A Visit to New Orleans
posted by Frank Pasquale
This photo shows a tour bus on what appears to be a “Katrina Devastation Tour” in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Virtually nothing has been reconstructed there, and a weekend visit evidenced lots of rebuilding to be done elsewhere in the city.
I’ve just gotten back from Nola, where I was celebrating a wedding of two friends. That was terrific, and the French Quarter is still going strong (I highly recommend Broussard’s for dinner and Palm Court for music.) But I had no idea what it meant for 80% of a city to flood, and for FEMA trailers to dominate the residential landscape over a year after the deluge.
What’s going on? I don’t have a deep grasp of the dynamics here, but one narrative kept repeating: the chicken & egg dynamic of residents not wanting to come back until businesses returned and businesses not wanting to re-open until residents returned. I stayed in a middle class enclave near the University of New Orleans, which apparently had cafes, fitness clubs, restaurants, and grocery stores before the storm—but all were still boarded up. The only food I passed was a mobile cart labeled “Pizza Milano.” So it’s no wonder many houses are abandoned, or fronted by the ubiquitous (and quite small) FEMA trailers.
In this way, Nola resembles many inner-cities that seem trapped in cycles of middle-class flight and declining amenities. I imagine there might be some good lessons for reconstruction from other cities that managed to revitalize.
Obviously government has a lot to do here, as a boatload of gallows humor reveals. Hartman & Squires’s collection “There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster” suggests the depth of local government dysfunction and malign federal neglect. Apparently hundreds of doctors are likely to leave Louisiana by the end of the year, due to a lack of hospitals and general uncertainty about Nola’s economic future.
I also noted a number of charities active, including ACORN and Catholic Charities in the Lower Ninth Ward. But when all’s said and done, the city has to get back on its feet economically. I think it’s important for people to have a sense of just how much would be lost if Nola fails to recover. I doubt I’ve ever been in a place with as much good live music, friendly people, and fantastic food. The architecture of the French Quarter is striking, and most of its streets free of the cookie-cutter corporate banality that makes so many other locales pale replicas of one another. (But for those of you who like that kind of stuff, there is a Hard Rock Café and an Urban Outfitters tucked away by the Mississippi River.)
The whole situation poses some of the same dilemmas that bothered me when I lived in some pretty marginal neighborhoods in Washington, DC. On one level, I wanted the Washington Post to cover the the social problems that plagued neighborhoods like Petworth and Shaw, in order to get the city government to respond. On the other hand, I also cringed when they did so, fearing that property values would take a hit and small businesses would get scared away. It seems to me that Nola has a similar problem–stories of just how dire the reconstruction situation are could drown out the more helpful (and equally true) positive message: that it’s still an amazing place to live in and visit.
Anyway, I’ll try to think a bit more about what law can do for Nola during the week. I’ve got to read the series of posts on the topic at Jurisdynamics to get my bearings…
November 28, 2006 at 8:56 pm
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Responses (6)
doctorj - November 29, 2006 at 8:14 am
The one thing New Orleans NEEDS before any of these problems can be addressed is a commitment by the federal government to make the levees safe to a cat 5 hurricane and coastal restoration. How can families and businesses rebuilt knowing that all can be lost again? From the beginning this has been the one thing we have requested on the federal government. Our pleas havw fallen on deaf ears. We have been abandoned by our own country. Check out levees.org.
Jeff Lipshaw - November 29, 2006 at 11:59 am
1. On the subject of levees and coastal restoration, do a Westlaw search and read all of the articles by Oliver Houck (my suitemate here at Tulane) on the subject. You will be rewarded many times over.
2. Frank, from where you were in the French Quarter, moving upriver through the Garden District and Uptown (including Tulane), things have the appearance of relative normality, particularly the closer you get to the river. My understanding is that the city’s smaller population has compacted into this area.
3. I saw a report on the local news this morning to the effect that the biggest concern was not the levees, but the return of crime and the capability of the local government. From my perspective here, that seems like a fair assessment.
4. The law school feels like just about every other law school in the last week of class.
Maryland Conservatarian - November 29, 2006 at 4:26 pm
“The one thing New Orleans NEEDS before any of these problems can be addressed is a commitment by the federal government to make the levees safe to a cat 5 hurricane and coastal restoration.”
yeah, that’s what was missing before – the lack of a federal govt. committment – if only they had matched the years of thoughtful government put on by State and City officials…
Rachel Godsil - November 29, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Frank,
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I spent some time in New Orleans this summer and had a similar reaction. As Jeff said, the Garden District along with the French Quarter seems barely fazed — but New Orleans East and the 9th Ward are devastated. I also agree with your concern that an emphasis on the devastation will create disincentives for revitalization. My impression is that the actual reconstruction shouldn’t be so difficult. A well-functioning local government is critical, but I think the federal government has a huge role to play –both in securing the city from future storms and in ensuring that the areas that were contaminated are sufficiently cleaned up. Thus far, EPA has abdicated this responsibility.
bill - November 30, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Maryland Conservatarian said:
“”The one thing New Orleans NEEDS before any of these problems can be addressed is a commitment by the federal government to make the levees safe to a cat 5 hurricane and coastal restoration.”
yeah, that’s what was missing before – the lack of a federal govt. committment – if only they had matched the years of thoughtful government put on by State and City officials…”
Smarmy smack on local pols doesn’t change the fact that the levees are the responsibility of the US Army Corps of Engineers, an arm of the federal government which saw its $$$ reduced to fund the Conservatarian war in Iraq/Iran/Syriana/?.
State and local government cannot and should not operate levees and river structures with national importance. They used to; one result was that Huey Long built a low bridge forcing the ships of the day to unload in Baton Rouge and reload onto barges. You might as well defederalize the Interstate system. Conservatarianism has its logical limits.
Frank - November 30, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Here’s a post from NJLS, lost in teh spam filter:
http://urbanlawjournal.blogspot.com/2006/10/uncertainty-reinforcing-displacement.html
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