I'll quote from that link I gave from the American Planning Association. I think there is food for thought in the article.
Will add link here as well, in a minute.
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=1593&topicId=21355&docId=l:311710137
Quote -
Many urban policy specialists say rebuilding New Orleans could represent a grand social experiment: building a predominantly black American city in a way that breaks up concentrated poverty, improves public schools and creates jobs.
"This may be the first American city built in the 21st century," says Larry Davis, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center on Race and Social Problems. "New Orleans has the opportunity to be a model for the country. ... Here's our chance."
Money already is pouring in. Congress has approved $62.3 billion in aid for hurricane-stricken areas in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Foundations want to dole out grants and are contacting think tanks for advice on how to spend money. State economic development officials in Baton Rouge are working with New Orleans business leaders on a rebuilding plan. Researchers are scrambling for grants to lay out their vision for a new New Orleans. Civil rights advocates are weighing in to ensure that blacks, who made up two-thirds of New Orleans' 460,000 residents, play a role.
"If we're going to try to recreate the city, why not do it right?" says David Gladstone, assistant professor at the college of urban and public affairs at the University of New Orleans. He escaped Katrina and is living with family in New Jersey. "Why rebuild it the way it was? New Orleans was a dangerous city even before the hurricane hit."
A blueprint for a new city will not emerge until the water is drained and exhaustive environmental testing is done to determine whether it's safe for people to move back. Levees must be redesigned to protect against future flooding. Some neighborhoods may never be deemed safe enough to redevelop.
Any rebuilding plan will have to meet one overriding challenge: Where will the poor go?
Dealing with poverty
The poverty rate in New Orleans is 23.2%, almost twice the national rate of 12.7%, according to the Census Bureau. Thirty-five percent of the city's black residents are considered poor, compared with 11.5% of its white residents. (By federal standards, a family of four earning less than $19,307 a year is considered poor.)
New Orleans will probably be a much smaller city for years to come. Whatever size it becomes, the focus has to be on reducing economic segregation and poverty, Gladstone says.
"We have to make sure that affordable housing is available in all neighborhoods and not put them back where they were before," says Amy Liu, deputy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.
What can be done:
*Mixed-income housing. HOPE VI, a program launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1990s, could serve as a model. Large public housing projects, from high rises in Chicago to low-rise compounds in Louisville, were torn down.
In their place came communities for families of varying incomes, built with a combination of private capital and government subsidies. Families on welfare could live next door to middle-class families in neighborhoods close to schools and services.
Mixed-income projects, however, usually don't provide enough low-income housing to all those who are displaced. That could be the case in New Orleans, especially if land that many low-income people's homes were built on is deemed unsafe for redevelopment.
One opportunity: Much of New Orleans' cheaper housing consists of detached homes on single-family lots. New development could be multifamily units such as midrise apartments and townhomes.
New Orleans also could require developers to sell parts of new housing developments at below-market rates. Suburbs of Washington, Boston, and many California cities that are running out of affordable housing have been doing so for years.
*Vouchers and tax incentives. The federal government can give the poor housing vouchers that enable them to live in market-rate housing at below-market prices. It also can offer tax credits to developers who build homes for lower- to middle-class families.
There must be a federal mechanism that gives the poor a chance to return, says John Norquist, head of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a non-profit group that advocates walkable neighborhoods and housing close to jobs to lessen sprawl.
President Bush "could suspend payroll taxes for anybody who lived in New Orleans for 10 years," says Norquist, a former mayor of Milwaukee. "That would create a market for low-income people to live there."
*Give jobs in the rebuilding effort to New Orleans residents. Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders have suggested that government launch a public-works project to create jobs and rebuild the region. Jackson has objected to the relocation of evacuees throughout the USA. He says they should be given temporary housing close to the city so they have first shot at the jobs that will be available when rebuilding begins.
*Keep the city small and dense. New Orleans' street grid makes many parts of the city accessible on foot. However, the evacuation fiasco that left thousands stranded as floodwaters rose to rooftops may spur a redesign of streets and highways. That could further isolate the poor who don't have cars. Almost 30% of black households before the flood didn't own cars, compared with 15% of white households, according to the Census Bureau.
"What we don't want is to have infrastructure continue to divide African-Americans from jobs, from the port," Liu says.
*Rebuild tourism. The hospitality industry is one of New Orleans' largest employers. Business leaders and economic development officials already are scrambling to lure back tourists and conventions. Mayor Ray Nagin says the historic French Quarter will reopen on Sept.26. There are plans for a scaled-down Mardi Gras in February.
Even before the hurricane, Pres Kabacoff, chief executive and founder of HRI Properties in New Orleans, had a plan to revitalize the city. His Operation Rebirth envisioned an "Afro-Caribbean Paris" district. He planned to refurbish buildings in 15 downtown neighborhoods, including 700 blighted properties.
Now he's been asked by state officials to put together a post-Katrina revitalization plan.
"Much of the historic part of the old city is still intact," Kabacoff says. "Much of the riverfront is intact. Lots of abandoned and blighted housing can be renovated. ... We need to see some cranes in the city and build confidence that things can happen."
Improving the schools
"They can fix the streets, they can give people housing, but it will never recover until they give people education," says Linda Wallace, 56. "It had the most pathetic, disgusting educational system."
Wallace is married to a native of New Orleans. She has lived there for more than 30 years. Her twin sister, Iris Morgan, is a longtime resident, too.
All three are schoolteachers, and all three escaped the hurricane and moved to the Chicago area, where Wallace and Morgan are from originally.
The high school graduation rate in New Orleans is about 65%, below the U.S. rate of 68%, according to the Urban Institute. More than 77% of students participate in free- or reduced-lunch programs compared with 59% nationally.
Louisiana schools spent an average of $7,554 per student in 2003, compared with the national average of $9,136. In 2004, New Orleans students ranked poorly on basic skills. Third-graders showed up in the 35th percentile nationally and sixth-graders in the 28th percentile, according to the Council of the Great City Schools, a non-profit group that represents the nation's largest urban school districts.
Then there's the crime. Wallace loved the diversity of her neighborhood in Gentilly, 10 minutes from Lake Pontchartrain.
But she says the city's crime made life unbearable for her and her neighbors. Preliminary 2004 FBI statistics show that 4,468 violent crimes were committed in the city, more than the 3,784 reported in Fort Worth, a city with 140,000 more people.
"Dealing drugs was the economy of New Orleans," says Wallace, who locked her front door even when she took the garbage out.
New Orleans needs to create jobs before it can hope for a comeback, Gladstone says. Rebuilding will do that, but it won't help the evacuees if they don't get the jobs, he says. "A lot of people express concern that there won't be any poor people left in New Orleans," he says. "I'd like to see people come back with more job opportunities, more job training. Reconstruction jobs would go far to help them to afford new housing."
September 19, 2005
