Delirious New Orleans

by Stephen Verderber

  45. Because the architecture schools at Tulane and LSU were segregated until the 1960s, the only source of trained black architects in the state was Southern University, in Baton Rouge. Southern, a historically black school, graduated a small number of highly talented architects, who then would return to the city to embark on careers, but remained locked out of the city’s real power circles.

  46. Flake, Behind the Masks, 205.

  47. Jason DeParle, “What Happens to a Race Deferred?” New York Times, September 4, 2005, http://www.truthout.org/docs (accessed September 19, 2005). Anyone who knew New Orleans knew that danger lurked behind the festive façade. Let the good times roll, the tourists on Bourbon Street were told. Unusually poor, with 27.4 percent living under the poverty line in 2000, the Big Easy was also disproportionately murderous, with a rate that was for years among the nation’s highest. Thirty-five percent of black households did not own a car, compared to just 15 percent for white households.

  48. Dru Oja Jay, “The Battle of New Orleans: Race, Class Disparity Set Stage for New Orleans Disaster,” Dominion, September 3, 2005, http://www.dominionpaper.ca (accessed September 19, 2005). Also see John Lewis, “This Is a National Disgrace,” Newsweek, September 12, 2005, 52.

  49. Susan Cutter, “The Geography of Social Vulnerability: Race, Class, and Catastrophe,” Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences, September 29, 2005, http://www.understandingkatrina.ssrc.org (accessed September 30, 2005).

  50. Moran, “Shrinking City,” October 23, 2005.

  51. Susan L. Cutter, Bryan J. Boruff, and W. Lynn Shirley, “Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards,” Social Science Quarterly 84, no. 1 (2002): 242–261.

  52. Gordon Russell, “New Orleans, 77054,” Times-Picayune, October 10, 2005, http://www.nola.com (accessed October 10, 2005). Also see Audrey Singer, The World in a Zip Code (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2005); James Dao, “No Fixed Address,” New York Times, September 11, 2005; and Gwen Filosa, “I Came to See What God Had Done,” Times-Picayune, October 28, 2005, http://www.nola.com (accessed October 28, 2005). Critics asserted that physical vulnerability must be reduced through the construction of disaster-resistant buildings, changes in land use, the restoration of wetlands and floodways, and a marked reduction in social vulnerability. These steps were seen as prerequisite, even if they resulted in a more compact urban footprint, fewer profits for developers, and a smaller tax base.

  53. Editorial, “New Orleans Revisited,” USA Today, December 1, 2005, http://www.usatoday.com (accessed December 4, 2005). Also see Nicole Gelinas, “Who’s Killing New Orleans?” City Journal, Autumn 2005, http://www.city-journal.org (accessed October 31, 2005).

  54. Lynne Jensen, “Trailer Confusion Abounds in City,” Times-Picayune, December 12, 2005, http://www.nola.com (accessed December 12, 2005). An editorial on the corrosive effects of racism and classism in New Orleans’s resurrection clearly stated their potential threats to the city’s future (“The New Xenophobia,” Times-Picayune, December 3, 2005, http://www.nola.com [accessed December 3, 2005]).

  55. Logan, “Nurture Social Ties to Bring City Back.”

  56. Cutter, Boruff, and Shirley, “Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards,” 257.

  57. Jonathan Alter, “How to Save the Big Easy,” Newsweek, September 12, 2005, 53.

  58. Michael Sorkin, “After the Flood: Rebuilding the Physical and Social Fabric,” Architectural Record, October 2005, http://www.archrecord.construction.com (accessed October 14, 2005).

  59. Manuel Roig-Franzia, “If New Orleans Is a Blank Canvas, Many Are Poised to Repaint,” Washington Post, September 14, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed September 18, 2005). Also see Julia Reed, “Hope in the Ruins,” Newsweek, September 12, 2005, 58.

  Part 5

  1. Inga Saffron, “A Planner’s Historic Opportunity, Impossible Task,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 19, 2006, http://www.philly.com/inquirer (accessed June 1, 2006). A well-respected planning firm from Philadelphia, WRT, developed a detailed report, which in part recommended that the lowest-lying, most flood-prone neighborhoods of the city should be abandoned and converted to green space. This ignited a firestorm of controversy, and the ramifications of the commission’s recommendations were reported widely in the national and international media. The local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, and its editorial writers agreed, and urged the city to adopt WRT’S ideas. The city, they wrote, can’t wave a magic wand and return New Orleans to its preKatrina state; what it can do is embrace a responsible plan for redeveloping a great city.

  2. This consistent inconsistency, or flipflopping, extended to his views on the army of FEMA trailers descending upon the city. Sometimes he would give one opinion on the “footprint” debate over the trailer villages when speaking to a predominately white audience in the morning, and then give a contrary opinion on the same issue to a predominately black audience later that same day. The absence of visionary or even decisive leadership on these critical issues during this early period of stabilization was, to laypersons and to planning and design professionals alike, seen as worrisome, quixotic, and exasperating. As of 2008, the situation had improved little in this regard.

  3. Before Katrina, Mayor Nagin was not known as being particularly versed or even interested in urban planning, architecture, or historic preservation. He portrayed himself as a business executive—nothing more, nothing less. Many critics saw this as a profound irony: a mayor of one of the most historic cities in America appeared to be blind, or the equivalent of tone-deaf, to the built environment. The catastrophe would do little to alter his predisposition on these matters, unfortunately. While this apparent indifference will undoubtedly be the subject of books and symposia for years to come, space is insufficient here to go into great detail on the inner profundities of the strange period of paralysis that descended upon the city as a result of the political indecisiveness and sheer ineptitude exhibited by the city’s elected politicians, particularly in the aftermath of the debacle involving the Bring New Orleans Back urban planning committee.

  4. These events were sponsored by private donations solicited under the auspices of the newly created Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA). The LRA, created in the immediate aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, is a quasi-public state agency mandated to distribute the $10.2 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds distributed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as approved by Congress in 2006 and 2007. These funds were intended for the rebuilding of the region’s devastated housing and urban infra-structure. The first charrette was conducted in the Lake Charles region, in areas affected by Rita; a second charrette occurred soon thereafter in Vermillion Parish, an area hit hard by both Rita and Katrina; a third was conducted in St. Bernard Parish, and a fourth in the Gentilly neighborhood in New Orleans. St. Bernard and Gentilly were devastated by twelve feet and more of floodwater from Katrina. See the Web site http://www.lra.gov for additional information on the LRA.

  5. Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York: North Point, 2000). The scope of devastation was something that Duany had never encountered in his years of planning communities across the United States. This fact he openly admitted to his audiences and to the charrette participants. The tenets of the charter of the Congress for the New Urbanism advocate walkable, compact neighborhoods, corner stores versus convenience stores, main street versus shopping malls, traditional land-use zoning versus current zoning laws, traditional town planning versus suburban sprawl, and by extension, they reject the suburban roadside strip, since it is the main conduit through which sprawl propagates. To many architects, design and planning professionals, and laypersons, this polemic seems like common sense, and this is why the New Urbanism became the poster child in the United States for “smart growth” over the past decade. However, when set against the sheer scale of ruin in post-Katrina New
Orleans, this polemic appeared to be overwhelmed and unconvincing, even naïve. To be sure, the surreal atmosphere created by the charrettes was largely due to the intense urgency of the region’s immediate housing crisis, the depopulation and snail-paced repopulation of the city and its hardest-hit suburbs, continuing uncertainties surrounding the ineffective and tattered federal levee system, and the profound lack of political leadership on planning issues. Duany’s design for a “Katrina Cottage,” an affordable mass-produced house prototype, of which one was built in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Chalmette in early 2006, was the closest he came to acknowledging the harsh reality of the ubiquitous yet barely inhabitable, faceless FEMA trailer. It was hard to take seriously his images of bucolic streetscapes rendered in pastels, grand fountains, and canals with promenades and light-rail systems when most people in the audience remained tragically homeless and at wit’s end.

  6. In the neighborhoods where the charrettes were held, the streets were nearly impassable, filled with the stench of litter and mountains of post-flood debris; any convenience store was a welcome sight, no matter what it looked like aesthetically; drinkable water was welcomed over a vision of a grand fountain in the center of a new town square; and the return of natural gas and electricity service was viewed especially as an act of grand civic munificence.

  7. Most units are manufactured by the following thirteen domestic suppliers: Keystone, Forest River, Jayco, Adventurer, Fleetwood, Zinger, Gulf Stream, Thor Industries, Cross Roads, Sun-Ray, Sunline Coach, RVision, and Coachman. The various manufacturers were contracted to build the two basic prototype models: the Deluxe FEMA Trailer, for installation on multiple-unit sites, and the Standard Travel Trailer, for installation on private residential sites. The former type contains a full kitchen and a full-size washer and dryer. The latter type consists of two rooms, is straight tongue (not pop out or fifth wheel), and is 29– 35 feet long. The subcontractor transported its trailer units from the manufacturer’s plant to the distribution yard in Texarkana, Texas, or to other staging yards, including those in Jasper, Texas, and Purvis, Mississippi. An assigned installation contractor then transported the unit to its final destination. The installation of the vast majority of units in New Orleans was completed by Bechtel, CH2M, Flour Enterprise, or the Shaw Group and its subcontractors.

  8. Assigned prime contractors are also responsible for providing adequate underground sewage lines, a municipal sewer tap, the telecommunications power pole with meter, a 50-amp travel-trailer electric-power pole and meter loop, water-line winterization, and direct wiring to the well-pump switch. In addition, the prime contractor is responsible for any aboveground electrical excess capacity and for state and local permits, as well as for providing an additional 25-foot potable-water hose and a 5-kilowatt generator, directly burying the 50-amp service, and refilling the propane tanks as needed.

  9. Based on data posted online by FEMA’s PFO Logistics Unit at FEMA.gov. Meanwhile, thousands of the bland, colorless trailers sat idle in staging lots in Arkansas and Mississippi.

  10. Keystone Corporation, Cover America II: A New Direction, http://www.keystonecorporation.com/ (accessed May 12, 2006).

  11. Ibid., 12.

  12. Jenny Hurwitz, “Little Matchboxes,”Times-Picayune, November 13, 2005, http://www.nola.com/features (accessed May 28, 2006).

  13. Laura Maggi, “It’s No Place Like Home,” Times-Picayune, April 12, 2006.

  14. Jenny Hurwitz, “FEMA Trailers First Arrived as Hope on Wheels for Those Rebuilding, but Now They Seem to Bring More Frustration than Hope,” Times-Picayune, April 23, 2006. By 2007, the trailers were being blamed for a host of physical ailments—including nausea, vomiting, eyestrain, muscle contractions, and sleep disorders—among occupants. After many stories appeared in the national media, FEMA finally launched a study of its own in late 2007.

  15. Ibid. By June 2006, additional fires and propane-gas explosions had occurred, causing deaths; for example, a Slidell man died from an explosion caused by a propane leak inside his trailer.

  16. Frustration often won out when people attempted to negotiate the phone-booth-sized bathrooms, head-skimming ceilings, and “efficiently” proportioned bunk beds. Other problems frequently cited included too-small hot-water tanks, flimsy particleboard cabinet ry, and mattresses that quickly lost their firmness. Worse, as mentioned, the trailers were blamed for causing illnesses: many residents’ eyes teared up after they sat in their trailers for too long. FEMA officials attributed this to toxic molding glue used in constructing the interior. As a result, many occupants had to keep the windows open for ventilation as often as possible. Claustrophobic quarters, combined with indoor-air-quality problems, including the omnipresent odor of sewage, forced many to limit their time indoors.

  17. Keith Darcé, “Powerless, Residents Waiting for Trailers,” Times-Picayune, January 14, 2006.

  18. Karen Turni Bazile, “St. Bernard Getting 6,000 Trailers,” Times-Picayune, January 24, 2006.

  19. Michelle Krupa, “Trailer Sites,” Times-Picayune, December 22, 2005.

  20. Michelle Krupa, “Algiers Neighbors Fight FEMA Trailer Park,” Times-Picayune, April 12, 2006.

  21. Rob Nelson, “Nagin Halts Trailer Site Work,” Times-Picayune, April 4, 2006.

  22. Frank Donze, “Trailers Get the OK after Dust-up,” Times-Picayune, April 27, 2006.

  23. Jarvis DeBerry, “Afraid of Trailers—or What’s Inside?” Times-Picayune, December 4, 2005.

  24. Amy Liu, Matt Fellows, and Mia Mabanta, “Katrina Index: Tracking Variables of Post-Katrina Recovery” (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, June 1, 2006), http://www.brookings.edu/ (accessed June 10, 2006).

  25. Mike Von Fremd, “Finding the Christmas Spirit in New Orleans,” ABC News, December 23, 2005, http://www.abcnews.go.com/ (accessed June 10, 2006).

  26. Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas.

  27. J. B. Jackson, “Other Directed Houses,” Landscape 6, no. 2 (1956): 29–35.

  28. During my twenty-two years in New Orleans, I lived a few blocks from a small neighborhood shopping district. It included a convenience store, pizza parlor, health-food restaurant, card shop, drive-in, video rental store, gas station, parking lot, and a branch bank. It lacked a cohesive visual identity or theme, but this is just as Jackson would have preferred. It was a visual jumble of what at first appeared to be competing commercial interests, and yet lurking beneath the surface there was a remarkable degree of harmony and unanimity among the various storeowners. While far from cohesive from a purely aesthetic perspective, it possessed considerable meaning and virtue. This district took on six feet of floodwater in Katrina, and from all accounts will return as a viable shopping district. And in the process of overcoming extreme hardship, it will, one hopes, be stronger than before.

  Throughout 2006, I was an active member of the Claiborne University Neighborhood Association (CUNA). This was one of the dozens of activist planning entities created by citizens on their own in the weeks after the disaster. We sponsored a successful urban-redevelopment design competition that was funded by a group of storeowners in the neighborhood. The area is now known as University Village. Many thanks to Jay Dufour and others for their hard work and continued leadership in 2008.

  29. Helen L. Horowitz, “J.B. Jackson as a Critic of Modern Architecture,” Geographical Review 88, no. 4 (1998): 465–473.

  30. J. B. Jackson (as H. G. West, pseudonym), “Review of Built in U.S.A., edited by H. R. Hitchcock and A. Drexler,” Landscape 3, no. 1: 29–30.

  31. Horowitz, “Jackson as Critic,” 470.

  32. Neil Campbell, “Much Unseen Is Also Here: John Brinckerhoff Jackson’s New Western Roadscapes,” European Journal of American Culture 23, no. 3 (2004): 217–231.

  33. Horowitz, “Jackson as Critic,” 468.

  34. Mitchell Schwarzer, “J. B. Jackson’s Writings,” Harvard Design Magazine 6 (Fall 1998), http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/hdm (accessed June 10, 2006).

  35. The scope
of the devastation in New Orleans was vast. Heartbreaking scenes could be found, replete with bitter irony, all over the city. These were the vivid reminders of severe cultural and physical dislocation. How does a large American city start to rebuild itself? Four places to begin: construct a first-class levee system and work to restore Louisiana’s vanishing wetlands; provide affordable housing in sustainable neighborhoods for the victims of the Katrina diaspora; create incentives for reinvestment and new investment in New Orleans; and, reinvent a public school system that was failing even before Katrina.

  36. The scenario unfolds daily with respect to the uncertain road ahead regarding planning for the recovery and reconstruction of New Orleans. Calls for grassroots neighborhood planning initiatives are considered politically correct, but hidden even within these populist, so-called participatory agendas are the agendas of those who seek personal gain over the public good.

  37. Blair Kamin, “Architecture Augments Don’t Help Housing,” Metropolis, April 2006, 43–45. Ideological catfights over housing and other facets of the rebuilding of New Orleans threaten to marginalize and undermine the work of all architects involved. Kamin writes, “Can we close the great divide between fetishistic formalism and social responsibility? Or are we doomed to a world in which architecture’s leading practitioners use their work merely to comment on social tumult rather than actually trying to do something about it? Forget the rampant aestheticism and architectural blunders of the twentieth century. We live in a pluralistic age, and it demands a new pragmatism. We are beyond either/or—we live in a world of both/and … the issue is real urbanism, not some polite, politically palatable ‘lite’ version thereof. I’ll take good urbanism, just like I’ll take good modernism.” Competing ideologies will cancel each other out. An excellent source to learn more of the background of the pros and cons of the ongoing bitter debate over New Orleans’s future is “My Urbanism Is Better than Yours,” by Alan A. Loomis. It is a review of a symposium held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1999; see http://www.deliriousla.net/essays/1999-debates.htm (accessed April 21, 2006).