Affordable Housing Institute : US

Channeling AHI’s various predictions and recommendations (Part 1 and Part 2), the Economist provides both an update and a suggestion for New New Orleans:

 

IN PARTS of the Lower Ninth Ward, people who want to rebuild their houses will have to find their land first. 

 

From the Economist: life in the Lower Ninth Ward

 

[AHI’s NNO posting archive is here.]

 

When the levees enclosing the Industrial Canal failed during Hurricane Katrina last August, most of this poor black neighbourhood disappeared.  Its most prominent landmark is now a hulking barge that escaped from the canal and lies stranded in a wasteland.  Farther away from the levee breach, buildings still look like buildings; but they have been ripped off their foundations and tangled up with other structures.  Apart from a few carloads of gawkers and an encampment of earnest students, the area is devoid of life. 

 

This four and a half months after the hurricane.

 

It may never revivify.  Under a plan put forward by Mayor Ray Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission (BNOB), areas that experienced minimal flooding by Katrina would be rebuilt immediately. 

 

With Federal money, of course, since the city and state are broke.

 

But residents in the harder hit areas, such as the Lower Ninth Ward (which was also hammered by Hurricane Betsy in 1965), would have until May 20th to show that they would return in sufficient numbers to keep their neighbourhoods alive.  If they fail to do so, homeowners could be “bought out” in some way and the areas in question could revert to swampland or be turned into parks.

 

Contrary to some property rights advocates, eminent domain is not merely a flail with which to scourge the poor and scour out diversity; here it is the essential relief that will enable a proper new city to rise.

 

A mass migration to higher ground would appear to make sense—and not just because nobody wants a repeat of last summer’s disaster.  For the foreseeable future, New Orleans will be a smaller city.  The city’s population, which rose above 600,000 in the mid-1960s, had declined to about 462,000 before Katrina emptied the town.  The mayor’s commission puts the current figure at 144,000, but expects the population to be only 247,000 by 2008. 

 

Two out of every three former New Orleanians now lives somewhere else.  Expecting even one-third of those to return seems mighty optimistic when they have neither home nor job to reclaim.

 

Even before the hurricane, city agencies struggled to fight crime, mow grass and keep streets and waterpipes in working order.  After losing much of its tax base, New Orleans may be too broke to provide services over the same geographical area.  The cost of subsidising services for a few foolhardy souls could be better spent in potentially viable neighbourhoods.  Most urban planners insist that the city must write off some areas for the rest to survive. 

 

Here, however, logic runs into principle and racial politics.  Many politicians feel queasy about violating the property rights of individual householders, some of whom are determined to return to their homes come what may. 

 

Sorry folks, Old New Orleans has been forcefully deconcentrated, and will not be reconstituted:

 

“Let’s convene another blue-ribbon panel to study our options”

 

There are also accusations of racism.  Most of the city’s highest neighbourhoods are also its oldest, wealthiest and whitest.  There are some exceptions—Lakeview, a rich white area, and Eastover, a rich black one, were both hit hard—but, in general, plans to shrink the city’s size could mean the end of a lot of poor black neighbourhoods. 

 

 

The city council has passed a resolution urging the immediate and equal redevelopment of all parts of the city.  This looks like grandstanding.  The resolution is non-binding and it is not clear who would pay for it. 

 

Someone other than the city council, naturally.

 

Inevitably, the rebuilders at BNOB have tried to put off the decision.  One of its leaders, Joseph Canizaro, a property developer (and Republican fund-raiser), suggested reopening all the city to development and then deciding in three years which bits to close down. 

 

Spoken like a developer.

 

Others wanted to wait for a year, which would also have left householders unsure whether to rebuild. 

 

Spoken like a buck-passer.

 

The current proposal, the four-month waiting period, was a compromise.  It includes a moratorium on building permits in the hard-hit areas until the decision is made—a crucial component in a city that has already issued thousands of permits and is issuing more than 100 a day.

 

Public officials in Louisiana tend to be chosen for their ability to bring home the pork, rather than in telling angry people what they don’t want to hear.  This week, the sometimes eccentric Mr Nagin called Katrina a sign that “God is mad at America” and promised that he would fulfil the Almighty’s wish that New Orleans be rebuilt as a “chocolate” city …

 

“Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday apologized for urging residents to rebuild a “chocolate New Orleans” and saying, “You can’t have New Orleans no other way.”

 

The man has a way with words, doesn’t he?

 

“Hold it this way, mister mayor.”

 

… with a majority black population.  But he has not yet said whether he will abide by the BNOB recommendations. 

 

Earth to Mayor Nagin: New Orleans does not exist to provide you with a political base; you exist to provide New Orleans with policy leadership.

 

 

State officials are also mum on this subject — as is George Bush. 

 

In this political vacuum, most of the news is coming from victims in the worst-hit areas.  Signs of discord are evident.  “I don’t know you, but I hate you,” a resident of eastern New Orleans told Mr Canizaro at a meeting.  Community activists have sued to keep the city from bulldozing in the Lower Ninth Ward. 

 

Have they also sued to stop the mold?

 

In the end the decisive vote in New Orleans will come not from those householders who are determined to return but from those who are currently unsure whether to rebuild or move on. 

 

Even as they consider this, people have to live somewhere, and that is not Old New Orleans (from October 22, 2005):

 

According to Governor Kathleen Blanco’s office, some 200,000 housing units in Louisiana are beyond repair.  Of these, 160,000 are in greater New Orleans—a huge loss for a metropolitan area that had only 1.3m people before Katrina hit.  Many other homes in the city can be fixed but are not yet habitable, so their returning owners need to find somewhere to live.  Rents are soaring.

 

Meanwhile, HUD is nowhere.

 

At least the gas is cheap there.

 

Many of them owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.  If they cannot extricate themselves, many will have to stay.  Hence the interest in a bill sponsored by Richard Baker, a Republican congressman from Baton Rouge, who wants Congress to create a recovery corporation that would buy out the owners of ruined homes. 

 

This could be hugely expensive: the corporation could issue up to $30 billion in bonds. 

 

If bonds are involved, they could be repaid, so there’s potentially a big difference between the cash outlay and the net present cost.

 

But at least Mr Baker and BNOB, like the Almighty (as revealed to Mr Nagin), have come up with a plan.  Unless other politicians are prepared to make some hard, expensive decisions, the Big Easy’s future looks chaotic.

 

“Ve at KAOS haf control off New Orleantz.”

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