NNO: Creative destruction, Part 1
Last week, New New Orleans took a step forward by officials showing judgment and courage:
Predictably, the decision was made by one far from the scene:
“Hurricane Katrina put a spotlight on the condition of public housing in
Bravo. I have had many differences with Secretary Jackson in the past, and doubtless will have many more in the future, but on this one he is dead right. New New Orleans should be, will be, and is already becoming smaller and more viable than decaying and decrepit Old New Orleans.
The demolition, which is scheduled to begin over the next several months, would be the largest of its kind in the city’s history and would erase the sprawling low-rises of the St. Bernard, C. J. Peete, B. W. Cooper and Lafitte housing developments.
Resident Stephanie Mingo
Equally predictable, alas, was the reaction from some quarters:
The announcement provoked strong criticism from [some — Ed.] low-income tenants and their advocates, several of whom noted that thousands of public housing apartments had been closed since Hurricane Katrina.
The four developments represent more than half of all traditional public housing in the city, where only 1,097 units have been opened since the storm.
Many of Old New Orleans’ residents, splashed all over the country, are making new lives and have no plans to return. Perhaps the 1,100 apartments now open are enough for now?
Acknowledging the immediate need for housing here, Mr. Jackson also said 1,000 apartments in several public housing complexes that were only lightly damaged in the storm would be opened over the next 60 days.
Given these reopenings, on where might the former residents have a beef?
The Cooper public housing property
In the context of redevelopment — demolition and rebuilding — current residents have three legitimate concerns:
- Will the housing be rebuilt?
- Will my neighbors be allowed to live there?
- Will I be allowed to live there?
Of these three questions, for most people the real question is the last one, and contained within it is sometimes (not often) a germ of defensiveness, because maybe, just maybe, I haven’t been fully complying with all the lease terms, and a rebuilding and new move-in.
For policymakers, what matters are the first two: what physical environment are we building, and what community do we seek to create? As to the physical environment, HUD’s plans are maddeningly vague:
Mr. Jackson outlined the first official plans for the projects since the storm, and they were incomplete. He did not specify how many units in the new developments would be set aside for public housing or whether there would be units for all the low-income residents who had such housing before the storm. Planning for the new developments, which are to be financed by bonds, tax credits and federal housing money, has not begun, he said.
While I accept the validity of committing to demolish before rebuilding is in full plan, one need not be paranoid to find these platitudes insubstantial and unsatisfying. I do accept that the task is complex, since we are changing the community:
Local officials have for months said they do not want a return to the intense concentrations of poverty in the old projects, where crime and squalor were pervasive.
The Fisher project,
We have mountains of evidence, both sociological (studies) and Groucho Marx (”who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”), that deep income concentration is unhealthy for children and families. No role models, no sense of community, no ladder of economic success, no social commerce with adjacent neighborhoods and the wider city. It’s also deeply uneconomic: in today’s US markets, Extremely Low Income (ELI) households (those at or below 30% of Area Median Income), what the residents can afford is less than the operating costs.
Income from left to right, housing consumption from bottom to top
Public housing with deep income concentration (red arrow) cannot pay its bills.
Such a violation of the law of economic gravity is unsustainable, and as I have written, the public housing system is breaking down, but like a hollow elm tree, it stands immobile and mute, seemingly sound, like along comes the storm that shatters it:
The four developments were damaged in Hurricane Katrina to varying degrees and have been off-limits — along with most of the city’s public housing — to residents ever since.
The apartments have been hurricane damaged, sat for weeks in stagnant and contaminated water, and are structures more than sixty years old.
Nursery school class in St. Bernard, 1945
Before the hurricane, the city had close to 8,000 units, although not all were habitable.
Some uninhabitable, all vacant for coming up to a year, many now mold-invested — it’s time for redevelopment.
[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]
