Some Hard Decisions in New Orleans
It's been over three months since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans. Local officials are now trying to determine how to rebuild the city, and they are facing some enormous decisions on just how that can be accomplished. One of the most difficult parts of the process has to do with whether or not the most devastated part, the eastern portion, most of it below sea level, should be rebuilt at all. The first round of decision making seems to be more non-decision making than anything else, as pointed out by the NY Times
- The city's official blueprint for redevelopment after Hurricane Katrina, to be released on Wednesday, will recommend that residents be allowed to return and rebuild anywhere they like, no matter how damaged or vulnerable the neighborhood, according to several members of the mayor's rebuilding commission.
The proposal appears to put the city's rebuilding panel on a collision course with its state counterpart, which will control at least some of the flow of federal rebuilding money to the city.
The primary author of the plan, Joseph C. Canizaro, said teams of outside experts would try to help residents of each neighborhood decide whether to rebuild or relocate. Those teams would help increase the odds of success for those residents who decided to return, Mr. Canizaro said.
The commission will propose that the city should discourage homeowners from rebuilding in the hardest hit areas until a plan can be hammered out, but will not forbid them from doing so.
But ultimately, the areas that fail to attract a critical mass of residents in 12 months will probably not survive as residential neighborhoods, Mr. Canizaro said, and are likely to end up as marshland as the city's population declines and its footprint shrinks.
...It is not clear, though, that people who choose to return to devastated neighborhoods will find much to surround them. The city has not promised full services to every neighborhood, and there may be no grocery stores or schools for miles.
It is not even certain that lenders will agree to grant mortgages in those neighborhoods without some guarantees that residents will be there for longer than a year.
...The notion that residents have a right to rebuild anywhere proved too starry-eyed for Alden J. McDonald Jr., a member of the mayor's commission and the chief executive of Liberty Bank and Trust, the city's largest black-owned bank. Though most of the bank's customers lived in the most damaged parts of town, and though Mr. McDonald himself owns a home in New Orleans East, he said it would be cruel to encourage people to move back "without first giving them all the facts."
"We really need to ask what kind of community it will be if there aren't adequate services," he said. [Emphasis added]
The area most devastated by the storm was inhabited by the poorest (and mostly black) part of the population. To tell them they can't return to their neighborhoods for any reason is going to be difficult, especially since no one has ever stopped the wealthy from rebuilding their McMansions along the coast in Florida after past hurricanes. Still, the failure of the levee system and the massive flooding that ensued in that part of town, which is below sea level, dooms what used to be marshland to future catastrophes. While the Resident has promised a new and improved levee system, most experts believe that is just not in the cards for New Orleans.
What is missing from the report, or at least remains unmentioned in the NY Times article, is what the City Planners have in mind for the poor who were driven out of their neighborhoods by the storm. Are there provisions for providing affordable housing in other parts of the city or are the poor and the black just expected to find a new city to live in? At this point, sadly, the latter seems to be the case.
- The city's official blueprint for redevelopment after Hurricane Katrina, to be released on Wednesday, will recommend that residents be allowed to return and rebuild anywhere they like, no matter how damaged or vulnerable the neighborhood, according to several members of the mayor's rebuilding commission.
The proposal appears to put the city's rebuilding panel on a collision course with its state counterpart, which will control at least some of the flow of federal rebuilding money to the city.
The primary author of the plan, Joseph C. Canizaro, said teams of outside experts would try to help residents of each neighborhood decide whether to rebuild or relocate. Those teams would help increase the odds of success for those residents who decided to return, Mr. Canizaro said.
The commission will propose that the city should discourage homeowners from rebuilding in the hardest hit areas until a plan can be hammered out, but will not forbid them from doing so.
But ultimately, the areas that fail to attract a critical mass of residents in 12 months will probably not survive as residential neighborhoods, Mr. Canizaro said, and are likely to end up as marshland as the city's population declines and its footprint shrinks.
...It is not clear, though, that people who choose to return to devastated neighborhoods will find much to surround them. The city has not promised full services to every neighborhood, and there may be no grocery stores or schools for miles.
It is not even certain that lenders will agree to grant mortgages in those neighborhoods without some guarantees that residents will be there for longer than a year.
...The notion that residents have a right to rebuild anywhere proved too starry-eyed for Alden J. McDonald Jr., a member of the mayor's commission and the chief executive of Liberty Bank and Trust, the city's largest black-owned bank. Though most of the bank's customers lived in the most damaged parts of town, and though Mr. McDonald himself owns a home in New Orleans East, he said it would be cruel to encourage people to move back "without first giving them all the facts."
"We really need to ask what kind of community it will be if there aren't adequate services," he said. [Emphasis added]
The area most devastated by the storm was inhabited by the poorest (and mostly black) part of the population. To tell them they can't return to their neighborhoods for any reason is going to be difficult, especially since no one has ever stopped the wealthy from rebuilding their McMansions along the coast in Florida after past hurricanes. Still, the failure of the levee system and the massive flooding that ensued in that part of town, which is below sea level, dooms what used to be marshland to future catastrophes. While the Resident has promised a new and improved levee system, most experts believe that is just not in the cards for New Orleans.
What is missing from the report, or at least remains unmentioned in the NY Times article, is what the City Planners have in mind for the poor who were driven out of their neighborhoods by the storm. Are there provisions for providing affordable housing in other parts of the city or are the poor and the black just expected to find a new city to live in? At this point, sadly, the latter seems to be the case.
posted by Diane at 5:33 AM
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