Affordable Housing Institute : US

Even as all and sundry are offering proposals to recapitalize New New Orleans, and the sluggish city and state governments are taking their most hesitant steps toward decisions, Rand Corporation has released a quantitative study about what New New Orleans will be, together with some dramatic maps and charts showing what New Orleans was:

Old New Orleans, before Katrina

And what it likely will be:

New New Orleans, September, 2008

Throughout, the study (1 Meg .pdf) affirms many of AHI’s predictions, starting with New New Orleans’ permanent shrinkage.

A week after Katrina, I wrote:

 

Before Katrina, Baton Rouge had a population of 227,000 people, less than half of New Orleans‘ 484,000. Within five years, Baton Rouge will be larger, and possibly the relative populations could be reversed [i.e. New New Orleans at 250,000 people — Ed.].

Here’s what Rand’s statistical projection concluded:

 

The population of New Orleans will likely reach about 272,000 in September 2008 – amounting to 56% of the population of 485,000 before Hurricane Katrina struck in August, according to a study issued today by the RAND Corporation.

 

While that may seem quite a drop, as Rand demonstrates, it’s almost a doubling from New New Orleans’ current population:

The report, produced by the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute, estimates the city’s current population at about 155,000 and forecasts it will rise to about 198,000 in September. Only a few thousand people were living in New Orleans last September.

 

Why won’t the city regain its former population? Lack of housing:

The study says a key factor determining how quickly New Orleans can be repopulated is the availability of housing.

Housing is a key driver in the urban ecosystem, because it keys growth of both jobs and workers to do them:

 

· Rebuilding New Orleans involves many interdependent processes, exemplified by the relationship between housing and employment.

When supply is destroyed, housing availability becomes the blockage:

 

The faster housing becomes available, the faster people can return to the city. Services, employment, federal funding and schools will be restored more rapidly as the population rises, the report says.

 

Housing, jobs, schools, safety, and retail: all five dimensions of a healthy community need housing as a precondition.

· For example, many businesses are short of workers because there is not enough housing and the price of housing has increased. As a result, many workers are commuting from long distances. Others are unable to commute because they cannot afford cars, and because public transportation has been reduced.

Even as housing demand is spectacularly elastic, housing supply — or, in this case, lack of supply — isn’t:

 

RAND researchers found that homes of about 55% of the city’s population – 268,000 people – suffered severe damage after parts of New Orleans were inundated by floodwaters more than 4 feet deep when the hurricane hit and levees were breeched. Rebuilding the most severely devastated areas of the city where these people lived will to a large extent determine the future of the city’s population, the report says.

 

Throughout, the report confirms AHI’s projections and echoes AHI’s prescriptions, such as:

The study says policymakers can speed the repopulation rate of New Orleans by enacting policies and procedures to streamline the process for obtaining permits to repair and reconstruct housing, and this has begun.

 

The report is most compelling when it documents the multiple steps required to put new housing into place (page 7):

One step at a time

The rehabilitation of damaged buildings is a long, slow, expensive process that involves many steps, including:

1. Gutting the dwelling of all flood-damaged material and furnishings

2. Clearing away debris

3. Remediating any environmental contamination

4. Obtaining an insurance settlement

5. Hiring a contractor and skilled tradespeople (e.g. electricians, plumbers, roofers)

6. Finding necessary building supplies and equipment

7. Obtaining flood insurance and loans or grants for reconstruction

8. Obtaining planning approval for repairs or demolition and reconstruction.

Have you got the moves down?

All of the foregoing activities are sequential, with many blockages that accumulate.

If you’re waiting, your clock isn’t ticking.

 

Actual activity will take longer, because of shortages of capacity:

There are likely delays at each step of the process, because of, for example:

1. A shortage of construction workers (who themselves have no place to live)

2. Understaffing of planning departments

3. Shortages of construction materials

4. The huge backlog of properties needing inspection for insurance settlements.

 

And shortages of clarity:

· Uncertainties and delays in federal funding for repairing and upgrading the levees, underwriting flood insurance, and restoring essential services are likely to slow the repopulation process.

Start by simply sliding out Piece Number 1.

With that cheery diagnosis, what is the prognosis? How small will New New Orleans be?

[Continued tomorrow in Part 2 and concludes in Part 3.]

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