New Orleans: The Quiet Time is Turbulent

In the old, pre-disaster days, this week was the quiet time, the brief period (before the Sugar Bowl inundation) when the tourists left New Orleans, and the city belonged to the locals. Now as I drive or walk through the Quarter, my spirits lift when I see clumps of tourists, walking in shorts despite the few days of relatively frigid temperatures.

But the calm is disturbed by the impending climax of a long-simmering dispute. The local housing authority, taken over by federal HUD in 2002 due to long-standing management issues, is determined to raze four major public housing projects and replace them with mixed-income developments. In ordinary times, that might not have been a terrible idea, although, as the New York Times' architecture critic points out in a blistering attack on the program, these projects are not the sterile high-rise prisons of inner-city East Coast fame: they're two or three stories tall, solidly built, some with notable architectural pedigrees. They did commit the crime common to such projects--destroying the street grid, so that they are "communities" devoid of corner stores, corner bars, corner anythings, which are so intrinsic to the neighborhood fabric of New Orleans.

But these are not ordinary times. A hundred thousand people (at a minimum) remain evacuees from the city, at least 50,000 rental housing units were damaged or destroyed by the floods, and the best evidence is that a good number of the project apartments slated for demolition are actually or (with some work) potentially habitable.

The Times' Adam Nossiter, a day before, weighed in with a peculiar piece, asserting a trend--in this case, the exiles turning their backs on the city--while quoting only four individuals and one statistic. The latter--the dropoff in voting among exiles between the Mayoral election in May 2006 and the runoff election last October--is a peculiarly unconvincing piece of information, since the election for Mayor was widely viewed as a crucial one for the city's future (ironically, in terms of the result, which seems irrelevant to the city's future), whereas the October runoff was an anticlimax, in which voting statewide was down because the crucial race for governor had been decided in the primary weeks earlier. I'd cite, in contradiction to Nosser's reporting, the account of a friend who works in housing assistance in the city. She says her phone rings off the hook every day with calls from exiles desperate to return. But, with the supply of rental housing so depleted, rents have risen, and, Brad Pitt's best efforts notwithstanding, affordable housing in New Orleans is being destroyed, not rebuilt.

N.B.: The City Council votes on the proposed demolitions today (Thursday).

Comments

[ellenliv]

Thanks for your interest in this important topic -- your readers might also be interested in exploring it further at www.teachingthelevees.org. This is a website that accompanies curriculum materials, called Teaching The Levees, designed to be used with Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke, to get our students to discuss the many important issues raised by Katrina. (We've also done a writeup on your blog in the past couple of weeks, encouraging students and teachers to use it in their classrooms.) The housing situation in New Orleans really represents so many of the issues raised by Katrina and its aftermath in a nutshell, and we hope you and others who really care about the city will continue discussing them.

[twofish]

I saw the fighting inside and outside the City Council meeting tonight on my local news (I don't watch the network news). Then the weasel council voted to tear down the housing. One thing I didn't see on the scene was Mayor Nagin. Is he on vacation or something?
HARRY SAYS: Usually, yes. But I did see footage of him at a press conference in the city with a number of civic leaders, lauding the council's vote, but saying there was still a fight with HUD to come.....

[factanonverba]

You have to love Harry Shearer who works in LA but lives in New Orleans. This statement is also loaded with the cruel reality that most of New Orleans' residents such is not an option. Until we rebuild New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta wetlands to what they once were then the New Orleans diaspora will continue to stand as the greatest human tragedy of the modern era in the United States. If the federal government can not rebuild New Orleans, what use is having a federal government?

[milo9]

Obviously the Bush Administration doesn't want poor, especially black, folk back. I would like to add this: so many evils have flowed from Nancy Pelosi's "taking impeachment off the table". And we still have another year of this b.s.

[backhandpath]

11pm CST~Protesters and Police clash outside City Council Chambers: http://noladder.blogspot.com/

[gotalife]

Yes, it is getting ugly at the Housing hearing.

[jmad]

The sad fact is that "low cost housing " everywhere in this country is a total joke.
However, the expectation that FEMA or anyone should protect people living below sea level is sheer folly. Give it back to the river.
HARRY RESPONDS:: FEMA's job is not to "protect" anyone, it is to provide disaster response. More than half of populated New Orleans is at or above sea level (see the Times-Picayune story about this fact from March of this year). Do we get to live here now?

[Bienville]

I found the Ouroussoff piece less than blistering. He reworked some of his comments from last year (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/weekinreview/19ouroussoff.html) and expanded his condemnation (which I join) of Cooper a bit. I honestly found 2006's piece more severe than yeaterday's. He also raised a spectre that concerns me greatly: that the old charm of New Orleans will go away soon after the projects, as developers and new urbanist planners seek a laboratory for their experiments, as big campaign contributors empty our treasury to fill theirs, as outsiders level our city to fulfill their vision.
I found the Nossiter piece to be peculiar at the very least - most of its message was very disturbing. I found his content and tone were almost celebratory at the prospect that the "element" will finally be eradicated from New Orleans, that the displaced poor should just accept their lot and stay away. Very disturbing.

[CSE]

"The local housing authority, taken over by federal HUD in 2002 due to long-standing management issues, is determined to raze four major public housing projects and replace them with mixed-income developments."

Similar to those developed in Atlanta? I couldn't find any reference.
HARRY RESPONDS: Similar to those that replaced the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans. See articles in the Times-Picayune on those, built under the name River Garden.

[campaignman]

What is happening is an artificial housing crisis that is designed to keep the lower income community that lived there from being able to return.

A community was lost as a result of Katrina. That community should be able to expect support in being re-established. Being a lower income community should not deprive it of that reasonable expectation.

The federal government has an obligation to step in and work quickly to bring new, cost effective homes to the ninth ward and elsewhere so that people who want to return can have that option. More homes would mean lower rental prices, and that might upset those investors but that shouldn't matter.

When the Mayor said NOLA was a chocolate city he meant that an African American community had developed there over many years and had a special culture that was part of the fabric of the city. It helped make NOLA what it was and many people loved what it was. It has a right to re-build that community.

I am confident that the next President will make that happen because all the Democrats appreciate this. My only hope is the city can survive until then. I fear that the GOP, well aware of its chances in the fall of '08, will rush to find ways to prevent that from happening for good.

NOLA should look for every opportunity to delay any decisions on its future that will prevent the people who loved living there from being able to return.

Good luck.

[pigsatthetrough]

Staying slightly off topic, CNN carried a story related to Emergency funds. In Texas the tornadoes of the time period destroyed a lot of homes. $500 million was sent to the State for emergency funding and rebuilding. Only $1 million has been paid out over the last two years, and most of that to bureaucracy. Does anyone really care for these people in New Orleans or Texas?

[MakeLeveesNotWar]

Harry,

First of all, we New Orleans bloggers would like to see you circulating more in our forums.

Secondly, I hate to say it, because I think you're more thoughtful than what you're revealing here.

There are a lot of stereotypes and ideological baggage that needs to be unpacked before any of us can (or should) form opinions on this issue. We all of us would benefit from a little education, and more civility, on this topic.

[PlanetKansas]

Harry, I know your heart is in the right place, but money always flows uphill. The "Reagan revolution" has sold us the notion that government is not the answer to our problems and we have to turn to the private sector. That means the future NO is left to the likes of Donald Trump and will end up looking more like a Disney Jazz Museum resort.

There are no incentives or government programs left to create public housing, and noone is going to restore the funky poor neighborhoods that gave the city its mix of charm (and danger).

For years, our country has been fed the notion that the markets will solve all of our problems and it was the government that was our enemy. Corporations do not represent the public interest, have the bureaucratic clout, nor the level of funding of government has. It is naieve to pass the hat to private citizens thinking enough will be collected to solve the problem, and even so, those that do, Brad Pitt not withstanding, expect a profit on their investment.

The nation's infrastructure, interstate highways, water projects and park systems were all created by the federal government's vision, initiative and funding. As a country we need to realize the private sector has no role in making policy or providing public goods. We are now seeing the results as the federal government loses its ability to get things done because everything has been privatized and contracted out. Don't expect the poor from NO to be fairly represented under these conditions.

If the nation really wants the gulf coast restored, national healthcare and veterans benefits, it needs to be a federal vision, and paid for with tax dollars, not more deficit spending. I am advocating a return to bigger government and higher taxes along the lines of western Europe. Until that happens, we will continue to get what we don't pay for.

[BobLablah]

I think we all agree that the Corps is incapable of protecting NOLA. So why is it a bad thing that lower income might find homes in other parts of the country? Do we really need all of them to return to NOLA when we know it will eventually be flooded again?

[wmholt]

Thanks, Harry. I know you won't give up, but we need to not let this issue fade from America's consciousness.

Are there any Democratic candidates besides John Edwards who have spoken out lately about New Orleans?

I'll never forget an elderly woman calling in to C-SPAN, and saying,

"Bush said he would protect us from terrorists and their weapons of mass destruction. Hurricane Katrina was a weapon of mass destruction, and we knew full well that it was coming. What did Bush do to protect us here on the Gulf Coast?"

Unfortunately, Naomi Klein's observations about "Disaster Capitalism" seem to all be playing out just as she predicted.