Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/bienvilles-dilemma-new-orleans/11337/ en-us Design Observer Group 2009-10-26T14:50:08-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0
No one ever said those things about California fires or that Washington DC itself lies on a fault line. For every Yankee who said it was a sinkhole of filth: we'd pour another Dixie beer and revel in their distain.

The "otherness" which had protected it from the increasing blandness of urban America elsewhere give New Orleans a sense of gritty rebelliousness. This time it worked against us. A sizable chunk of the population that evacuated never returned, not because they just wouldn't, but because they couldn't. The poverty shocked many. People groused about their tax dollars going to riffraff. There was a racist undertone to the rude comments.

Of course, counterbalancing that was grassroot aid, before FEMA muddled in and the Blackwater mercenaries left. And outsiders who made an effort to care about the recovery long after media attention moved on. Even church groups from other states drove there to gut houses and clean up out the mess out of sheer goodness. Unlike the government. It's still a sore subject to many.

One organization I'm aware of, Make It Right, put sweat, good sense and environmental creativity into housing reconstruction in the Ninth Ward. They've been nominated for an award at this years Whitney-Hewitt Museum for environmental architecture.

Yes, it's had it's share of disasters, fires and hurricanes before, but this time it was the Army Corps of Engineers and the magnitude of the catastrophic failure of the levee system that did some areas in. Saved a few million, lost billions. The goal now is restoration and there have been thoughtful plans where and how to rebuild, since a huge chunk of the barrier wetlands are completely gone.

As a geologist I met afterwards told me, it's a geologic inevitability that without a better levee system that the city is living on borrowed time once again. That's a tragedy.
]]> Mark Andresen http://places.designobserver.com/feature/bienvilles-dilemma-new-orleans/11337/#comments 2009-10-26T14:50:08-05:00 The Atlantic just posted a less sweeping but still interesting article specifically about the rebuilding there- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/curtis-architecture-new-orleans.]]> faslanyc http://places.designobserver.com/feature/bienvilles-dilemma-new-orleans/11337/#comments 2009-10-25T10:14:12-05:00
]]> Claire Anderson http://places.designobserver.com/feature/bienvilles-dilemma-new-orleans/11337/#comments 2009-10-22T18:50:39-05:00