Whether low-income communities are struggling to rebuild after a hurricane or after long neglect, the challenges often seem insurmountable. The New Orleans 9th Ward’s inclusive approach to decision making shows that the best revitalization plans are those with the broadest buy-in.Community development

Kenneth M. Reardon

English

Research Papers in Economics

Communities & Banking    13
D
Rebuilding a Community 
Lessons from New Orleans
Rebuilding a Community 
During  hurricanes  Katrina  and  Rita  in  2005,  the   
destruction of the New Orleans levees wreaked havoc, 
and nowhere were the consequences more painfully vis-
ible than in the neighborhoods comprising the city’s 9th 
Ward. Seventy-two people died and hundreds more were 
forced onto their roofs, anxiously awaiting rescue. Even 
today, the traumatized children, when asked to draw a 
house, will frequently draw a triangle only: the roof.1 
What  happens  to  a  low-income  community  after 
such complete desolation? Can it come back? The story 
of the 9th Ward since 2005 may offer lessons for other 
communities.
P
h
o
t
o
g
r
a
p
h
s
 
c
o
u
r
t
e
s
e
y
 
o
f
 
A
C
O
R
N
 
H
o
u
s
i
n
g
/
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
t
y
 
C
o
l
l
a
b
o
r
a
t
i
v
e14   Spring 2008
The First Proposal
A survey conducted by the Brookings Institu-
tion in the weeks following Katrina and Rita 
revealed  that  approximately  50  percent  of 
survivors planned to return to New Orleans. 
Real estate and land use experts from the Ur-
ban Land Institute (ULI) responsible for de-
veloping the city’s first recovery strategy based 
their recommendations on those data. 
The  ULI  plan  recommended  imme-
diate public investment for infrastructure, 
housing, and business development in areas 
that had experienced the least flood-related 
damage.  It  also  recommended  withhold-
ing investment from the city’s most heavily 
damaged areas until there were revitaliza-
tion plans demonstrating significant inves-
tor and resident support. The ULI plan sug-
gested there might be sections, such as parts 
of the historic 9th Ward, where the risk of 
future flooding was so likely that it might 
be better to clear the area and use it as an 
urban park and wetland buffer.
Community response to the ULI plan, 
which  Mayor  Ray  Nagin  initially  sup-
ported,  was  harsh,  prompting  the  mayor 
to  withdraw  his  endorsement.  Instead  he 
called for a mayoral task force, the Bring 
New Orleans Back Commission, to prepare 
a strategy to assist all former residents who 
desired to return home. The commission’s 
final report asserted former residents’ right 
to return and called for a comprehensive re-
covery plan to make it possible.
Taking a New Tack
Lacking the financial and staff resources to 
create a comprehensive recovery plan, the 
city secured $3.5 million from the Rock-
efeller  Foundation,  Greater  New  Orleans 
Foundation, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina 
Fund to do so. In July 2006, the city issued 
a request for qualifications (RFQ) for con-
sultants capable of designing neighborhood 
and citywide strategies that could be inte-
grated into a comprehensive recovery plan, 
the United New Orleans Plan (UNOP). 
Enter  the  Association  of  Community 
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), 
the nation’s largest citizen organization repre-
senting poor and working-class families, head-
quartered in New Orleans since 1978. Several 
weeks after the RFQ, ACORN staff directed 
Cornell graduate students working as interns 
to help in preparing a formal proposal.
Aware of the challenges of developing a 
comprehensive recovery plan in a post-disas-
ter context and the intense competition they 
would face, the students worked hard, with 
the assistance of Cornell faculty, to prepare 
a proposal on behalf of a community/uni-
versity partnership they helped establish, the 
ACORN Housing/University Collaborative 
(AHUC).2 AHUC was subsequently selected 
from a pool of 69 experienced architecture, 
engineering, and planning firms to serve as 
one of five senior consultants to work on the 
city’s comprehensive plan.
In fall 2006, the faculty participating in 
AHUC recruited more than 80 undergradu-
ate  and  graduate  students  to  undertake  a 
research program to more accurately deter-
mine existing local conditions and to iden-
tify the strategies and projects most preferred 
by residents, business operators, institutional 
leaders, and elected and appointed officials. 
The students were enrolled in five different 
field-based research courses on the Cornell, 
Columbia,  and  Illinois  campuses  between 
September  1,  2006,  and  December  15, 
2006. The classes undertook the following 
activities in order to produce an empirically 
based  and  resident-supported  comprehen-
sive recovery plan for the 9th Ward:
•	 examination of 29 historic reports, stud-
ies, and plans;
•	 analysis of population, housing, and busi-
ness trends using the U.S. Census;
•	 inspection of more than 3,000 buildings 
to determine their structural integrity;
•	 surveying of storm drains, roads, and side-
walks to identify those requiring immedi-
ate repair;
•	 interviewing  individuals  operating  busi-
nesses within the 9th Ward’s four most in-
tensively used commercial corridors;
•	 interviewing  200  families  who  had  re-
turned;
•	 evaluating the physical condition of more 
than two dozen playgrounds, parks, park-
ways, and residual open spaces; and 
•	 reviewing best practices from other post-
disaster recovery efforts from around the 
world.
Following each activity, AHUC repre-
sentatives traveled to the 9th Ward to share 
their results with the returnees. The research 
team was thus able to involve a wide range of 
local stakeholders in analyzing the data and 
discussing the implications for local recovery 
efforts. Recurring themes raised during the 
highly interactive sessions gave the team a 
clear sense of the preferred recovery scenarios 
of residents, business leaders, pastors, com-
munity activists, and elected officials.
The People’s Plan
By the end of the fall 2006 semester, AHUC 
students had completed a first draft of The 
People’s  Plan  for  Overcoming  the  Hurricane 
Katrina Blues: A Comprehensive Strategy for 
Building a More Vibrant, Equitable and Just 
9th Ward. A few students gave up their winter 
holidays  to  transform  the  somewhat  ram-
bling, 400-page study into a tightly written 
and lavishly illustrated document.3
The People’s Plan contained critical re-
search findings that contradicted widely held 
beliefs. The following were among the new 
insights:
•	 8 of 10 buildings within the 9th Ward were 
structurally sound and, therefore, candi-
dates for cost-effective rehabilitation;
•	 a  much  higher  percentage  of  former 
residents  than  previously  thought  had 
returned and were actively engaged in re-
habilitating their properties (25 percent of 
residents have now returned to parts of the 
Upper 9th Ward);
•	 more than three-quarters of the returnees 
who were restoring their homes were us-Communities & Banking    15
ing their own resources and/or charitable 
donations  to  do  so  because  insurance 
and federal reimbursements were slow in   
arriving;
•	 many returnees were anxious about not 
having  access  to  high-quality  building 
design and construction advice and, as a 
result, feared they were making costly er-
rors that might compromise their plans to 
return; and
•	 most  were  in  daily  contact  with  family 
members, neighbors, and friends hoping 
to return but concerned about public safe-
ty,  educational  quality,  primary  health-
care services, availability of job training, 
and access to living-wage jobs.
The  findings  prompted  the  team  to 
adopt a development goal designed to trans-
form, rather than simply restore, the envi-
ronmental, economic, and social conditions 
that  had  existed  within  the  nine  historic 
neighborhoods  comprising  the  9th  Ward. 
The 26 recovery proposals of The People’s 
Plan  go  beyond  reestablishing  function-
ing  local  infrastructure  systems.  Almost 
without exception, residents and would-be 
returnees  expressed  concerns  about  qual-
ity-of-life  issues—public  safety,  quality 
neighborhood school buildings and educa-
tion, and access to primary health-care ser-
vices. So the “Field of Dreams” proposals of 
many past recovery plans (“if you build it, 
they will come”) were rejected. The People’s 
Plan took a more holistic approach to com-
munity development, one that gives equal 
attention to the physical and social dimen-
sions of community revitalization.
In early 2007, eight students and fac-
ulty  members  representing  AHUC  sum-
marized the major elements of The People’s 
Plan for a group of more than 50 local of-
ficials and 150 residents at the Holy Angels 
Roman Catholic Church. The community’s 
response was overwhelmingly positive. Oli-
ver Thomas, then the president of the New 
Orleans  City  Council,  requested  that  the 
team submit the plan as an amendment to 
the comprehensive plan being finalized by 
the UNOP planners. 
An Associated Press story describing the 
plan’s enthusiastic reception was subsequent-
ly carried by more than 175 news outlets un-
der the headline “Planners Say 9th Ward Can 
be Rebuilt.” As a result of the coverage and 
ACORN’s organizing efforts, the New Or-
leans City Planning Commission and City 
Council  unanimously  passed  resolutions 
directing local planners to incorporate the 
major elements of The People’s Plan into the 
comprehensive plan. 
Not long after, Edward J. Blakely, New 
Orleans recovery director, outlined a $1.1 
billion capital improvement plan designed 
to accelerate the city’s recovery by focusing 
public investment in 17 areas.4 Among the 
targeted  redevelopment  areas  is  a  signifi-
cant section of the Lower 9th Ward that The 
People’s Plan had recommended for imme-
diate renewal.
Looking Ahead
Encouraged by the inclusion of an impor-
tant  segment  of  their  community  in  the 
city’s new investment strategy and guided 
by the recommendations contained with-
in their own plan, 9th Ward residents are 
working hard to capitalize on the attention 
and resources they have received to restore 
and enhance the quality of life available to 
current and future residents. 
The 9th Ward story is the story of one 
community in extraordinary times. But any 
devastated community, whether it has suf-
fered a sudden natural disaster or years of ne-
glect, can learn something from the inclusive 
approach  to  decisions  on  rebuilding. The 
best plans have the broadest buy-in.
Kenneth M. Reardon is an associate profes-
sor in City and Regional Planning at Cornell 
University, where he pursues research, teaching, 
and outreach activities related to neighborhood 
planning, community development, and mu-
nicipal government reform. He was one of the 
dozen  faculty  members  participating  in  the 
ACORN  Housing/University  Collaborative, 
www.acorn.org. 
Endnotes
1 Shaila Dewan, “Using crayons to exorcise Katrina,” 
The New York Times, Monday, September 17, 2007, p. 
B1.
2  The  partnership  included  ACORN,  its  housing 
production affiliate, ACORN Housing, Cornell Uni-
versity’s Department of City and Regional Planning, 
Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and the Univer-
sity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of 
Urban and Regional Planning.
3 See http://www.rebuildingtheninth.org.
4 Adam Nossiter, “New Orleans Proposes to Invest in 
17 Areas,” The New York Times, March 30, 2007.
This Communities & Banking article is copyrighted 
by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The views 
expressed are not necessarily those of the Bank or 
the Federal Reserve System. Copies of articles may 
be  downloaded  without  cost  at  www.bos.frb.org/
commdev/c&b/index.htm.

Rebuilding a community: lessons from New Orleans

http://www.bostonfed.org/commdev/c&b/2008/spring/Reardon_New_Orleans_rebuilds.pdf

Rebuilding a community: lessons from New Orleans

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Research Papers in Economics