Cities: New Orleans

A city that was once known primarily for Mardis Gras and muffalettas, New Orleans is now most closely associated with FEMA, flood and levee failure. Hurricane Katrina and the Lake Ponchatrain levee collapse culminated in the flooding of about 80 percent of New Orleans, and led to a full evacuation of the city, the first in United States history. Not everyone was able to get out alive and tens of thousands have yet to return, five years later.

Founded by French colonists in 1718, New Orleans wasn’t part of the United States until Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803. As the hub of the transatlantic slave trade, New Orleans was one of our young nation’s most populous cities in the mid-1800s, and one of its most culturally diverse. The city grew and grew until the 1960’s, clearing out its swamps to pave the way for more development. Since then, its economy grew stagnant and on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans had about three-quarters of its 1960 peak population. Since Katrina, New Orleans, by highest estimates, is at two-thirds its pre-Katrina population. It was the greatest displacement of people in the United States since the exodus from the Dust Bowl.

Hurricane Katrina rendered complete neighborhoods completely unlivable but spared the city’s higher historic parts, including the French Quarter and the parts of the city closest to the river. With destruction on a scale almost unheard of in modern times, the storm raised difficult questions about how to redevelop cities that have lost significant population, but also presented an opportunity for planners to experiment with innovative ideas that might have been otherwise unfeasible. For example, New Urbanist Andres Duany introduced the Katrina Cottage, which presented a more humane, better-designed approach to emergency mobile housing. This is but one example of the outpouring of ideas and support that flooded New Orleans after the waters receded, which goes to show that having a unique urban culture, history, and sense of place goes a long way, even if your economy is suffering.

Bottom Line: There’s still plenty of work to be done, but the important thing for New Orleans is that people want to do it.

—Willy Staley

Image by cbanck via flickr.

City Highlights

A Resolution to Charity’s Case

Brentin Mock | January 29th, 2010 | 1

Louisiana wins a ruling against FEMA to collect $475 million to rebuild Charity Hospital, but it’s still not clear what form it will take. Plus, a re-posting of reporter Brentin Mock’s 2008 magazine feature about Charity’s struggles to rebuild.
(more)
Katrina: Four Years and One Inauguration Later

Ariella Cohen | August 28th, 2009 | 0

NAC correspondents Ariella Cohen and Brentin Mock send a report from New Orleans, where residents and officials are still trying to get the help they were promised by the federal government—with limited results. (more)
City on a Bender

Ariella Cohen | February 24th, 2009 | 1

A visual dispatch from New Orleans, where Mardi Gras is in full swing. (more)
Transportation’s Slow Ride to Recovery in NOLA

Ariella Cohen | September 11th, 2008 | 0

When New Orleans chauffeur Jerome Tilquit isn’t behind the wheel of his employer’s Chrysler Town and Country van, he’s on a bus. Or waiting for one, at least.
The suburban parking lot where Tilquit picks up the van sits just two highway exits beyond city limits, no more than 30 minutes by car from his Uptown home—even taking into account delays caused by the city’s crater-sized potholes. But Tilquit has no car and so has to spend one to three hours each way transferring between three buses.