New Orleans Collaborative Planning - Introduction
The devastation of the city of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 was the greatest urban natural disaster in our nation’s history. Almost 1,500 citizens were killed. Every neighborhood sustained flood and wind damage to its housing stock. Nearly 80% of the housing in the city was considered destroyed by FEMA’s standards. The disaster in New Orleans is ongoing; a year later, over half of New Orleans residents had not returned to their homes. Two years later, seventy percent have returned citywide, but some neighborhoods remain at less than half their pre-Katrina population. Families continue to struggle with housing, employment, and the emotional recovery from losing their homes and neighborhoods.
New Orleans neighborhoods need planning help now, and will continue to need it over the next few years, as they attempt to rebuild homes and economies and work with investors and funding agencies. University urban planning programs such as DURP have the capability to provide some of the help urgently needed in the city.
Because of the tremendous challenges of planning in New Orleans, most university planning departments have not made a commitment to ongoing work in the city. We feel strongly that it is our obligation as planners and educators to contribute to the most extensive planning project of our lifetimes. DURP’s commitment to respond to the ongoing disaster in a substantial and sustained way is exceptional among professional planning programs.
The Department of Urban and Regional Planning has been involved with the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans since November 2005. The earliest involvement by Dr. Rob Olshansky focused on advice to local planning organizations and research on the recovery process. Since the summer of 2006, Dr. Olshansky has served as an advisor to the organizers of the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP), which will produce both neighborhood and city-wide plans for recovery.
Teams of students at U of I have worked on several projects related to post-disaster planning in New Orleans. Current work, being supervised by Dr. Lisa Bates, concentrates on housing recovery in the Lower Ninth Ward. The Lower Ninth Ward became infamous to viewers of television news coverage of Katrina as many of its residents were stranded by floodwaters when the storm surge breached the walls of the Industrial Canal. The Lower Ninth Ward is not among the lowest lying neighborhoods in the city, with elevations just at sea level; its flooding was due to inadequate levee protection. Its status prior to the hurricane as a predominantly homeownership low-income community makes the Lower Ninth a unique example for planning activities.
To get a general sense of the New Orleans and our engagement, please click here for a Slideshow |
