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Church Provision of Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in New Orleans East

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Church Provision of Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in New Orleans East Working Paper Church Provision of Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in New Orleans East * EMILY CHAMLEE-WRIGHT Abstract This paper examines how the church pro vision of club goods, or quasipublic goods, can foster community rebound in the wake of disaster. In particular, the swift return of the com munity surrounding the Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church in N ew Orleans East is examined here. This paper argues that the church provision of valuable club goods not easily replicable outside of New Orleans East is a driving force in drawing people back to the community. The club goods under consideration are 1) a distinct ethnic-religious-language community, 2) a capacity for communitywide social coordination, and 3) a capacity for political action. This paper concludes by considering the broader relevance this case has for understanding the role club goods can play in rendering individual agency more effective. Key Words: religious provision of club goods, community redevelopment, social resilience, post-disaster recovery * WORKING PAPER Emily Chamlee-Wright is Professor of Economics at Beloit College and Affiliated Senior Scholar at The Mercatus Center, George Mason University. She would like to thank the members of the research team who helped us conduct the interviews for this project, including Lenore Ealy, Dan Rothschild, Anthony Skriba, and Adam Martin. She would also like to thank Kathryn Linnenberg for her assistance in training the interview team and developing the interview instrument; the Vietnamese interpreters Khai Hoang and Vu Nguyen; Skyler Treat for her research assistance; and Peter Boettke, Virgil Storr, Scott Beaulier, Josh Hall, and Charles Westerberg for their insightful comments on earlier drafts. Finally, she would like to thank the Mercatus Center for their generous financial support. The usual caveat applies. The ideas presented in this research are the author's and do not represent official positions of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Church Provision of Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in New Orleans East Introduction [The] perpetual consumption and reproduction of capital affords the explanation of what has so often excited wonder, the great rapidity with which countries recover from a state of devastation; the disappearance, in a short time, of all traces of the mischiefs done by earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and the ravages of war. n enemy lays waste a country by fire and sword, and destroys or carries away nearly all the moveable wealth existing in it: all the inhabitants are ruined, and yet in a few years after, everything is much as it was before. — John Stuart Mill, The Principles of Political Economy. Book I, Chapter V, paragraph I.5.19. Quoted in Hirshlei er (2002) Hurricane Katrina might have given even John Stuart Mill reason to doubt whether Gul Coast communities would recover rom the devastation that ollowed in her path. Indeed, at the present writing (two years a ter the storm), some communities appear as though they might stand as shocking e-ceptions to Mill.s optimistic thesis.1 And yet, in some communities, Mill.s e-pectations o swi t recovery have indeed been born out. 0he community surrounding the Mary Queen o Vietnam (MQV1) Catholic Church in 1ew 2rleans East is widely considered to be a post4Katrina success story. But, despite Mill.s e-planation, its success still presents something o a pu55le. 6 hy was it this community that achieved such early success, and how was this success won7 According to the 8rban 9and Institute (89I), the principal consulting group advising the Bring 1ew 2rleans Back Commission, :0he 1ew 2rleans East area e-perienced some o the city.s most severe looding, with lood depths ranging rom ive to more than twelve eet,; (89I 200WORKING6: 43). Early recommendations in the redevelopment pl annPAPERing process suggested that its pro-imity to the Bayou Sauvage 1ational 6 ildli e Re uge made 1ew 2rleans East a good candidate or conversion to open space (ibid). But with the e-ception o the Arench Quarter, Church Provision o Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in 1ew 2rleans East 1 Garden Cistrict, and 8ptown (which incurred little to no lood damage due to higher elevations), the MQV1 neighborhood came back aster and more robustly than virtually all other neighborhoods in 2rleans Parish, even those with similar levels o lood damage and those that were considerably more a luent. Si-teen months a ter the storm, or e-ample, only ten percent o the residents living in the a luent 9akeview neighborhood had returned, but the MQV1 community had achieved this threshold within weeks o the storm (Bohrer 2007). By April 2006, 1,200 o the 4,000 residents who lived within a one4mile radius o the church had returned. 6 ithin a year o the storm, more than 3,000 residents had returned. By the summer o 2007, appro-imately 90 percent o the MQV1 residents were back, while the rate o return in 1ew 2rleans overall remained at only 45 percent.2 Aurther, within a year o the storm, 70 o the 75 Vietnamese4owned businesses in the MQV1 neighborhood were up and running. Again, why this community, and what were the mechanisms that drove their success7 A ull response to this Euestion would include an e-amination o the wide array o social resources embedded within the MQV1 community.3 6 hat is e-amined here is the critical role played by the MQV1 church in the redevelopment e ort. By providing valuable club goods the MQV1 church has e-erted considerable leverage in drawing people back to the community. :Club goods; are those :Euasi4public; resources that lie between purely private and purely public goods. Commercial society regularly provides club goods, such as itness clubs and gol courses. Civil society also has the ability to provide club goods, such as community centers and amateur team sports clubs. E-amples are so common, we rarely think o club goods as being vitaWORKINGl to a community.s e-istence. But in the a termath o Ka triPAPERna, it was the provision o essential club goods that served as a driving orce in recreating one 1ew 2rleans neighborhood. 0he club goods e-amined here are 1) a highly speci ic ethnic4religious identity and language community, 2) the capacity to coordinate both religious and secular civic li e be ore and a ter Church Provision o Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in 1ew 2rleans East 2 Katrina, and 3) the in rastructure necessary or political action in the post4Katrina environment. By providing such goods, the MQV1 church has ostered the sense that its 1ew 2rleans East neighborhood (a neighborhood that might look Euite ordinary to the outsider) represents something Euite special to the insider—a :second homeland; that is worth rebuilding. 0he analysis presented here seeks to complement the already well4developed theoretical treatment o the religious provision o club goods with a case study o how this phenomenon is playing out in a post4disaster setting. In addition to complementing the literature on the religious provision o club goods, this analysis makes a contribution to the literature e-amining the role social capital plays in post4disaster conte-ts (Beggs et al. 1996a, 1996bF Hulbert et al. 2001). 6 hile much o the e-isting literature ocuses on how individuals deploy their social networks to meet the immediate challenges o a natural disaster, this analysis ills an important gap by e-amining the role socially embedded resources play in long term recovery o an entire community. Ainally, this case study makes a contribution to the burgeoning literature e-ploring issues o agency and structure in the post4Katrina recovery process (Colten 2006F Elliott G Pais 2006F Henkel et al. 2006F Hartman G SEuires 2006F Herring 2006). As will be discussed below, the church provision o club goods o ers a use ul lens or understanding how, in some circumstances, social structure makes e ective agency possible. Club Goods as a Theoretical Lens 0he analysis presented here builds out o Buchanan.s (1965) insight that many valuable goods and services are provided somewhere between the yawning gap o purely private and purely public goods. Buchanan points out that common e-perience suggests that people o ten pre WORKINGer club goods (e.g., membership at a community swimm ingPAPER pool) over purely private goods (e.g., a swimming pool in the backyard). Buchanan also points out that ew goods meet the strict criteria o a purely public good along the lines that Samuelson (1954) suggests in his classic Church Provision o Club Goods and Community Redevelopment in 1ew 2rleans East 3 article on the subHect. Instead, many goods possess a degree o :publicness; that distinguishes them rom either o the two e-tremes in ways that deserve special attention. 0hough Buchanan.s principal concern was to develop a general theory o clubs, others have applied this theoretical lens to e-plain historical patterns o social change. Kuran (2001), or e-ample, describes how Middle Eastern Islamic waqfs provided water services, light houses, hospitals, orphanages, and public spaces as a means o acEuiring a credible commitment rom the state to en orce property rights and not predate against immobile private assets. In their study o the economic organi5ation o the medieval church, Ekelund, et al. (1996) note that in addition to providing many private goods, the Church also provided essential public goods, such as a system o law and courts, and e-erted its :transnational in luence to limited armed con lict among petty warlords who dominated the political landscape o western Europe; (Ekelund et al. 1996: 25). Aurther, the Church supplied Euasi4public goods, such as ormal education and norms and institutions that aided the poor, both o which served as crucial contributions to the development o human capital (Ekelund et al.
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