres of wetland for the Mississippi times, appear to be a shell game. River Gulf Outlet, designed as an alternative, but underused, route to the Port of New Orleans Acknowledgments actually exacerbated the storm’s effect. It seems Still Thinking about New Orleans I would like to thank the American Academy in that outside corporate interests, campaign The thirteen OPARCH articles that follow are Rome for the time to think and write about Katrina contributions, and political pressure may have led opinion pieces, treatises, musings, and even poems and New Orleans. I would also like to credit my to the construction of the Mississippi River Gulf expressing a diversity of thinking about one of interdisciplinary colleagues who attended the Outlet or ‘‘Mr. Go’’—the hurricane superhighway to America’s great cities. The standpoints of the ‘‘Cities and Rivers II’’ conference in New Orleans in New Orleans. authors vary greatly. Some write from New Orleans, March 2006 with stimulating my thinking in new But the shipping industry and their local owning flooded homes, some write as experts directions. politicos were certainly not the biggest power offering their professional opinions, some write as players in south Louisiana. That distinction goes to scholars and educated observers, and others, who Notes the multinational oil companies. Extensive dredging have never been there, offer elegies for the city as 1. See C.Vann Woodward, The Burden of Southern History (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 1960, 1968).The Eudora Welty quote is cited from chapter projects, both along the Mississippi River (for oil national or global ‘‘imaginary.’’ I have also 1, ‘‘The Search for a Southern Identity’’, pp. 23–24. supertankers) and along the bayous (to allow for interviewed two people for this special issue to shed 2. See Barbara L. Allen, ‘‘On Performative Regionalism,’’ in Vincent pipelines and transportation) have hastened the some light on both the precarious position of Canizaro, ed., Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place, loss of wetlands and exposed the city to more harm. historic neighborhoods and the plight of the Identity, Modernity and Tradition (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), forthcoming. There is a deafening silence as to the oil industry’s very poor. 3. Much of the information on rebuilding in the Lower 9th Ward was culpability that speaks volumes to the multina- As this issue goes to press, the future of New obtained from a phone interview I conducted with Elizabeth English on tional’s political hold on the state and its people. At Orleans is still very much in flux. It is both trou- February 17, 2006. She is a structural engineer affiliated with Louisiana State University’s Hurricane Center. a conference I attended on disaster response shortly blesome and hopeful. Large developers have not 4. See Ivor Van Heerden, The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During after Katrina, a Dutch engineer in attendance wanted (yet) rushed in building high-rise time-share con- Hurricane Katrina—The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist (New to know why the oil industry was not being held dos adjacent to the French Quarter. The fate of York: Viking, 2006).

new orleans and katrina: one year later 6 In Dark Waters: Opportunity and But, inevitably, Katrina has been hyped as city, and everybody wants to participate. Opportunism in the Reconstruction New Orleans’ 9/11. And with that hype has come America has built a lot of cities from scratch but of New Orleans the hyping of commitment: narratives of heroism not with any ideas as to where they were going GRAHAM OWEN abound. By this, I mean not the local record of day- to go .... Everybody that has a certain interest to-day heroism of the disaster’s first responders, in something wants to chime in with their In the flood of opinions, proposals, symposia, stu- but the tales of heroism retold at every opportunity proposals—if for example you’re a trolley dios, competitions, charrettes, and essays on how by bold administrators of the corporate variety— advocate or a light-rail advocate, you see in to rebuild post-Katrina New Orleans, one question ever mindful of the Giuliani Effect—eager to tell of New Orleans a showcase for transit, or if seems not yet to have been asked: How is it that, in the ‘‘tough decisions’’ they had to make about you’re a new urbanist you see an opportunity a time dominated by neoliberal ideology, the public recovery. Recovery? No, transformation—the for new buildings and architecture and increased good could have become so quickly and unpro- narratives of heroism joined to the rhetoric of walkability—everyone who has an interest blematically a widespread concern? Disasters, they transcendence in adversity. Transformation, of sees this as a captive experiment .... That’s say, bring out the best in people, but also the worst, course, as in ‘‘this changes everything,’’ and all what we need to avoid. We need to get out and while no one would want to look gift horses of conceived (or reconceived) and pursued in the of the way and let the individuals rip .... goodwill in the mouth under the circumstances, absence of most of the city’s population. [T]his is more of a bottom-up approach than perhaps it is still worth considering that this gift Neoliberalism’s championing of self-reliance, other proposals, in that it recognizes that horse is Janus faced. of the individualization of fortune, of bootstraps- New Orleans is a group of citizens who are In the aftermath of 9/11, many commentators tugging ‘‘personal responsibility’’ found its chiefly responsible for how the city is rebuilt. observed that a spirit of community and mutual aid negative apotheosis in the days immediately before This is in contrast to the top-down proposals, possessed New York, the country, and indeed and after the storm. ‘‘Everyone for themselves’’ in many countries around the world usually less evacuation—those without cars or credit cards had 1. Airline magazine advertisement, Fall 2005. (Copyright Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C.) favorably disposed toward America. This spirit no means to leave—became everyone for proved to be all too short-lived, perhaps because of themselves in looting. Though the media reports the response of some of the other U.S. targets; but sometimes turned out to be biased and even at the time, the motives of some local sensationalized, this descent seemed nonetheless pain-sharers came into question. Despite the SL both cautionary and prophetic. Some might have 500-driving success of the legal profession hoped that the storm would not only have in that market, ambulance chasing among foregrounded once again the racist bases of urban architects has never been a pretty sight. With the poverty in America but would also have brought to flurry of pre-Libeskind proposals for more, bigger, light the endgame of individualism, a Hobbesian more spectacular, or more hip buildings on and nightmare of the shattered social contract: the around the World Trade Center site, perhaps what kinder, gentler, chastened, and co-operative dawn we witnessed was the ‘‘architecture op,’’ that followed 9/11 was now New Orleans’ due. For a designers’ version of the photo op for politicians others, though, the images of a devastated city may kissing earthquake-orphaned infants.1 Could it be have brought on different visions, visions of a new, that cultural citizenship called for not leaping even Darwinian frontier: all that was once forward to piggy-back one’s career on the obstructed would now be possible. guaranteed visibility of a world-shattering event, The issues, at least at the surface, in which this not surfing into the media on the deaths of conflict has been playing out were observed early thousands of people, and not seeking to do (as on by Ronald Utt: Denise Scott Brown once put it, quoting an Israeli term) ‘‘Shoa business,’’ the business of making [T]his is the first time in a long time that there money from an American Holocaust? has been an opportunity to rebuild an entire

7 owen where people are vicariously imposing their Texas, fly-by-night home repair contractors) shades return? What rights of reconstruction should the preferences on what’s happening.2 into the at-the-trough graft more characteristic of poorest, most tightly bonded, yet most devastated Faced with a tabula inundata, he suggests, we welfare states gone wrong (the too high prices paid and at-risk neighborhoods have? How should the are tempted to see it as the long-lost tabula rasa, for government-outsourced debris removal and return-motivating opportunity to reconstruct one’s and by the opportunity to experiment—as temporary roof sheathing, often in no-bid contracts own property—even if in such a neighborhood—be architects, contemplating the destruction in post– with the all too familiar corporate operators). balanced against the good of the city as a whole? World War II Europe, were also inspired to do. More than this, some local architects And, particularly important for design Here, one is reminded of a magazine ad running embraced early on the ‘‘diaspora-as-silver-lining’’ professionals, what essential aspects of New in airline magazines since the storm (Figure 1): a view of the city’s post-Katrina depopulation. Low- Orleans’ culture can be understood as embedded in conservatively dressed, short-sleeved white income African Americans are better off (so the its architecture and urban patterns? How much professional, hesitating in front of a typical New story went, without hard evidence) in the places change can it absorb, in a new vision of the city, Orleans commercial side facxade, contemplates they were trucked to, finding by happy accident the before that culture is irreparably altered? Tackling a stray Toshiba HDTV box on the sidewalk. ‘‘They life chances so long denied them at home. some of these questions, the Urban Land Institute’s got theirs,’’ entices the caption; ‘‘What’s stopping Regardless of their contribution to New Orleans’ November 2005 proposal for the city, the first you?’’ The ad, though tongue in cheek and more culture and neighborhoods (not to mention its own comprehensive plan for reconstruction, envisaged than a little cynical, points to the widely publicized economy), why should they return (it continued) to extensive green spaces—parks doubling as flood rips in the fabric of the social contract of the city the Lower Ninth Ward or St. Bernard Parish if buffers—in the worst-affected neighborhoods, and the region. In a sense, though, it also addresses Houston offered such sterling opportunity for self- recommendations that acted, predictably enough, us. Well, architects: what’s stopping you? improvement? This attitude, of course, has drawn as political explosives. The City’s more cautious From Utt’s populist point of view, local much fire as disingenuous cover for a long-standing endorsements of such principles were moderated knowledge should trump expert knowledge and the desire to whiten the city. But consider: In a market by its proposition that neighborhoods would have rebuilding of the city take shape as the coalescence economy, who make better clients for new houses four months, from January 2006, to organize and of community responses to incentives and (particularly pseudo-Dutch neoMod houses)? The commit to repopulation, a commitment that would opportunities. From the point of view of some eagerness of design professionals and academics to entitle them to selected professional advice on how design professionals, though, such an approach step forward and devote their skills and knowledge to do it. But the funding for such advice has been risks becoming a Trojan Horse for the development to the rebuilding task is presumed to be pro bono, delayed, and the program has been disintegrating: industry, enabling ill-conceived profit-driven a guarantee of virtue; but when is this pro bono several of the neighborhoods have already engaged ventures to proceed without benefit of more publico and when pro bono solo? Selfless and the donated services of planners—of their choice, thoughtful and prudent plans. The ethical hazards, altruistic commitment to a cause deserves not the anticipated consultants to be chosen by, however, run deeper and more extensively, and the recognition, no doubt. But what mutations of and funded through, the Mayor’s advisors. line between opportunity and opportunism may commitment and recognition emerge in the strange At this juncture, two significant issues appear. have become so blurred as to be almost invisible. atmosphere of our time, a neoliberal market First, in the gap between the neighborhood Petty and not-so-petty corruption have, of course, economy turned security state? associations’ pressing need and the City’s intended followed the storm: despite continuing and Paradoxically, the storm that wiped much of program has arisen (in some eyes) the specter of an legitimate concerns about their adequacy for the New Orleans off the map put it back on the design evil empire—the New Urbanists. Andres Duany and broadly agreed-upon tasks at hand (e.g., levee and map nationally. For those who watch that map a swiftly assembled crew of Congress of New wetland reconstruction and homeowner anxiously, Katrina created a crucial window of Urbanism (CNU) charrettistes have already compensation), private insurance and federal opportunity: visibility. As I write in March 2006, produced the widely publicized Mississippi Gulf moneys have already been flowing through the that visibility is concentrated initially on solutions Coast reconstruction plans and, at the invitation of region in substantial quantities. In such to reciprocal questions of urban planning and urban the state reconstruction authority, have since been circumstances, the predatory entrepreneurialism of design: Who, from among the evacuated masses, working in Louisiana as well, with current activity deregulated market capitalism (the instant markups should be encouraged to return, and by what around, but not yet in, New Orleans’ central parish. of motel rates as the evacuating hordes headed into means? What kind of city will best encourage that For some in the architectural scene, this turn of

in dark waters: opportunity and opportunism in the 8 reconstruction of new orleans events is akin to the sweep of Genghis Khan and economies are crucial to cooperative behavior, to Graham Owen is an associate professor at the the Mongol hordes across the steppes of Asia the building of trust? Robert Putnam, in his Tulane School of Architecture and teaches design, toward Europe. More intriguingly, this line of controversial but still telling study of the variable theory, and courses on ethics in globalization and characterization, as it has proceeded, has implicitly grounding of democracy in various regions of reconstruction. invoked tropes both more contemporary and more 1970s Italy, suggests an answer to the question. In architectural. The New Urbanists, it is said, are not the North, networks of trust were open, facilitated only fanatically fundamentalist in their convictions by substantial reserves of social capital. In the Notes (no style after 1919 allowed) but also frighteningly South, networks were closed, manipulated by the 1. Here, I exclude the serious and intelligent early contributions of such well funded and extensively established as local strongmen: i notabili, ‘‘the notables.’’ participants as Frederic Schwartz, Michael Sorkin, and Office dA. infiltrators into government. Maybe George Cooperative networks of mutual support, 2. Ronald Utt, Senior Research Fellow for the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation, quoted in Aaron Kinney and Clooney was right: a tendency to latter-day characterized by transparency, were contrasted Page Rockwell, ‘‘How to Rebuild New Orleans,’’ Salon (September 30, McCarthyism is never far from the surface in our with cronyism and mafias, modes of operation 2005), http://dir.salon.com/story/news/features/2005/09/30/ time, and Edward R. Murrow had some points whose beneficiaries could nonetheless build rebuild_reaction/print.html?pn=2. about open debate that are indeed worth and maintain their reputations as ‘‘men of 3. As I submit the final version of this text, DPZ are working at their own cost in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. remembering. For architects (and that honor.’’ 4. Reinhabiting NOLA Conference proceedings, p. 30. 1919 date is convenient), this is also the trope of In our South now, how the economies of 5. Nancy Levinson, ‘‘Notes on Fame,’’ Perspecta 37 (2005): 21. the hidebound conservative academy, the honor—deserved and otherwise—play out is one that robbed Le Corbusier of recognition in the crucial to the future of New Orleans. In November League of Nations competition. Modernist 2005, Xavier University, Tulane University, and the A Cry for a City: What Is Happening to innovation, it seems, is in danger of being Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental New Orleans submerged in this Manichaean conflict between Research held a conference on ‘‘Reinhabiting EDWARD J. BLAKELY darkness and light.3 NOLA.’’ Among its many recommendations, ‘‘all But it may be that New Urbanism’s greatest groups emphasized the importance of insuring New Orleans is an image and not a place. It is threat is its assertion that architecture and urban that the economic and educational opportunities a spirit and a song. So, it is hard to see it in its design of quality can be executed by those other generated from the rebuilding effort will be current wrecked self. It is almost like seeing than celebrity architects, celebrities actual or equitably distributed.’’4 Earlier the same month, someone you knew before they became terminally would-be. With the post-Katrina opportunity for the Urban Land Institute proposal, knowing the ill. But this is the sadness that now falls over New visibility came a second key opening, which was potential for the seamier side of the city’s Orleans. Hopefully, a new blues will be spawned that for brokerage. The careerist strategy par governmental history to undermine the best of from the havoc that has destroyed this great city. excellence, brokerage directs, assigns, reserves, or intentions, had noted the necessity for ‘‘greater Only time will tell if New Orleans can be resur- withholds opportunity for others. Some might integrity, transparency, and communication,’’ and rected to it old grandeur. Cities are resilient. Many counter that cultural opportunity has always had recommended ‘‘effective audit mechanisms,’’ cities have been near the brink of extinction from middlemen—journalists, dealers, critics, juries, and including a Board of Ethics. The admonitions were war or severe natural disasters, and they have theorists—so why should the active channeling of modest and diplomatic, but the city’s rescue- come back. Chicago and San Francisco rebuilt opportunity to preferred candidates be a problem? by-design corps would do well to note the grander cities after fires that destroyed them in the Because, when that channeling occurs as subtexts. Pro bono work’s guarantee of virtue can late nineteenth century and early twentieth cen- brokerage, the selection is made on the sometimes turn out to be a mask; and fame, as tury. London was deeply scarred by bombs as was assumption of a commission, a piece of the action, Nancy Levinson reminded us in her trenchant Berlin, and Stalingrad (now Volgograd) was on the now or later: the preference for certain candidates recent essay on the subject, is ‘‘not so much brink of collapse from artillery shelling. More is predicated primarily on their usefulness in a gratifying result of doing a good project as recently, our own Darwin (Australia) was leveled by advancing the broker’s own interests, not those of a project of its own.’’5 What needs to be asked in a hurricane, but it is now thriving again. But these clients or users. Economies of favors rule the day. New Orleans now is: in which project are the places all came back. However, unlike New Again, we might protest that surely such greater investments being made? Orleans, none of these cities were entirely

9 blakely abandoned. This is the drama and trauma of New is fraught with infighting and corruption with some The Role of Planners and Architects Orleans. Most of its citizens have fled the city and $26 million in emergency planning funds that went New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have become the have no place to return to. So, even if the city missing before the storm hit. So, it is little wonder battlegrounds of professionals. Local planners are were opened, there is very little to build on. The that things seemed chaotic. They were. Now, this scattered across at least a half dozen states from historic French Quarter survived but with same myriad of agencies and local bodies is Texas to North Carolina and Chicago, Illinois. The limited hotels and fewer visitors. It is a ghost reassembling in the form of more than five different local planners with the best knowledge and of its old self. But the real tragedy is the desperate task forces and commissions to oversee the expertise are not on payrolls because the political quagmire that surrounds the rebuilding. rebuilding process. The mayor of New Orleans governments are cutting budgets and planners are In this tale, there are lessons for regions, formed a commission but so have the City Council considered a luxury but police are essential. One cities, and metropolitan areas around the (separate from the Mayor), the Governor, the planner pointed out to me that there is not much world. Chamber of Commerce, and Neighborhood for police to protect at this point. But local planners Organizations. They are all taking charge of are not being paid to plan, and state government is rebuilding the city or the region or both. At some hiring or using pro bono and in some cases high Who is in Charge? point, this will be sorted out, but now it is profile and highly paid international name Like many metropolitan areas, New Orleans is cumbersome to say the least and perplexing architects and developers on contract to replan Gulf a collection of small jurisdictions that all form for all those who genuinely want to help. The Coast communities. Outside of the region, planners a larger metropolitan area. But unlike most cities, insurance losses alone is estimated in the mega and architects are bringing new ideas, some local government is totally uncoordinated by billions as shown below. Many property owners in interesting and perhaps refreshing like new building anyone and certainly not state government. There New Orleans did have insurance, but the city has and design principles, but these ideas are being are five or six different police departments, even a very large segment of renters who have shaped in the absence of the local planners and more school districts and an array of different to wait and see what owners rebuild and when and local people. Most New Orleans residents who need agencies with responsibility for the levees that are where, if at all. Flood insurance even with to be engaged in the planning process are scattered supposed to protect the city of New Orleans from federal coverage is expensive for modest income across forty-four U.S. States. This is not to say that floods. The local Emergency Management Agency groups who had little coverage. So recovery there are no efforts to reach ‘‘evacuees’’ as they are with the responsibility to plan and manage disasters will be very slow. being called. But replanning is not the highest priority for evacuees who have no jobs and no income other than a small stipend from the federal Loss component Gross industry loss range Notes government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has become the biggest obstacle to people 1st Landfall in Florida $1–2 billion Predominantly wind loss; ,$100 million returning with an on and off again approach and no from flood central directions. Over 22,000 people requested Offshore energy $2–5 billion Loss of production could be substantial, trailers on their homesites, but few trailers have $1–2 billion in platform losses been delivered because of bureaucratic red tape 2nd Landfall Wind and surge $20–25 billion Wind component approximately 2/3 of and inadequate infrastructure. It is difficult to plan total gross loss if you are not on or near the land. The mayor’s New Orleans flooding $15–25 billion Excludes expected losses of ;$10bn to commission proposed that the city be subdivided National Flood Insurance into small planning districts so that the planning Additional loss sources $2–3 billion Marine, aggravated fishing business and process will have some coherence and so that areas shipping losses, off premises power, that are not viable for physical or economic localized flooding recovery can be identified. The reaction to this Total estimated loss $40–60 billion sensible proposal is very negative on the part of local residents. First, they gear that the planners Source: Risk Management Solutions Inc., October 2005. will plan them out and not into their

a cry for a city: what is happening to new orleans 10 neighborhoods. There is good reason for this anything-goes logic does not govern the future of is already under way. Even flooded areas will be skepticism since the same commission has the city. Finally, each neighborhood has the valuable because they may become areas of announced the concept of shrinking the city—or opportunity to develop a real new neighborhood environmental restoration, and the government will code for reducing the low-income neighborhoods. that can withstand the ravages of the future. New pay handsomely for the new flood plains as parks or Orleans needs a building system that is based on open space. So, the speculators cannot lose. Some steel frame construction and composite materials to local planners, like me, have proposed a strong land What Kind of City? withstand termites, sun, and future flood damages. transfer moratorium until land use regulations are in The burning issue in New Orleans is not physical It is not too late to even think of raising areas of the place. This would be in the form of some kind of planning but social engineering. Both market and city using the rubble from the storm and other reverse mortgages operated by the state as loans to environmental rhetoric is being used to suggest materials like many European cities did after World locals based on the value of their home with the that the old residents should not return to the city. War II. Now is the time to think about bigger visions state holding title until the land uses are made clear Some political leaders are advancing the specious for New Orleans, not small ones as the mayor’s and then allowing sale or repayment of the logic that the low-income residents are better off in commission is proposing. There is nothing in the mortgage at low-interest rates. If the so-called free richer states.This almost sounds like the words used commission report about climate change and market prevails, the poor will as usual be the losers. to drive Native American from their lands on the building a better safer city to face these future For some, this is a good outcome. But this would be East Coast in the hope of starving them in the dangers. The report, led by real estate developers, truly sad for a city that has so much true cultural Western deserts. But no one is suggesting that proceeds not from grand vision but from the diversity even with its poverty. anyone who is higher up on the income ladder cheapest land use solutions. There is much to learn Even in this situation, I worked for several days should be relocated. In fact, extraordinary efforts from the Europeans in this regard and from the on two occasions at the invitation of the American have been taken to reopen the colleges and book Resilient Cities (Oxford University Press, Planning Association in one workshop and in universities but no efforts have been extended as of 2005) by Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. another workshop with local planners, architects, January 2006 to reopen hard-hit neighborhoods. Campanella in rebuilding New Orleans. and community leaders who spent their own money Another more profound issue for planners and Clearly, the lesson here for all cities is to have to come to sessions in Shreveport and in New architects is that, outside of the French Quarter, the a comprehensive regional plan and a regional Orleans to work on the city’s recovery. But how and Garden District, and a few select areas, New Orleans governance mechanism that can both respond to when any of these local planners will become and environs were a planning nightmare. The disaster like New York with the Regional Plan engaged in rebuilding their communities is very downtown was dilapidated and dying for years with Association and San Francisco with the Bay Area uncertain. In fact, many fear they will be displaced little new investment. Attempts at urban renewal in Council of Governments. In San Francisco and New by the outside pro bono and paid contract experts. the central core area have not been successful, and York local plans and planners were in place to Once money starts coming in, the outsiders will immigrant waves have not altered the shabby coordinate across the region to do the post-disaster become resident experts with the confidence of character of much of the city, unlike the immigrant- work the day after the emergency. local politicos, while the native planners will be induced revivals in the Bronx, Chicago, Los Angeles, literally on the outside. and many other places. Central New Orleans needs The mayor of New Orleans and Council architectural help. So, it is important for New members are making the rounds to see their far- Orleans to look at a much broader plan of recovery Where to from Here? flung constituents in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, focused on the total physical enhancements of the New Orleans will be rebuilt but for whom? Already, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, Nashville, Mem- central city, like Oakland and San Francisco did post speculators are offering to purchase land at any phis, and other places to urge them to return. But if the 1989 earthquake. location—flooded or dry—at handsome prices. they have to return to political chaos and a city they New Orleans has no architectural theme, so Low-income residents are tempted to sell at prices did not plan, they may find where they are to be where does one start? Furthermore, there is no they never expected for their land. They need the better choices. The city elections that have just urban design logic for New Orleans. Good land- money now to defray living expenses and to been held for mayor and council will have a dra- scape and urban design skills are needed now to perhaps even buy in their new displacement matic impact on what happens in the near term. But alter the nature of the recovery so that the same communities. As a result, the gentrification process the fragmentation these elections brought to the

11 blakely surface are deep, and it will take skillful politics to A Proposed Reconstruction Methodology 4. That the neighborhoods be environmentally and put this wrecked social and physical city back for New Orleans geographically as safe as possible from future together again. They may, like me, shed a few tears RICHARD CAMPANELLA floods, contaminants, and other threats. for the old New Orleans and play a little slow mournful jazz. The number of commissions, panels, symposia, Here it is. It is very clear that natural disasters and their and workshops convened recently to discuss the Step 1: Determine who wants to return and to consequences are escalating. We can debate the reconstruction of New Orleans is exceeded only where—Conduct a scientific survey of residents forces of climate change or other sources but we by the number of proposals offered on how to do (both returned and evacuated) regarding their should research and understand natural and other it. Should certain neighborhoods be demolished? intent to return and remain in New Orleans. Record risks. We have to realize that sea rises, floods, bush Should they be rebuilt? If so, how? What if residents the respondents’ pre-Katrina addresses, and map fires, and hailstorms are hazards to our want to return but engineers recommend against out the results by census tract. Code to red those communities. We can provide planning research on it? What if the housing stock is severely damaged, with return rates of less than 25 percent, yellow better risk assessment, and planning systems to but historically and architecturally significant? those with return rates of 25–50 percent, and reduce the consequence of disasters with new Every New Orleanian, from layperson to green those with return rates of 50–100 building design, street patterns, and other professional, has ideas on how to resolve these percent. mechanisms. Good planning and coordinated colossal problems. Most are well worth discussing, Step 2: Determine structural safety—Conduct governance are the best protection for an uncertain and many are downright compelling. What has been an engineering survey of all residential structures future. lacking is a sound methodology, through which regarding physical damage and salvageability, and We can apply any of these lessons to crafting these ideas may be passed, to ensure in a fair, map the results by census tract. Code to red those better and safer communities on the Gulf. We need consistent, and repeatable manner, that all with more than 75 percent condemnation rates, to prepare for climate change and other natural stakeholders and values weigh in toward making the yellow those with 50–75 percent condemnation, disasters here before it is too late and too best decisions and applying them to the right places. and green those with less than 50 percent expensive. As a geographer and long-time New Orleans condemnation. historical researcher, I offer the following Step 3: Determine historical/architectural Edward J. Blakely is a professor and Chair of Urban straightforward reconstruction methodology. It significance—Conduct a historical/architectural Planning and Policy at the University of Sydney. He does not address important engineering issues such survey of all structures, and map the results by is the former Chair of City and Regional Planning at as levee reinforcement, sea wall installation, canal census tract. Code to red those deemed to be the University of California at Berkeley, Dean of closures, or coastal restoration, but rather the historically/architecturally less significant, yellow Urban Planning at University of Southern mending of the city‘s urban fabric. The those deemed fairly significant, and green those California, and Dean of the Robert J. Milano methodology is based on one overriding deemed highly significant. Graduate School at the New School in New York. He principle—that the best decisions are based on Step 4: Determine environmental safety— led the Oakland, California, earthquake and fire solid, scientific data rather than emotions or Conduct a survey of elevation, vulnerability to recoveries, and was deeply involved with the politics—and tries to balance four fundamental flooding, subsidence, and environmental/human replanning of Ground Zero in New York City. He has (and sometimes conflicting) values: health conditions. Code to red those determined to been advising the New York State government on be well below sea level and highly vulnerable or 1. That all New Orleanians have the right to return to metropolitan planning. Prior to coming to contaminated, yellow those near sea level and their city, and if at all possible, to their neigh- Australia, he held academic and public post in somewhat vulnerable, and green those above sea borhoods and homes; several cities in the United States and coordinated level and relatively safe. 2. That homes be structurally safe to reinhabit; the New School University response to 9/11 in New Step 5: Tabulate data—Take the results from all 3. That the historical and architectural character of York. He has also been a U.S. Presidential four surveys and map out the patterns. Some areas the neighborhoods be maintained to the utmost appointee and advisor to metropolitan will be coded all or mostly green, some will be all degree possible; and governments around the world. or mostly red, and some will be mixed. Below are

a proposed reconstruction methodology for new orleans 12 a set of potential recommendations for the most For Those Tracts Coded ‘‘Yellow’’ or blocks or by the 70-odd official neighborhood likely combinations: ‘‘Green’’ in the Resident-Return Survey boundaries, rather than by census tracts. Certain But ‘‘Red’’ in All Other Surveys elements are admittedly subjective, time consuming, costly, susceptible to abuse, and overly d The neighborhood should be cleared and then simplistic. I offer this ‘‘road map’’ not as the For Those Tracts Coded ‘‘Green’’ in All rebuilt, simply because a significant number of methodology but merely in the hope of convincing Four Surveys residents demand it. the powers that be of the need for a methodology. d Experts and community representatives should d These are safe, historic areas to which residents meet and agree on new construction styles, Richard Campanella, a geographer and mapping want to return.They will rebound on their own.The designs, and typologies. scientist, is the author of Time and Place in New city should rezone certain blocks to allow for d All new structures should be raised on piers and Orleans: Past Geographies in the Present Day intensified residential development and accom- reinforced for maximum flood and wind protection. (2002) and New Orleans Then and Now (1999), modate a higher population density. Those few salvageable homes should be saved to both published by Pelican Publishing Company. His d ‘‘New Urbanism,’’ using traditional building styles preserve architecture representation. next book, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban and typologies (and recycled historical building d Old street networks and names should be main- Fabrics Before the Storm, will be released by the materials), and a healthy mix of modernism and tained in their entirety, but the lowest blocks Center for Louisiana Studies in 2006. new ideas should be encouraged to fill open lots should be reserved for green space and parks. and mend the historical urban fabric. d Historical structures from devastated areas should be moved here, whenever possible. Renewal Architecture d Residents should be involved in all zoning and MARK J. CLAYTON design decisions. For Those Tracts Coded ‘‘Yellow’’ or ‘‘Green’’ in the Architectural/Historical For many of us on the Gulf Coast, a sense of fore- Survey But ‘‘Red’’ in All Other Surveys boding pervaded the summer of 2005. Unusually For Those Tracts Coded ‘‘Red’’ in All high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico ini- Four Surveys d The neighborhood should be saved at all costs, tiated powerful hurricanes more than a month regardless of other factors. Historically and archi- earlier than normal. Hurricanes Dennis and Emily d These are dangerous, heavily damaged, nonhis- tecturally significant neighborhoods are absolutely hammered Florida and Cozumel. In Mexico City toric areas to which residents mostly do not want critical to maintaining the city’s character and during June, I expressed my anxiety in a to return. Sad as it is for those few who do, it is not tourism economy. Tax credits and other presentation focused on the future of worth the tremendous societal effort to rebuild in mechanisms should be established to encourage architecture. I used New Orleans as an example these unsafe areas. They should be bought out, restoration. of a city that could likely be destroyed by global cleared, and returned to forest to serve as (1) warming, not realizing that its destruction was flood-retention areas, (2) green space and wildlife Such a methodology offers numerous benefits. It merely ten weeks away. habitat, and (3) Katrina memorial parks. Some may respects and balances four fundamental values. It is When temperatures in some areas of the Gulf be used for appropriate commerce or industry, easily communicable to the public. It provides reached the point of hot bathwater, it was possibly as tax-free zones. a citable, accountable basis for difficult and impossible to ignore an increasing sense of doom. d Former residents of these areas who desire to controversial decisions. It relies on science and On August 25, Katrina became a category 1 hur- return should have ‘‘first crack’’ at renting or engineering but not at the expense of humanistic, ricane and struck south Florida, but as it slipped buying parcels in nearby areas. historical, and aesthetic values. The methodology’s past Miami into the Gulf of Mexico, the enormous d Selected houses that survived in reasonable con- details, percentages, and proposed but disorganized storm drew upon the warm dition should be moved to other areas to preserve recommendations are all subject to rigorous debate. waters to grow into one of the most powerful their place in the architectural record. Perhaps, the survey data should be aggregated by hurricanes of all time. Even before Katrina became

13 clayton a category five hurricane on August 28, the cities, taken for granted the infrastructure, clung convictions. Renewal Architecture builds on imminent destruction of New Orleans was pre- to unsustainable life patterns, and defiantly a foundation of valid and verifiable evidence. Kirk dictable. Although the hurricane swerved east challenged nature and science. Hamilton has elaborated ‘‘evidence-based before reaching the coast, reassuring some people Many of the problems of our nation are practice,’’ an exemplar for health facilities design.2 that New Orleans had dodged a bullet, the landfall architectural. We live in fantasy architecture, A practitioner who is committed to the cutting may merely have increased the impact of the believing that the moment is happily ever after.The edge of responsible design is compelled to base surge. The levees collapsed on August 29 leadership across the nation appears uniformly decisions on the careful review of literature, and the city flooded, devastating the homes and unable to grasp what is needed or to follow formulation of testable hypotheses regarding livelihoods of more than 400,000 people in a productive course. Business as usual, with design alternatives, valid measurement of the city and more than one million in other sweetheart contracts, heavy-handed undemocratic data regarding the design, and peer-reviewed communities. policies, and myopic, rose-colored visions of the publication of results. The solutions for New In comparison to previous seasons, the future cannot correct the mistakes nor can an Orleans must be grounded in science and fact, not hurricane season of 2005 caused more damage, embrace of escapist traditionalist rules. in fantasy or willfulness. lasted longer, and included more powerful storms. Architectural and planning ideals of neo-Victorian Second, Renewal Architecture is sustainable. Although there is debate among scientists whether ornament and recreationally oriented subdivisions Solutions must respect a ‘‘triple bottom line’’ of the season was a result of global warming, the trend are as much the problem as the solution. Needed is environmental, social, and economic viability. The is clearly toward more severe storms striking more a renewal of spirit, democratic zeal, and problem- New Orleans of the future must live harmoniously heavily populated areas of the Gulf Coast. That solving intellect that can rethink the patterns with the river and the Gulf; provide good homes, trend is consistent with predictions under global of our cities. schools, and opportunities for its inhabitants; and warming scenarios that warn of greater intensity of Michael Neuman, professor at Texas A&M command enough economic resources so that it can storms.1 Because of melting polar ice packs, University, coined a phrase ‘‘re-New Orleans’’ that defend itself from domination by faraway receding glaciers, and thermal expansion of oceans, has led to a moniker for a comprehensive way of governments and institutions. sea levels are likely to rise, compounding the addressing the design challenges of the Gulf Coast. Third, Renewal Architecture is comprehensive dangers. The renewal of New Orleans has been a catalyst for across scales. Renewing New Orleans requires us to Evacuation of the Gulf Coast is not an option formulating a more coherent set of principles for think about the individual as well as the community. without crippling the national economy. In 2003, what we profess both as teachers and as citizens. Security requires individuals to have working cell eight of the ten busiest ports in the United States Renewal Architecture is a way of thinking about our phones, buildings to provide shelter and services for import and export were on the Gulf Coast. homes, our cities, and our nations that synthesizes during storms, and neighborhoods to have Clearly, our nation, our leaders, and our architects a variety of potent ideas about the physical form of transportation that is needed for evacuation. The must find ways to renew the Gulf Coast region even our society. The concept is summarized by five architectural detailing must be adequate to in the face of the most powerful storms on earth. principles: withstand wind loads and resist moisture damage, Although the disasters of the hurricane while space planning should locate essential seasons of 2005 were long predicted, the d Scientific resources in flood-resistant positions. At the urban predictions were also long ignored. The flooding of d Sustainable scale, adequate levees are essential but New Orleans was inevitable for a city built largely d Comprehensive neighborhoods should be planned with full below sea level, protected by aging and inadequate d Holistic cognizance and public awareness of risks. At the levees and pumps, managed through nineteenth d Innovative regional scale, measures must be implemented to city political mechanisms, and suffused with conserve the wetlands that protect the urban a combination of optimism in engineering First, Renewal Architecture is scientific. settlements. There must also be constraint on the technology and a devil-may-care habit of living Architecture as a profession and discipline has long waste and pollution of the Mississippi River and the in the present. Sadly, the flooding of New Orleans avoided the adoption of rigorous methods of diversion of floodwaters downstream. Because is a metaphor for the decline of American culture analysis and hypothesis testing, too often hiding more than 41 percent of the contiguous United in general. As a society, we have neglected our behind manifestos of strongly held but shallow States drains into the Mississippi River, the stress

renewal architecture 14 on the South Louisiana environment can only be evacuation, and political leadership that is in many regards. Regional governance, for example, addressed at the national level. responsive to the needs of constituents. The city is highly fragmented, with each parish comprising Fourth, Renewal Architecture is holistic. It is needs residential neighborhoods that encourage the metropolitan area acting independently before concerned with the totality of people’s lives. community, tradition, and identity. It needs homes the hurricane, as well as for the rebuilding. The Healthy cities are those that encourage walking that can withstand the forces of hurricane and consequences are many. Due to the lack of and healthy personal practices. Extensive mass flood, while remaining affordable and attractive. It a comprehensive regional rebuilding strategy, many transit liberates us from the false freedom of the needs economic security, health care for all, equal people are leaving Orleans Parish to live in highways that strangle the city and raise the cost protection under the law, and a pollution-free Jefferson and St. Tammany Parishes, impoverishing of entry into markets and decrease economic environment. It needs a Renewal Architecture that the central parish, Orleans, in need of its tax opportunity. Local production of food and goods brings together principles of design, urban base. The absence of comprehensive regional empowers us to achieve prosperity, efficiency, planning, construction, sociology, psychology, law, management also takes a toll on one of the most and identity as well as local political control. political science, and other fields into a gumbo that crucial tasks facing the area: flood control. Within Renewal Architecture is an understanding is better than anything ever built before. New Orleans, fragmentation of the rebuilding that our built environment largely determines the process leads to unproductive competition among patterns of our lives. Careful design can Dr. Mark J. Clayton is an associate professor at the the neighborhoods within the central city. eliminate pollution, reduce poverty, invigorate Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University. Moreover, there seems to be no collaboration home life, make work life more productive, He serves as executive associate dean and director between the rebuilding teams created by different enrich school life, improve our health, and of graduate studies. levels of government: Louisiana Recovery Authority reduce crime. launched by Governor Blanco in October 2005, the Fifth, Renewal Architecture is aligned with Notes Bring New Orleans Back Commission appointed by technological innovation. It does not seek to 1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘‘Summary for policy Mayer Nagin in October 2005, and, lately, the city makers,’’ in J. J. McCarthy, O. F.Canziani, N. A. Leary, D. J. Dokken, and K. S. preserve outdated forms and traditional ways of White, eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. council planning team.The Bring New Orleans Back building. Instead, it is constantly searching for better Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Commission gave a deadline of May 20, 2006, for materials, better processes, and better business Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, UK, and New each neighborhood group to submit a rebuilding relationships. Supply chain management, alternative York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 1–18. plan. These groups have to show who can and/or 2. K. Hamilton, ‘‘The Four Levels of Evidence-based Practice,’’ Health- delivery systems, and computer-aided fabrication care Design 3 (November 2003): 18–26. wants to come back and how they envision the are integral to the architectural solutions for the Gulf rebuilding of their neighborhoods. The task is Coast. Renewal Architecture is high tech, digital, a major challenge as many residents are unable to futuristic, cutting edge, and modern. return to their communities.The difficult question is Renewal Architecture is offered as Washed Away by Hurricane Katrina? how to rebuild a city in a sustainable way when the a complement and a refinement to New Urbanism. ISABELLE MARET fragmentation of its governance and its New Urbanism has received much attention as vulnerability to risks are so high. How to respond a theory that can contribute to the reconstruction Many people knew that a strong hurricane could to a major disaster and include the needs of the of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities. lead to catastrophic flooding in New Orleans. different citizens of the city, especially if they are Although New Urbanism has evolved from its Nevertheless, Hurricane Katrina showed that the not there to speak for themselves? City leaders will original planning rulebooks for neotraditionalist responsible authorities were woefully unprepared need to learn how to include these displaced coastal resort communities, it still conveys an for such an outcome. New Orleans is now facing citizens into the rebuilding process. allegiance to nostalgia and historic precedents. a major crisis, as 80 percent of the city was flooded Yet, despite the difficulties, New Orleanians Renewal Architecture, in contrast, is based on a firm for several days to several weeks. Because of this, are showing a strong attachment to their culture commitment to innovation, technology, and many of its residents are still displaced throughout and the importance of its preservation in these change. the United States. difficult times. Mardi Gras, music festivals, and the New Orleans needs new levees, better public Hurricane Katrina also cast light on the limits early return of the city‘s most celebrated local schools, a transportation network that enables of a disjointed system. New Orleans is fragmented restaurants all indicate the strength and spirit of the

15 maret people able to return.The culture of New Orleans is aware of the flooding that was possible. Just one 2. Resilient residents living in trailers while rebuilding their homes. (Photo by the author.) unique. It is a mix of ancient heritage with layers week before the hurricane, we had asked for a flood and adaptations added by successive generations, elevation survey to be able to get a sewage permit resulting in a singularly beautiful cultural mosaic of for the bathroom we were building in our new elements. Hurricane Katrina destroyed buildings— backyard cottage. The result was most interesting: though not in the city’s historic core—and the line was drawn at six feet off the ground for the displaced hundreds of thousands of people, but it cottage, and thus 4 feet for the house that is on cannot wipe out the memories and spirit of the higher ground. When you look at the water line on citizens. It is necessary to enable every citizen to my house and the state of the furniture in come back to this exceptional city if they so desire. my living room, it is clear that even the city’s Seven months after the hurricane, there is permitting office had no idea of the flooding a great need for housing to facilitate the rebuilding. possible. Our damage assessment report states If not for blue roofs or the scattered carcasses of that the estimated flood depth was 9.5 feet homes damaged by fire, the Garden District and of water after Katrina—and the water stayed many parts of uptown are the only neighborhoods eighteen days! 3. Raised house in Gentilly. (Photo by the author.) that present the appearance of normalcy. The same Imagine miles of blocks with empty houses like goes for the French Quarter, Algiers Point (on the mine. However, even here, I observe some signs of west bank of the river), the Faubourg Marigny, and the urban revival. A handful of trailers (Figure 2), Esplanade Ridge. These neighborhoods may slowly appearing in families’ front yards, illustrates actually have a higher density than before the the return of the most resilient residents. The storm—as traffic seems to indicate—because neighborhood planning initiatives are strong. While family ties, solidarity, or survivor’s guilt have led living out of state for four months after the many residents to take into their homes people hurricane, I was able to stay in contact with my from the hard-hit areas. neighbors via the Internet. We were constantly My middle-class neighborhood of Gentilly, on being updated on the new requirements needed by the other hand, presents a more forlorn image. the city, the new permits necessary, the grant Most houses are still standing, but they have the possibilities, and the trailer process. community networks.They have to learn to adapt to common telltale tattoo line, a lingering evidence of New Orleans residents are resilient. Families major changes and the new architectural paradigms the long-standing floodwaters (Figure 1a, b). No have lived in their neighborhoods for generations, that are emerging. With no real guidance on one in my neighborhood, including my family, was and they intend to come back to try to rebuild their rebuilding requirements months after the hurricane, families in love with their neighborhoods have been taking the lead. The belief at that time 1 (a and b). Author’s house in the neighborhood of Gentilly. (Photo by the author.) was that each house that was declared more than 50 percent flooded after Hurricane Katrina needed to be elevated higher than the flood level: Figure 3 shows one of the first houses raised in Gentilly, standing 12 feet above the ground, a possible precedent of the future design of the neighborhood. Is this new style attractive and inviting—or is it ugly? Gentilliens will respond: at least it is dry! Our damage report states that our house has been 53.13 percent damaged. We could dispute

washed away by hurricane katrina? 16 the damage assessment, try to get a damage 4. Destroyed houses in Ninth Ward. (Photo by the author.) also we have to take into account the land assessment of 49.9 percent, and be able to rebuild subsidence and the crucial need to rebuild barrier as is. The Federal Emergency Management Agency islands, marshes, and coastal wetlands. The safety rules for rebuilding were presented on April 12, of our region is more complex than it seems and the 2006. The recommendations affirm that the most city’s rebuilt landscape needs to recognize its damaged homes should be on piers at least three dependence on surrounding sustainable wetlands feet above the ground or meet the base flood and coastal habitats. Creative environmental elevation requirements, which are surprisingly the thinking needs to be a key element in any same as before the hurricane for areas inside the comprehensive plan to rebuild this important levees. These standards are based on the dream of region. an efficient improved levee system by the next hurricane season. In the lowest lying areas, such as Isabelle Maret is a French national who teaches Gentilly, houses would have to be elevated up to planning at the University of New Orleans. She eleven feet.The recommendations are still advisory, more severe here than in Gentilly. Surging water specializes in geographic information systems and and homeowners do not have to comply at this through the massive breach in the Industrial Canal sustainable development and is currently working point. Interestingly, many neighbors are choosing totally obliterated some of the structures. Houses with a grant from the French government to to build even higher, up to twelve feet to be safe; not reduced to splinters were swept off their help the rebuilding process in the city of New others want to rebuild as is and try to dispute their foundations, borne by the water and dropped in Orleans. damage assessment. Homeowners can get up to the middle of streets, atop cars, in canals, or piled $30,000 grants to raise their house from a federal onto other houses (Figure 4). The rebuilding program. For wood frame houses, this amount challenges and efforts in the Ninth Ward The Trailerization of New Orleans is adequate but, unfortunately, it costs from neighborhood are plenty, and it will take time to GREG BARTON $50,000 to $75,000 to raise a slab-on-grade house recreate a sustainable community, especially since so those residents may need to reconsider if they most residents are still residing in other cities or Photo-Essay Annotation want to rebuild. In all cases, the cost of Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer Born in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal rebuilding these ‘‘Katrina houses’’ is very high and parks. Eastern New Orleans and Chalmette are Emergency Management Agency trailer has many are still wondering what to do: raise the house, other examples of neighborhoods challenged by emerged as a new typology. This insertion into the build a second floor, tear down and rebuild higher, or the overwhelming amount of work, energy, and New Orleans landscape has produced countless relocate. Homeowner insurance companies are government intervention required to make them ‘‘moments’’ and iterations of the house-to-trailer raising their prices, and many do not want livable again. relationship. For example, in some neighborhoods, to insure new contracts within Orleans Parish. The real beauty of New Orleans is in its culture the placement of the trailer perfectly mimics the As a faculty member in the College of Urban and tradition that make neighborhoods strong and traditional single shotgun house, while in and Public Affairs of the University of New Orleans, resilient. The visual urban landscape will be even others, it creates dynamic gestures through its I have been taking part in the planning process of more unique after Katrina, given the housing diagonal positioning. The introduction of an this community with my colleagues. Gentilly is a adaptations necessitated by federal mandate, estimated 30,000 trailers into the New neighborhood that lies south of the university’s private insurance companies, and the need for Orleans fabric will force the city and its campus, and we are working with the Gentilly Civic residents to feel safe. Federal Emergency residents to reexamine the definition of the Improvement Association to build a comprehensive Management Agency’s rebuilding requirements vernacular. rebuilding effort by providing data, creating released in April 2006 depend on an efficient levee surveys, and making recommendations that include system, which might not be completed before Greg Barton is a second year architecture student at citizens’ input. 2010.The Army Corps of Engineers has to take into Tulane University, where he is completing research Other areas, notably the Lower Ninth Ward, account many factors in their equation. Not only do in Professor Stephen Verderber’s Social are not at that stage. Granted, the damage was far we need a comprehensive regional levee system but Responsibility class.

17 barton as Mostar; and cities overrun and ruined, such as a paradigmatically American variety of urbicide, Vukovar.1 The genealogy of the term reaches back a form of urban destruction that occurs through the to the late 1960s in North America, when it referred confluence of racial segregation, structural to modernist urban renewal schemes initiated by impoverishment, urban disinvestment, and the razing of historic cityscapes.2 Resuscitated in natural hazard. the context of post-Yugoslavia‘s violent conflicts, In contemporary public discourse, both within however, the destruction signified by urbicide rad- and beyond North America, representations of ically expanded. Against the idea that post- disasters typically rely upon and reproduce two Yugoslav cities were destroyed because of military profound social imaginaries: first, the city imagined necessity or through collateral damage, urbicide as a stable site of safety and order, and second, the posed the target of destruction as the city itself— disaster imagined as an unpredictable situation of as an ensemble of architecture, a community of chaos. Laminated together in the discursive citizens, a medium of collective memory, or even representation of a disaster, the disaster is staged the site of civilization as such. as an exceptional event, an event that interrupts, The concept of urbicide provided a new category to disturbs, and damages an otherwise-secure urban conceive of political violence, a violence that could status quo. be framed as at once urban, deliberate, and ille- The imagination of the city as a site of order gitimate. Thus, urbicide has increasingly been used and safety is one of the most well-established to recategorize urban violence, especially violence tropes of Western urbanism. From Max Weber’s carried out by states as a component of counter- notion of the city as the origin-place and site of insurgency campaigns or the ‘‘war on terror,’’ such ‘‘civilization,’’ through the Chicago School‘s still- as, for example, the Israeli Defense Force’s assault referenced geography of ‘‘urban heterogeneity,’’ to on the West Bank city of Jenin or the U.S. Marines‘ Jane Jacobs’ celebration of urban vitality, the city is assault on Fallujah.3 Defined as urbicide, the inju- typically conceived as a refuge from the force of ries, deaths, and destruction in these assaults are nature, the violence of war, and the threat of the deemed to be drastically disproportionate to their barbaric. In its normal, ordinary, everyday state, the stated aims and to comprise violence inflicted not city is understood to offer protection, to provide on explicitly defined enemies, but on a city and its order, and to produce culture, with ‘‘culture’’ here citizenry. conceived in its most anodyne version as elevated The so-called natural disasters, it may seem, collective achievement. are far from urbicides. Though both yield urban The disaster, by contrast, is an event that destruction, the destruction of the disaster seems seems to render the city’s protection inadequate, to be unplanned and accidental, caused primarily or its order precarious, and its culture fragile. Disasters only by natural forces, while the destruction of seem to appear more or less unpredictably; the urbicide is planned and deliberate, aimed precisely effects of disasters seem to defy planning and at the violent transformation of the city. In what preparation, and the victims of disasters often seem American Urbicide follows, I want to challenge the conventional to be random and innocent. ‘‘Everyday life and ANDREW HERSCHER understanding of the disaster and to reflect upon disaster are treated as opposites,’’ Kenneth Hewitt the way that the effects of ‘‘natural disasters’’ such observes. ‘‘The ongoing conditions that provide the In the mid-1990s, the term ‘‘urbicide’’ began to as Katrina are mediated by public policy and setting for disaster are inferred to be ‘stable’, circulate in accounts of the destruction of cities in social ideology. In so doing, I will pose the ‘orderly’, ‘and predictable’, or at least sufficiently the former Yugoslavia: cities under relentless siege, destruction that Katrina precipitated as both a so to be called ‘managed’ and even ‘planned.’ ’’4 such as Sarajevo; cities divided by a front line, such component of and a conceptual frame for These ‘‘ongoing conditions’’ are both located

american urbicide 18 within and produced by cities; as a collective home, disaster, then, Oliver-Smith defines the disaster as level, the Interstate Highway Act facilitated the the city appears to offer both a minimization of risk a product of otherwise-hidden social growth of suburbs, the accompanying white flight and a maximization of security. contradictions: ‘‘contradictions in social relations from city centers, and the corresponding decline of So-called natural disasters thus seem to are expressed through material practices as inner cities; through the 1950s, the Federal disorder, disturb, and disrupt the sites on which contradictions within the environment. Disasters Housing Administration red-lined inner city they intrude. ‘‘A juxtaposition of the violence and are perhaps the most graphic expression of these minority neighborhoods, intensifying their decline; disorder of nature with the order of human culture contradictions.’’8 Framed as such, the disaster can and federal public housing policies have furthered and civilization,’’ writes Anthony Oliver-Smith, be read anew, no longer as the destruction of the the concentration of poverty by siting public leads to the representation of disasters ‘‘as urban status quo but as the exposure of an urban housing in already-impoverished neighborhoods. disorder, as interruptions or violations of order, by status quo that is itself destructive—that is, in On a municipal level, suburbanization a natural world that is at odds with a human other words, urbicidal. rendered New Orleans one of the most segregated world.5’’ Hewitt describes the result as ‘‘an The destruction wrought in New Orleans after cities in the United States, and, against national archipelago of isolated misfortunes. Each is seen as Katrina is a case in point. This destruction has trends, the city’s segregation actually intensified a localized disorganization of space, projected upon sponsored debate on such topics as the past and over the past twenty years.11 Given that poverty the extensive map of human geography in a more future adequacy of New Orleans’ protection from was concentrated in the city‘s African American or less random way due to independent events in hurricanes and other environmental hazards. Such population, the segregation of this population the geophysical realms of atmosphere, hydrosphere debates assume, however, that Katrina was an rendered many neighborhoods in New Orleans and lithosphere.’’6 ‘‘equal opportunity disaster,’’ a disaster whose ‘‘extreme poverty communities’’ where at least 40 Representations of disaster thereby confirm destruction was determined only by the force and percent of the residents have family incomes below both the potential security of the city and the power of nature. But counterreadings of New the national poverty threshold.12 Comparatively, absolute exceptionality of the disaster. What we Orleans’ destruction have seen in that destruction New Orleans ranked second among large U.S. cities appear to be witnessing in these representations real contradictions in social relations—the in the amount of its population living in such are cracks and fissures in the city‘s otherwise parceling out of urban security and safety according communities; one of four neighborhoods in the city, managed space of control and regime of order: to class position and racial identity, and the home to nearly 100,000 citizens, comprised an something gone very wrong and so something concomitant inequitable distribution of extreme poverty community at the time Katrina capable of correction and elimination. The staging vulnerability to natural hazard.9 struck. of the disaster as an interruption of the secure and As many accounts have made clear, Katrina’s At the same time as New Orleans’ most ordered urban status quo confirms that status impact was shaped by the extreme poverty of the impoverished citizens were concentrated in quo as secure and ordered—a confirmation that Gulf States in general and New Orleans in neighborhoods cut off from economic fundamentally circumscribes our ability to particular, a poverty that was itself concentrated in development, educational opportunity, and social understand what, where, and when a disaster is. African American communities. Flooded areas of entitlement, neoliberal urban disinvestment led the Allen Feldman thus describes prescribed forms of New Orleans contained 80 percent of the city‘s infrastructure protecting these neighborhoods to representing and remembering disasters as the African American population and only 54 percent of be underserviced and neglected. Levee raising and ‘‘suture (of) an existential wound with a logos that its white population, while the average household other flood control work in New Orleans, begun in forges an interventionist memory, a memory that income in flooded areas was $17,000 less than in 1965 and funded by the federal budget, was both shows, screens and eliminates, and thereby the rest of the city.10 The concentration and inhibited by reductions in the budget of the Army denies disaster itself as open-ended historical segregation of poverty in New Orleans, however, Corps of Engineers and finally stopped in 2001 experience.’’7 were not a result of either individual decisions or before this work was completed according to As ‘‘open-ended historical experience,’’ the relative poverty of the city and state; rather, it project specifications.13 At the same time, the however, the disaster allows for, and even prompts, was the result of long-standing national and erosion of the Gulf Coast was intensified by the emergence of new mediations, new ways of municipal policies and politics that served to development, such as canals for ship traffic and oil seeing, and new processes of social self-formation. racialize poverty and to confine the poor to exploration and the conversion of wetlands into Against the conventional exceptionalization of the underdeveloped inner-city locales. On a national agricultural, industrial, and residential fastlands.14

19 herscher This development, facilitated by federal policy, was shaped by political decisions and social Chicago Press, 1987), and Paul Jargowsky, Poverty and Place: Ghettos, served to diminish the coastal wetlands that ideologies. It demonstrates that the effects of Barrios, and the American City (New York: Sage, 1997). 13. Sheila Grissett, ‘‘Shifting Federal Budget Erodes Protection from furnished New Orleans with crucial buffers against urban violence include not only damaged and Levees; Because of Cuts, Hurricane Risk Grows,’’ Times-Picayune (June 8, storm surges and hurricane winds. destroyed buildings but also social vulnerability to 2004). In short, Katrina’s ruination exposed such hazard, both cultural and natural. It demonstrates 14. Louisiana Coastal Conservation and Restoration Task Force and the that the instruments of urbicide include not only Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Authority, Coast 2050: Towards phenomena as the systematic disenfranchisement a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Department of of New Orleans’ poor and African American procedures for destroying cities but also procedures Natural Resources, 1998). citizens, the destruction of urban social services, for producing cities, cities where safety, security, and the neglect of municipal infrastructure. These and protection are allocated as commodities and phenomena, each a product of an eviscerated entitlements. To Live or Die in New Orleans public sector‘s lack of capacity for responding to AKEL ISMAIL KAHERA social need and social suffering, were components Andrew Herscher is an assistant professor at the of a chronic urban disaster. To the extent that University of Michigan in the Taubman College of The powers that be are attempting to create disasters are represented and understood only as Architecture and Urban Planning, the Department a [new city] from above. punctual events interrupting urban regimes of of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the The state has always had its [architect] who stability and order: however, the possibility of Department of Art History. paints on demand. comprehending such a chronic disaster is excluded; the exceptional disaster, that is, displaces the El Lissitzky, 1925 chronic disaster that we usually regard to be hardly Notes 1. ‘‘Mostar ’92—Urbicide,’’ Spazio e Societa` 16:62 (1993): 8–25; In light of today‘s hyperrationalist perspective disastrous, if we regard it at all. Association of Architects Das-Sabih, Sarajevo-Urbicide (Bordeaux: Arc en To perceive the chronic disaster that defined Reve Centre d‘Architecture, 1994); Bogdan Bogdanovic, Grad i Smrt about the praxis of architecture, educators, urban life for many of New Orleans’ citizens is to (Belgrade: Beogradski krug, 1994). practitioners, and students alike remain confused perceive these citizens as pre-Katrina survivors— 2. See, for example, Ada Louise Huxtable, Will They Ever Finish Bruckner and troubled about ways to address urban Boulevard? A Primer on Urbicide (New York: Collier Books, 1972). survivors of long-term structural and everyday 3. Stephen Graham, ‘‘Lessons in Urbicide,’’ New Left Review 19 dilemmas, not withstanding a major environmental violence whose effects were just as pernicious, if (January–February, 2003): 63–78; Stephen Graham, ‘‘Remember Fallujah: disaster. The destruction of New Orleans and the less immediately visible, than that of the hurricane Demonising Place, Constructing Atrocity,’’ Environment and Planning D: Gulf Coast emphasizes once again the difficulty of Society and Space 23,1 (2005): 1–10. deciphering the efficacy of architecture and itself. This chronic disaster was the crucial 4. Kenneth Hewitt, ‘‘The Idea of Calamity in a Technocratic Age,’’ in mediation of Katrina’s effects, a mediation that Kenneth Hewitt, ed., Interpretations of Calamity: From the Viewpoint of urbanism. determined what those effects would be and upon Human Ecology (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 21. The significant power imbalances among the whom they would be inflicted. Katrina‘s effects, 5. Anthony Oliver-Smith, ‘‘Theorizing Disasters: Nature, Power, and many ‘‘actors,’’ together with local politicians, the Culture,’’ in Susanna M. Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith, eds., that is, were but the last and most visible traces of Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (Santa Fe: School state, federal government, and corporations a chronic disaster, an urbicide fabricated not by of American Research Press, 1999), p. 31. bidding to profit from the reconstruction campaign, military action but by policy and ideology. 6. Hewitt, 12–13. may lead to architectural firms sponsoring solutions What does it mean to include New Orleans 7. Allen Feldman, ‘‘Ground Zero Point One: On the Cinematics of His- that are counterproductive to the interest of the tory,’’ Social Analysis 46,1 (2002): 112. among the list of cities in the global atlas of 8. Oliver-Smith, 36. people. urbicide? It demonstrates that everyday life in New 9. See, for example, James Carroll, ‘‘Katrina’s Truths,’’ http:// On the other hand, if architecture is viewed as Orleans before Katrina was, for many citizens, www.commondreams.org/views05/0905-26.htm. a vehicle for ‘‘social construction’’ rather than an 10. See Alan Berube and Bruce Katz, ‘‘Katrina‘s Window: Confronting elitist aesthetic solution to the problem, two evils already marked by violence—a violence that Concentrated Poverty Across America,’’ Brookings Institution, October confined the majority of the city’s poor and African 2005, http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20051012_concentra- must be confronted: first, the proliferation of American citizens to neighborhoods of extreme tedpoverty.htm. postmodern ideas that have transformed our poverty. It demonstrates that the injury and 11. ‘‘Who Are Katrina’s Victims?,’’ Center for American Progress, http:// sensory perceptions concerning both the meaning www.americanprogress.org (accessed September 6, 2005). destruction wreaked by Katrina were not the 12. On this dynamic, see William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: and the value of human existence; and second, the result of a natural disaster, but rather a disaster that The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: University of virtual design media, which supersedes primary

to live or die in new orleans 20 forms of design communication. This means we reflective of a particular community, we can help and new meanings; yet, we are forced to question must talk to and listen to the people on the ground, depoliticize the issue on behalf of the people. the built environment. We should question honestly and this must include the old, the young, the poor, And so the question remains, is it possible that the value placed on the rich traditions and history and the disenfranchised. And while we cannot architects and planners can resist the temptation to of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the way forget about technology, the many kinds of be purists and absolutists while opposing ideas that people live or die in distressed places. New ubiquitous images that are easily downloaded are conveyed in such circles? In other words, can we Urbanism has brought to our attention a sense and digested can lead to more visual disorder establish a ‘‘counterspace,’’ an edifice and a master that uncontrollable rapid change is occurring in and a distorted sense of reality. plan endowed directly or indirectly with a set of a manner that is no longer prohibited by slow As a teacher and a practitioner, I often ask cultural values? Still, in order to do so, we must ask accretion and we have undoubtedly come to myself a crucial question: Are architects deaf, a crucial question: What does it mean to actually recognize the shortcomings of technology. Yet, dumb, and blind? Is it too late for us to promote live day to day in a community? Since meaning is the altering of space under the New Urbanism solutions that clearly challenge economic forces dependent on context, visual expressions of land manifesto serves a largely secular fulfillment for and the building industry? Those questions use and the way it is read by the public are deeply a particular class and income bracket. How many lead me to an even bigger question when pondering embedded in the identity of a community. Identity people can afford to live in places with names like how to rebuild New Orleans. Can we realize is not merely the drawing of boundary lines; ‘‘celebration’’ or ‘‘seaside’’? The dichotomies of once again that the mission of architecture is identity, I want to insist, is based on the human race, class, and gender, which persist in service to community and society for the realm, everyday practices, which are often communities throughout America today, must be benefit of the people we saw on CNN in the problematic, disturbed, interrupted, and even dealt with in order to avoid a new brand of aftermath of Katrina? contested. The failure of architecture and urbanism ‘‘environmental racism.’’ The most urgent of these These people were begging for help, but then to respond to the human realm and everyday life problems is the question of public housing. It is again they were begging for help way before can result in the displacement and disorientation of easy to forget that the way we live has been a major Katrina. For obvious reasons, the following people. And as such, architecture and urbanism factor in the organizing of human space, either statistics paint a sobering story of the people who have a didactic role in responding to the problem of through communal agreement, human are in need of the very service I suggest. Surely, we reconstruction; it is not merely how to take an idea commitment, or the spoken word. Katrina are prepared to recognize that one in one hundred to form. Here, again we may question the extent to demonstrated, through its own impact, a reality households in the most affected areas did not have which an architectural firm controls the final about life and death beyond the mere utterance of hot and cold water, a shower or bath, or an indoor product and the extent to which those forms the words itself, inasmuch as political solutions to toilet. A similar condition is reflected in one of the engage in a viable process of cultural the disaster will always be suspect because such worst-hit neighborhoods in the heart of New production. programs usually support business interests for Orleans, where the median household income was Achieving this purpose will require a dissent reasons that have nothing to do with the people less than $7,500. Likewise, nearly three of every from postmodernity and a return to the debate who have suffered most. Architectural solutions four residents existed below the poverty line, and about place making. In other words, there are no may also remain suspect, given the influence of big barely one in three people had a car. forms of cultural production that exist outside of business, because the architect may be the weakest Katrina has forced us to ask a critical question: politics or economy and indeed outside of everyday among the actors—ready to create on demand. For how will we respond? Undoubtedly, the raison meaning.The postmodern mind has failed to realize architecture to be completely successful, it must be d’etre, the building process, the choice of building this fact because it has no clear focus that leads to environmentally correct and we must not forget the materials, and the resulting aesthetic image are part an informed understanding of people and the people, ‘‘we are the people.’’ of a web of relationships centered around the forces environment. It is for this reason that we must study of sustainability. But again, let us not forget the the many ways architecture can enhance ecological Akel Ismail Kahera, PhD, is an associate professor people of the Ninth Ward and the other devastated equilibrium to avoid disruption of the natural of Architecture and Community Development, areas. Will they have a voice? Will architecture environment. Prairie View A&M University, and the author of remain ignorant of that reality in the interest of Postmodernity, structuralism, and Deconstructing the American Mosque: Space, profit? By deciding to make decisions that are poststructuralism have provoked new definitions Gender and Aesthetics.

21 kahera The Katrina Solution: Force or Formula? hundreds and destroying vast areas, including its Citizen Architect: An Educator’s CARMINA SANCHEZ and VIRGINIA PRICE remaining affluent residential districts. The disaster Response to Crisis accelerated the exodus from the city to the new ROBERT R. BELL JR In a Lebbeus Woods world, the new architecture suburbs, of those with good jobs and middle-class would not deny the violence wreaked by Hurricane lifestyles. The city effectively began its bifurcation, I am old enough to have seen the whole of New Katrina. We would stare aghast at the artistry which has reigned over its sense of self well into the Orleans, taking in the Creole nature of the different constructed on every street corner, inspired by natural twenty-first century: a middle class that would not districts, but I have not. I am old enough to have force and unnatural opportunity. The devastation of live there and a poor class that cannot get out of seen the view from the 110th floor of the World the gods and the advantage of man would be equally there. New Orleans faces the inverse—an outside Trade Center towers, looking over the entirety of evident, like a stripped, then ripped Las Vegas. Nature wealthier class able to invest and rebuild on land the architecture that makes up Manhattan, but I would remain decimated, oiled, and toxic; yet, allowed laid vacant; a working and poor citizenry ignored have not. And I never will. to regenerate its own select green spaces over time, during reconsideration and reconstruction. Change is an inevitable part of life. We hear it akindofwispofhopeinafieldofdespairor Woods’ violent perspective opens the ruins to in cliche´ proverbs. We see it in the development of a statement of tolerated difference. all. Those who see the city as virgin land ripe for our neighborhoods. We know it by new technology Instead, they will create place-making master speculation will seize the opportunity to remove the we are forced to learn. Even though the computer plans for imagineered districts, sprout greenscapes, waste and dust its carpet. They will build pristine on which I write this essay is beginning to feel and propose pedestrian-friendly dreams quaint neighborhoods unabashed about their outdated at a young age of two years, change has unauthored by the diaspora that tried in vain to histories.The new will be the paradigm, and the old always seemed incremental. The small things like walk over a bridge or along an interstate. But can strangers in their own home. Whose memories will phone technology change swiftly, and we expect the new really restore the old? Can a city effectively shed light on the past? Whose ancestors will be a new toy every holiday shopping season. But these be rebuilt using only a shallow layering of a less remembered? Whose dreams are reconstructed? are small things we can hold. We may not be diverse human strata? Is not that, at best, merely In theory (and hopefully never practice), the proficient in their use, but there is a scale to them a single community with a gate? Do not the cities neutron bomb kills all life while keeping the city that allows us a perception of control. Larger scale we relish comprise onerous oppositions and intact for the enemy. Katrina destroyed parts of the changes like development move slowly through dynamic differences? Is it a city without the city but left the fortitude of its survivors. A city their processes of discussion, planning, design, clustering of rich and poor, normative and eclectic, abandoned loses its soul, it becomes relic. On the permitting, and construction. As we move through doers and followers, blue and red bloods, and alien contrary, a wandering community makes its city our daily routines, we experience the changes on and ancient forms? Would a wealthy be able to bask wherever it stops. The displaced people of New the land. Our bodies have a relationship to change fully in its charming sense of power without a poor Orleans must come back to rebuild or their city will that we have become accustomed to. Recent to observe and serve it? It is doubtful. be no longer. Even so, it will be a different place history has destabilized that relationship. A requisite in the definition of truly great cities sensitive to its weaknesses and consumed by its Our lexicon for change has been edited to is the depth and breadth of its range of peoples, uncertain future. Yet, a formulaic reconstruction include abrupt change on a massive scale. Icons can existences, efforts, and ideas. Clean up the may breed a Katrina of a different sort. When some be felled, neighborhoods flooded, and cities swept messiness, and there will no longer be a vibrant city. filter back, as they must, the design flaws of away, all before we have the ability to respond ... It is swapped for a bland landscape consecrated by a complete plan will be glaringly evident. or understand. We often look at our students as its contagious shopping mall of pods and pads and marshaling in a new paradigm. However, as an its eerily coifed sidewalk cafes for the perfectly Dr Carmina Sanchez is a registered architect and an architect and an educator I have seen how students staged stroll into the sanitized city. associate professor at Hampton University in are struggling with how to respond to this change. I In 1896, a cyclone of monumental proportions Hampton, Virginia. Virginia Price is a registered have seen the mix of desire, empathy, confusion, ripped through the city of St. Louis, killing architect in Missouri. and of being overwhelmed. I found a gap between

citizen architect: an educator‘s response to crisis 22 knowing and understanding. Knowing something Robert R. Bell Jr teaches in the Department of There are precedents worth recognizing. has changed, but not understanding what this Architecture & Interior Design and the School of Japanese villages on the island of Shikoku have change means to them personally for their career or Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University in survived centuries of typhoons. The Netherlands for their generation. I sensed that the students Oxford, Ohio. would not exist without the determination and especially needed time to figure it out and to effort of the Dutch. Walled cities from Europe to understand the changes taking place. China were built for protection and control. In many I taught a seven-week one credit hour course Survival City ways, the conditions of New Orleans are unique. We on Hurricane Katrina to students from throughout GUNTIS PLESUMS can learn from the past and discover ways to sustain the university across disciplines. The course a city. looked at culture, racism, historic government No vision of a plausible city is able to compete with Cities were established and grew as centers of responses to disaster, media coverage, the weather the fabled mythical past—the Tower of Babel, the administration and control, production and trade, event, and plans for reconstruction. I had never hanging gardens of Babylon, cities along the Silk transportation nodes or pilgrimage destinations, been to the area. I had never done relief work. As an Road .... A city designed to survive a disaster will fortresses and defensible outposts, and enclaves of educator, I knew the initial conversations of the give form to a city at the beginning of the learning and enlightenment. Some cities were issues people began informally with friends and third millennium. Natural and man-caused deliberately laid out based on sacred symbolism, family needed to be continued. As an architect, I disasters have destroyed cities and civilizations while others emerged due to discoveries of natural knew how to design the course. An architect throughout history—Mycenae, Alexandria, resources.The city is the ultimate human product— facilitates, so I facilitated the conversation, Dresden, Hiroshima .... Global warming and the the setting for intellectual stimulation, excitement, developing the issues that needed to be addressed, resultant climate change, melting of the polar and opportunity, including profit. It is a place for bringing in ‘‘consultants’’ in the form of other icecaps and glaciers, bring unpredictable betterment and livelihood and also a work of art. faculty and relief workers to address the topics in consequences. Must Boston and all coastal cities This we know. which I was not qualified. I believe it is our duty as build sea walls? Can Beijing stop the encroaching A great many other cities were built in educators to allow students to understand their dunes? Can the rebuilt New Orleans wards live with vulnerable places or reclaimed from the sea, such as world from an experienced perspective. As hurricanes? St. Petersburg, Venice, Amsterdam, and much of architects, we can take on many roles to this end. Paralyzed we watch continuous news reports, Hong Kong, to name the most obvious. Now we are There is a calling I hear. As an architect, as an engage in investigations yet ignore confronted with a building and planning problem American, as a father, as a son, and as a husband, recommendations, and most likely stick to on a scale quite different from that of the medieval there is a calling I hear to go to New Orleans, to established ways of rebuilding and restoring. Our walled cities. Today’s cities, regions, and even Gulfport, to Biloxi, to see, to witness, and to help. As strategies of sustainability are based on existing countries and subcontinents face problems and I struggle with work, family, and life schedules and and no longer valid building types and ownership forces that are unprecedented. It would take responsibilities trying to find time and courage to go, patterns. The tendency to stay with the known centuries to reverse the greenhouse effect and I also struggle with the many needs here in my provides only temporary and illusory comfort and other processes that accelerated with the own community that would be laid bare if disaster security. The next hurricane inevitably will result in Industrial Revolution, but there is not even an struck. Small or large, steeped in history or newly a similar loss of life and property and more agreement that the present course is unsustainable developed (of virgin land), this is a call that we all suffering. Katrina provided the clearest imaginable and no concerted effort to change it. The should heed. A call to check in with our fellow demonstration of a coastal disaster; yet, in this consequences of some of the problems are citizens. I finish this essay while in route to Biloxi country, we fail to see the state of our planet and irreversible. to spend my Spring Break volunteering. Knowing lack the will to act upon it. Capitalism resists Global warming is the new form giver of cities the service of our profession is needed, and anticipatory planning and associates it with and most other human endeavors. Survival rather understanding we must serve leading with our socialism. Is this a nation in denial? Are we asking than sustainability of the earth is the preeminent hearts. the big questions? issue. Sustainability has already been subverted.

23 plEsums Everyone claims to be engaged in it. It is not The city is energy independent. All unessential systems. Yet, the opposite is also true. Pockets of enough to focus on the use of renewable resources, energy-depleting activities are curtailed. resistance remain and provide strength to energy conservation, and recycling. Leadership in Survival city does not include suburbs. These search for alternative modes of living. There is still Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ratings can exist only outside the barriers as during compassion and hope—two essential ingredients are already a marketing tool—the Good medieval times. for making architecture, building cities and Housekeeping seal of our times. All the best The city fabric is a continuous high-density sustaining life. intentions and sustainable approaches will not framework. Town and building becomes an restore Ward 9 to a ‘‘viable’’ new suburbia; indistinguishable unity. Guntis Plesums is a professor emeritus at the likewise, New Urbanism will not withstand the next Open space is accessible in multiple University of Oregon, and an architect. He has also cycle of super-sized hurricanes. No known dimensions—balconies, rooftops, courtyards, taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He strategy will save the delta of Bangladesh during ‘‘vest-pocket’’ parks, streets, neighborhood parks, is author of Townframe: Environments for Adaptive the next flood and storm. How do we replace playgrounds and plazas, major open spaces, and Housing. glaciers and the Alpine snowcap to restore the the open landscape beyond the barriers. water source? How do we avert the impending Transportation network is hierarchical but climate-based economic collapse of much of based on walking rather than cars. Intracity and The Gift of Poetry En Route Europe? The consequences of changes in the sea intercity mass transit is the generator of the city KIRIN J. MAKKER current on cities and habitats are currently structure, and personal modes of transportation are beyond our ability to predict and understand. integrated into the city fabric. Maps can powerfully illustrate traumas to our Some observations and prerequisites for The framework of the dwelling units and landscape. One of the most compelling maps I have survival planning: public buildings is built to last centuries. People seen displays ‘‘Katrina‘s Diaspora’’ with Survival city does not replicate past city forms can put down roots and make changes over a spattering of black ink in different concentrations but develops patterns and strategies that best time. all around the United States. This map answer the particular new demands. Real estate is no longer speculative communicates the devastation on New Orleans as Existing building codes protect vested investment property. a place. More than two thirds of New Orleans’ interests. Performance requirements specify safety Survival city relies on defensive systems citizens now live away from their city. Journalists, goals and provide construction options—even by that are activated against hurricanes, floods, practitioners, and academics have espoused the using unproven methods. tsunamis, fires, earthquakes, and other hazards idioms of James Kunstler’s Geography of Nowhere Zoning is suspended. New occupation and use of a particular region. in discussions of suburbia and strip malls echoing relationships govern nonhazardous processes. City and smaller settlements do not consume Gertrude Stein’s lament that ‘‘there is no there Mortgage institutions and insurance agricultural land and other resources. Air and water there.’’ Yet, despite all the frustrations we may have companies no longer control design and are quality is strictly maintained. with the anaesthetic aesthetics of sprawl and rendered obsolete by cooperative resources of the Institutions, schools, hospitals, and other Disneyesque development, the people who live in community. support services, as well as commercial and these areas arguably have more community than Survival city builds a new relationship with its entertainment facilities, are an integral part of the New Orleans at this moment. The depletion of this context. city fabric. city’s population means that instead of an Detrimental land-use patterns are terminated Participation in civic activities demands a high architecture of sameness and a ‘‘geography of and damaging installations destroyed, returned to level of responsibility. Duties are shared, and nowhere,’’ they have a diasporic community of the ecologically sound state, or modified according rewards are visible to the inhabitants. nowhere. Does it matter if New Orleans is to the latest scientific knowledge. No imaginable city of the future is likely to be Disneyfied with new en-masse construction Hitherto unprecedented protective barriers as bleak as the present city—built pollution, projects, becoming a landscape of predictable and envelopes are built to protect the city. endless megalopolis defacing every country and sameness, if the population has imploded? This All world cities are part of a network, and every continent. Material values, polarization, and story is ultimately not about urban renewal. This is world resources are reallocated and monitored. greed at all levels dominate cultures and political about community renewal. With good reason,

the gift of poetry en route 24 Mayor Nagan’s administration has been worried no longer take care of their house in Kaithal, India, The Water Was There . . . that if the people do not return, there cannot be the house my father grew up in, they sold it. All BETH LEWIS DOBSON a city. But what about the culture of New Orleans’ seven of their children had immigrated to the people? Is not this the greater concern—not the United States. When my grandmother passed, all The Water Was There .... death of a city, but the potential lifelessness of the grandchildren received one piece of Water in my veins, a community? What happens to the culture of gold from my grandmother’s jewelry set. I look at Water in my soul, a scattered people? this gold bangle and think that it used to The water was there .... In the late twentieth century and up through reside on her wrist; it is smooth from years and Bayous, levees, and canals, today, worldwide there is a diaspora—wherever the years of wear. It is just an artifact, but to me it is The mighty Mississippi and grand Pontchartrain, British and French colonized, the people of those a piece of not just my grandmother’s life The water was there .... countries have been relocating for decades, but also my father’s life in another place. It is Sugar cane, cotton, and Dixie, divorcing themselves from the built environments a piece of the cultural landscape in which they Crawfish, gator and shrimp, of their birth and the landscape of their ancestors. grew up. The water was there .... Their stories are told by some of the world’s Is it a tragedy that this family of nine is most famous writers: Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, scattered around the world so far from the homes Diversity, poverty, and struggle, and Jumpa Lahiri. These and other writers depict of their ancestors? Or is it a gift, like the bangle I Heritage, jazz, and celebration, The water was there .... the postcolonial subject’s identity as multitudinous: now wear, a bit of a faraway place that I can share his or her identity is full of fault lines, fractures, with those I know? Floating in mother‘s womb, and marginal bits. This is not necessarily tragic; I hear people talk about how the most Surfacing to memories, rituals, and blues, the pieces of a diasporic life are poetry en horrifying thing in the aftermath of Katrina is that The water was there .... route. Yes, the sudden scattering of a people a dispersed population has no city to return to and Water in my veins, implies some level of destruction. But while that the people of New Orleans are particularly Water in my soul, there is a decline of community in one region, tied to that piece of earth on the Gulf Coast and to The water was there .... there is also the movement of culture where the structures that are now flood damaged or The water is rising, the warnings are clear, it has previously not been and in unanticipated flattened. Yet, when we consider this story in the The water has risen, forms. larger context of human history, we can see the The water is here .... When we hear about the destruction of New potential renewal in the lives of these scattered Diluting innocence, memories, and blood, Orleans, it is the loss of homes that tug at our people and how little of it relies on the presence of Fleeing souls, lost lives, and instincts exposed, heartstrings. A family unable to return home a well-crafted built environment. Of course, the The water was there .... and children unable to inherit their ancestors’ hurricane’s destruction is a tragedy, but residence are tragic. But people have a way of perhaps we are now far enough away from it that Meaning devalued, nature obstructed, passing their cultural roots along in material form, we can consider what the gift might be of this Respect neglected and memories tainted, The water was there .... even when a house is washed away. Instead of nationally scattered community. This may be an buildings being passed down from father to opportunity for other places and other Influenza built ancestor’s cemeteries, daughter, the children of a diaspora are handed communities to gain a kernel of New Orleans Rising tides and graves remind us, a few material objects, sometimes miniscule and listen to a previously unheard line of The water was there .... compared to the volume of a built structure. I am poetry en route. Darkness and silence in the great city, one of these diasporic offspring: my father came Kirin J. Makker is a lecturer in Art at Smith College The music is quiet, the big easy is veiled, from India to this country in 1965, bringing with and a PhD candidate in Planning at the University The water was there .... him only enough to get through one year of of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research focuses Water in my veins, work. Ultimately, he stayed in this country and on the fabrication of the cultural and physical Water in my soul, raised his family here. When my grandparents could identity of the American small town. The water was there ....

25 dobson The challenge is here, as an alternative to developing an historic and then five blocks away the water lines start to Responsibility, sense, and need, district. So we did that for the neighborhood appear and the place is deserted. A lot of houses The water was there .... adjacent to the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, can be repaired but it is like driving in a night- Restore innocence, memories, and blood, where ironically I had just bought a house. We mare—you leave the edges of the river and you go Preserve heritage, character, and soul, started working and created a new historic zoning into an abyss, with no lights and this feeling that The water was there .... plan and the city thought it was great. It was something is very, very wrong. And then once the implemented by 1972. By about the mid-70s, I daylight comes you realize you have been driving Diversity valued, nature respected, helped found the Preservation Resource Center through a dead city. A city that wants to come Sense of place, comfort, and character, (PRC) of New Orleans which has been a leading back to life again but there is a fear here—‘‘what The water was there .... force in the preservation of all types of buildings about the next hurricane season?’’ The utility Water in my veins, and neighborhoods throughout the city. company has gone bankrupt, and all of this was Water in my soul, Today in the Tulane School of Architecture we caused by improper canal and waterway design The water was there ..... have a new city center, and we also have a new and installation by the federal government. This is urban design-build program that is actually fun- not the fault of Hurricane Katrina—this is the Beth Lewis Dobson, AIA, LEED AP, was born in ded by a $300,000 grant from HUD. And we are fault of the Army Corp of Engineers. And then this New Orleans and attended Newcomb College of very Katrina oriented, the whole disaster we are living in now is also the fault of Tulane University and later Washington University University, every student at Tulane has basically FEMA. in St. Louis for her Master of Architecture picked up on that thing we started back in BA: The city didn’t lose that much of its pre- degree. She teaches design at Florida A&M the ‘70s. Because every student at Tulane WWI architecture with maybe the exception University School of Architecture in Tallahassee, will have a role in rebuilding New Orleans, whether of Treme´. Can you address the city’s early Florida. they are in English or math or science or building fabric? architecture—they will have a role. GC: My students and I discovered a map from Interview with Gene Cizek BA: Can you speak a bit about Katrina and 1878 a number of years ago while working BARBARA L. ALLEN, Executive Editor its aftermath. on a project. If you look at that map, that is the GC: New Orleans was not destroyed by the part of the city that made it through the storm. Gene Cizek is the director of the Preservation hurricane. By the time it hit, it was less than It does not include any of those very low swamp Studies Program at Tulane University and is a a category three hurricane and it did some wind lying areas in town that were not opened up for leader in historic neighborhood conservation in damage. My block here suffered very little housing until the early twentieth century. So there New Orleans. He is a licensed architect and has damage but my neighbor down the street, his is something to be said about the way we were won numerous awards for the restoration of many building got caught up in one of those downdrafts building, such as raised houses because it floods older urban homes as well as plantation estates. and it is all over the ground—three quarters of it is here. The suburban expansion with slab houses He has been teaching architecture since 1970 destroyed. But as you go away from the river, you had not been developed until later. Prior to and has developed a uniquely popular studio on begin to find the flooding that came in from the WWII builders were still using very good wood, low-income housing in historic neighborhoods. industrial canal and the Mississippi River Gulf houses were raised up off the ground, usually He has two master‘s degrees from MIT (plannin- Outlet. And then, of course, you have the breach at least three feet. g and urban design) and two PhDs, one in in the 17th Street canal. Ironically, that canal had I went to see a lot of houses after Katrina. planning from Technische Universiteit Delft in been reported, and reported, and reported, as We set up a ‘‘national trust’’ kind of board for the the Netherlands and the other in environmental water was coming up into people’s backyards for volunteers who would come in and actually social psychology from Tulane. years and they reported it to the Army Corps provide some expertise for the communities that BA: How did you become one of the leaders of of Engineers and they did nothing about it. They were trying to do some rebuilding. And we historic preservation in this city? would come look at it and say ‘‘Oh that’s natural.’’ found that the old plastered houses with the GC: In 1970 or 1971, the director of planning in Well as we now know, it wasn’t. old cypress lath, even if they sat for a week or so New Orleans asked me to investigate, with my So I came back to a very strange place: in water, you could do certain things to them like students, the possibilities of using historic zoning The old city along the river was basically intact take the base boards out and let them dry. But

interview with gene cizek 26 don’t throw them away, like all the FEMA engi- Treme´ was wind damage and you had roofs that only a handful of houses that might be refur- neers were telling people to do, because it was blew off. Unfortunately, FEMA would not put bished. So most of that neighborhood needs to be made of cypress there is no reason to throw any of a blue roof or tarp on a hard surfaced roof, which wiped clean and then if they rebuild there they that away. So a lot of people actually ruined their meant that any roof that was slate or asbestos, need to rebuild on stilts and they need to rebuild houses by listening to what the so-called FEMA which many of our early buildings are, sat exposed a city or neighborhood that embraces the fact they experts were telling them. to rain for months after Katrina. The Preservation are probably going to flood again. It is going to be BA: Because cypress doesn’t grow mold or Resource Center and some of my students tried to costly and they are going to need help with it. mildew? fill in as much as possible where FEMA failed on Now, the planners say, ‘‘why don’t we buy their ‘‘tarping’’ older roofs. houses and allow them to build on higher GC: It will grow mold or mildew but if you take it BA: What about the housing stock that was built ground.’’ There is enough land available for out and stack it and let it air dry again it is going between the wars such as the 9th Ward and anybody that wants to rebuild fairly close to their to be as good as new again. The one thing Gentilly? It doesn’t fall into historic preservation old neighborhood on higher ground and so that is we are really waiting on now is the FEMA level at categories in the traditional sense but it is still part a possibility. But it hasn’t been marketed in the which houses have to be built. Now why we of the city fabric. right way. should trust that level, I don’t know, but you have to have it for insurance purposes. And now the GC: Some of those neighborhoods are now BA: Before Katrina, there had been estimates insurance companies are threatening to raise the National Register Historic Districts and some of that there was a huge amount of vacant and rates. My house didn’t flood and the insurance them are local historic districts. There are other abandoned houses in the city. What is happening company wants to raise my rates 40 percent and neighborhoods from the ‘50s that have been with those properties? then refuse to cover wind damage. So what is examined by the people from the National Register. GC: 37,000 vacant and abandoned units—this the point? My insurance is already close to a Huge numbers of volunteers have come down was several years ago. Out of that 37,000, I would thousand dollars a month. So I can’t afford to here and done a lot of the survey work. The say we had probably reduced the number to go any higher. So I may be forced to sell my housing in the 9th Ward and Gentilly is mostly 10,000–12,000 units out of either demolition or house and move somewhere else. And of course raised. If it was raised up three feet, which most renovation. Many are historic and 60 percent of the real estate values in New Orleans—in areas of the houses from that period are, the water can that housing was from the nineteenth century, that didn’t flood—they’re incredibly expensive. drain out and you can go in and refurbish. which means it is built well and raised off the They said New Orleans was improperly flood Now, let’s switch over to the lower 9th Ward, ground—it would probably make a wonderful insured—not so. We have one of the highest rates which is predominantly black and predominantly house if you could get it away from the owners. of flood insurance in the whole United States. In poor, but there were a lot of homeowners. This is Often these properties belong to slum landlord general we are a very highly insured city. So all a neighborhood that starts developing in the owners or people who live in suburbia somewhere these things that people were saying were not early twentieth century mainly with black people and don’t care. And many of these houses are in true if you look at the statistics. that want their own place. It was heavily flooded high ground areas. by Hurricane Betsy in the 1960s, and it has been BA: One of the oldest neighborhoods in the BA: Is there any thought about reinhabiting flooded several times in the past. It is very, very city, Treme´, adjacent to the French Quarter, was these well-built abandoned houses? low—most of the plans call for that not to be not damaged so much by flooding but by wind. rebuilt. But a lot of people feel very close to that GC: All of the recommendations that have come This was one of the few older, ‘‘high ground’’ neighborhood because it has been their home for out of the Katrina planning groups, whether it be neighborhoods that was still predominantly the last almost hundred years. And a lot of the national, state, or city, have all said that the African American. Can you talk a little about this housing, while initially not well built, had been historic stock that is in good shape should be neighborhood? improved over time. These homeowners used rebuilt. But there is a mentality here amongst GC: The buildings in Treme´, many in various grants and other assistance to upgrade their the politicians about historic property. There are states of disrepair, were weakened before houses. But the main reasons there were such a few politicians that are sensitive to the fact that Katrina by rot or termite damage.The area flooded heavy losses was because they had flooding from recycling buildings or environmental conservation a little bit, but the water came in and went the industrial canal and they got incredible wind should be taking place. Let’s not use the word away—it didn’t sit. And so the biggest problem in damage.There is still no electricity there.There are historic preservation, let’s use the word

27 allen environmental conservation—because that is that was not flooded but was slated for GC: Well, shops in the French Quarter are really what we are talking about, we are talking redevelopment was probably one of the few closing rapidly. The biggest problem is the rents; about recycling, we are talking about the reuse of higher ground, predominontly black and they have escalated beyond what people can existing well timbered structures—usually off mixed-race neighborhoods in the city, the Irish recover. But if you look at the edges there is a of the ground, that could very easily and Channel to the lower Garden District. Why would creative spirit that I think has been fueled by economically redone to FEMA or federal that area not be slated for immediate rebuilding? Katrina, in the art community. There are new standards. GC: The same ‘‘redevelopment’’ taxonomy was galleries in Faubourg Marigny, Bywater, the Irish But there is another mentality here that was used for the riverfront on the down riverside of the Channel, and Magazine St. as well as in the in place before Katrina, and that was that New French Quarter. There is nothing wrong with this Quarter. The people that had the money to be Orleans was to become an adult resort community neighborhood, it just needs to be, and in some resilient and hold out, they are doing fine. Those along the river. And that means developers want cases has been, refurbished. There are places people that were very marginal they have not been to come into neighborhoods like mine and build that rebuilding can take place just as in the Irish able to hold on. resort property despite all the historic zoning we Channel, but they are not telling us what they BA: This is great news for the arts community have. They want to be next to the French Quarter. really mean by that. They want to gentrify the and others, many predominantly white, which can They could eventually destroy the Quarter and whole edge of the river into places for rich afford the risk and the investment in rebuilding the then they will look around and say, ‘‘Oh my God people to live. Rich people who are not even city. What about others, particularly the African what did we do?’’ They don’t realize that there is going to be here all the time. And you don’t American community—those with less economic a context for this city that must be saved. New build a city on time-share condos. means? Orleans is potentially a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and that means a lot for us that live here and BA: There has been a lot of concern and citizen GC: Some of the black community has returned care about it and it means a lot for cultural tourism activism about rebuilding the 9th Ward. Is and many more want to come back. The and economic development. But right now there some attention that is being given to the problem again has been the lack of resources. there is a threat of high-rise structures all along Irish Channel and to other low-income neighbor- Some owned their own homes and didn’t have the river and those structures are not going to hoods that didn’t flood? insurance and then you had lots of people in house any of our low-income people. They are GC: Not nearly enough. There is—‘‘oh they didn’t public housing or renters on Section 8 vouchers. all going to be high-income people coming in just flood,’’ ‘‘They are all right,’’ ‘‘They are coming Public housing has not reopened. And there are to have a good time and not really to contribute back.’’ But the rents have gone up. For example, other issues with the proper infrastructure to anything. Now I don’t mind those folks coming three blocks from here, there is a row of early– accommodate the poor. For example, they are in, I love high-rise buildings if they are done well. twentieth century structures, all double shotgun stalling on reopening Charity Hospital—where is But they should be over in the central business houses owned by the same landlord. He has that coming from? Charity is a part of New Orleans. district—where the rest of our high rises are. done no improvements to those properties and the A lot of poor people from other parts of the There is plenty of space in that area to build on or rents have doubled from $500 to $1,000 a month. south come to New Orleans to go to this near the river so that you can see the river and The next unit down, which is a little bit bigger, hospital. You have a lot of food service people be near these wonderful old historic areas. has gone from $650 a month to about $1,200 and here or tourist service people here, that come here then the third one which is on the corner because they know that if they get sick they can go BA: What about, in the Bring New Orleans and has off-street parking has gone up to $1,500 to Charity and no one is going to turn them away. Back plan, I noticed something that gave me a month. Now, who can afford that on the cause for concern. It looked like the fabric of the BA: When I came in January and drove through salaries they pay here—other than maybe city was put into several categories, a sort of adjacent Jefferson Parish, I noticed that every little FEMA workers? taxonomy of rebuilding. Some areas were slated to house had a small FEMA trailer parked in front become parks because they were heavily BA: I have noticed some positive effects as I was so the residents could live there as they were flooded, other areas on high ground were slated strolling through the French Quarter. I noticed refurbishing and fixing their houses. How come we for immediate rebuilding. There was a third area more art galleries and artisan shops have opened don’t see little FEMA trailers around New slated for redevelopment. What I noticed in and that there are fewer tourist tee shirt and sou- Orleans so that people can come back and start looking at the plan was that one of the areas venir shops. Has this struck you? fixing up their houses?

interview with gene cizek 28 GC: Good question. And why are there 11,000 me who banded together to preserve this great accounting and back office activity. There were FEMA trailers sitting in Arkansas? They should be city. Luckily for us there are some on the city also basic maintenance and basic property down here. You are finally beginning to see council that understand the importance of his- management functions that had been neglected. trailer parks being developed in the old city. There torical preservation and cultural tourism as an BA: Prior to New Orleans you had been at the is one a few blocks from here that literally has economic development base. I think New Orleans Housing Authority in San Francisco. Describe the just gone in and I am not even sure it is inhabited is probably the single most germinator of cultural physical state of the public housing in New yet. There is a rule that you can’t put a FEMA ideas in the United States and that we are uniquely Orleans compared to what you had seen trailer on the street in New Orleans. You can’t put a part of the gumbo or jambalaya of people that elsewhere. a FEMA trailer extending over the sidewalk and the United States really is. And we celebrate it most of the old houses in New Orleans don’t more than just about any other place in the world. MK: In other cities, concentrations of low-income have front yards or driveways—so where are you There is more resilience here between the races people were less dramatic. In San Francisco, for going to put them? The laws should be changed and between the mixtures of people than any example, public housing was scattered over forty to accommodate the trailers necessitated by this other place in this country. sites and in Washington, DC, it is dispersed over disaster. fifty sites. For the most part in New Orleans, a city with a large low-income population, all BA: Who is helping to rebuild the historic the public housing was concentrated in ten sites. properties and the historic neighborhoods? Interview with Michael Kelly These sites averaged about 1000 units per site, GC: The Preservation Resource Center and the BARBARA L. ALLEN, Executive Editor with some public housing projects having as many various neighborhood organizations that are as 1800 units. So the scale of it was one thing prepared to fight tooth and nail to rebuild the city. Michael Kelly was the executive director of the that was dramatically different than anything else I The big developers are all chomping at the bit Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) for had seen. I was struck by the enormity of the right now, waiting to come in and develop the six years until 2000. In addition, he also taught housing projects, the large numbers of low-income riverfront. There has been an attempt to urban studies classes at Tulane University‘s School folks, and the social problems that go with that disenfranchise the PRC and the neighborhood of Architecture as the Harvey-Wadsworth Profes- kind of concentration. sor of Urban Studies. In 2000, he accepted the associations. BA: What about the actual condition of the executive director position at the Washington, DC, BA: Do you have any other concerns that the housing? Housing Authority, guiding that agency following city’s historic fabric may be threatened? a judicial receivership. A graduate of both MK: Well, it was definitely sturdy stock like a lot of GC: The Historic District Landmarks Commission Princeton University and the University of public housing throughout the country. It was, that controls the sixteen historic districts was California at Berkeley, Kelly is a licensed architect for the most part, built in the 40s, early 1950s, so almost done away with by Mayor Nagin before and a certified urban planner. The interview was consequently on the outside they were brick and Katrina—and then after Katrina, it was further conducted, in person, in Washington, DC, on April very solidly constructed. However, years of downsized. There are about four people running 24, 2006. deferred maintenance had caused major deterio- these sixteen historic districts when there used to ration of these buildings and their systems. Things BA: When you came to New Orleans eleven be close to twenty. The Vieux Carre´ (French like roofs and windows needed repair, and there years ago, what was the state of public housing Quarter) Commission has two people and there was a very great backlog of other modernization in the city? used to be twelve.They are doing a miraculous job, needs. MK: The Housing Authority of New Orleans but how are you going to run all these historic had undergone a series of leadership changes. BA: How did it change over your time in New neighborhood organizations? In other words, the Prior to my arrival, there were eleven executive Orleans? What changes did you oversee? very commissions that were the most capable of directors in a ten-year period. The Department of MK: I guided the HOPE VI urban revitalization helping us rebuild this city were stripped off their Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was on demonstration project which was in its early stages power—because they were impeding progress. the verge of taking it over as a receivership, in New Orleans. HOPE VI was an initiative BA: Meaning developers? because of failed past administrations. So it was funded through HUD that replaced dense GC: Yes, developers. New Orleans did not an agency that had unfortunately gone through low-income housing with mixed-income housing become what it is today without lots of folks like some pretty major systemic failures in its which had a private market component along with

29 allen its public housing mission. The Desire and St. MK: No, but in my heart I was there. I have gone example, these cities already had a waiting list for Thomas public housing projects both received around this in my mind a hundred times, and in the critical housing needs. Now the tension is ‘‘Jeeze HOPE VI grants triggering major demolition and final analysis, I would consider that I would just these people just got here, why should they have rebuilding. And these were to be the catalyst to have been another person in the Superdome, as services ahead of us because we have been wait- reconstruct, not just these housing sites, but opposed to being able to help. ing?’’ So, this has really challenged the whole neighborhoods. Again, because of the scale BA: What do you know about the housing con- resources of a lot of local housing authorities. It of the public housing, to go through a revitaliza- dition of the poor, particularly immediately after just speaks volumes to the real issue which is the tion process, it would impact more than just Katrina? And what was the state of the public need for more resources for both displaced the housing—it would have to impact an entire housing projects in the city? low-income Katrina evacuees as well as existing neighborhood. low-income families in general. MK: A lot of my friends from public housing that I BA: Have these HOPE VI projects been com- have gotten a chance to talk to shared their horror BA: Has there been any move to rebuild New pleted? stories of being at the Superdome during Katrina. Orleans public housing since Katrina? MK: Yes. After I left, St. Thomas was completed. So I would imagine that most of the public MK: There has been a lot of dialogue about the housing residents ended up in the Superdome, as BA: And the HOPE VI project at Desire? future of public housing and who will be qualified they did not have the means to get out of town. to return. I think, in fact, that some sites have MK: It was under construction and well on its way Prior to the hurricane, there were about 30,000 to completion. And then since I left there already been declared ‘‘not rebuildable’’ because residents of public housing in the city. Many lack of funds to rehabilitate them and the have been other HOPE VI grants that had been probably ended up in the unthinkable conditions awarded to New Orleans. But again I think that infrastructure and services around them. Even if that we all witnessed on TV in the days following they could rebuild them, there are no schools, no the major contribution of my tenure there was the flooding. As to the condition of the public being at the helm during the beginning stages of stores, no transportation—so they really are like housing, with one exception they have been pockets of isolation out there. this public housing transformation period. closed and sustained major damage. The St. BA: How will the poor be accommodated back BA: And part of this transformation period was Thomas HOPE VI site I just mentioned did into the city? The majority of the lower class are the dedensification of the poor? not receive major damage as it was on higher ground. probably not in the city because most of them MK: Yes, and the re-creation of housing stock didn’t live on the higher ground. What does that, from the outside you could not tell if it was BA: In the media, there were stories about poor your best crystal ball prediction say is going to a market-priced unit or public housing. Not only people living in cheap hotels in Louisiana, Texas, happen? was it a deconcentration of the low-income and Georgia. All the possessions they owned were MK: I think it is going to require governmental residents, it was a rebuilding of a stock that em- in plastic shopping bags. What is to become of action, leadership, and commitment and it is braced the idea of mixed-income communities. these people? going to take, in the reconstruction process, a BA: Hurricane Katrina hit in late August of 2005. MK: They are in basic survival mode, moving concerted effort to include low-and moderate- How soon did you go back to the city? How to wherever they can, wherever they can be income housing opportunities along with the soon did you start talking to people about the accepted. They are trying to assimilate as best market-priced housing. Without government housing situation? they can wherever they landed. The other intervention, that is not going to be possible. MK: I was actually down there the weekend piece is still in doubt—about coming back to New However, I think it is also going to take leader- that the hurricane hit. It hit on a Monday and I Orleans. ship—it is going to take a type of zoning and left on Sunday. So I was actually there while the BA: Have you had any meetings with your housing a type of permitting process that will allow city was evacuating and preparing for the authority colleagues in Houston or Atlanta? Are incorporation of the less affluent citizens. Right hurricane. I had a chance to return again three the former New Orleans public housing residents now, I think the there is just not enough high weeks later. being accommodated in public housing there? ground to go around. The other piece is jobs BA: So were you there during the whole MK: It is an interesting challenge. This event and and schools—there is just not enough other Superdome event and the occupation of the human tragedy is pitting one displaced class of triggers there to attract folks to return, to even Convention Center that we saw on TV? low-income customers against another. For begin the process of rebuilding. So it goes

interview with michael kelly 30 beyond the actual housing—it goes to social know anything about what is going on appreciation of high ground than there was infrastructure and it will grow to include physical there in terms of development? before. My guess is that that Irish Channel infrastructure. MK: It is interesting because that is an area area is going to continue to gentrify at an BA: From looking at the flood maps it is very that prior to Katrina was undergoing tremendous even faster rate. The property values and the apparent that the areas not flooded were the ones gentrification, tremendous redevelopment redevelopment pressures are going to escalate. on high ground, on the city’s natural levee. One of particularly in housing redevelopment. I think And again, back to your earlier question. the areas on high ground that had been tradi- the law of supply and demand throughout the city You asked me if it would be tionally a poor area was the predominantly African is kicking in and because there is a scarcity of difficult to ensure low-income folks the ability to American ‘‘Irish Channel’’ neighborhood. Do you good, habitable housing and there is a better return. The answer is ‘‘yes.’’

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