Making It Right? New Orleans and the Two Faces of an American Urban Future

• In Event: Poster Session: Urban & Local Politics & Poster Session III: International Security
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Urban & Local Politics

Abstract

Nothing in the America of the 21st Century, not even of the past two or three years—the ones of Black Lives Matter and President Trump, and of so many natural and ecological disasters—has been as emblematic of as many crucial issues of the age as one formerly obscure and still-nondescript bit of land in New Orleans: the Lower Ninth Ward. The neighborhood, inundated by storm surge from August 2005’s Hurricane Katrina after flood walls collapsed, came to symbolize or stand at the crossroads of many issues, among them rising economic inequality, ongoing racial discrimination, natural disasters in a time of climate change, and the failures of and lack of trust in government at all levels.

Today, most areas of the city have rebounded, if not to where they were, then at least to 60 to 70 percent of that. Residents of the older, core sections of the city have long since been feeling the effects of gentrification. The Lower Ninth Ward, however (excluding the Holy Cross section that sits between the Mississippi River and St. Claude Avenue, which is older and on higher ground), is still at least half to three-fourths empty, not only of people, but any buildings or homes. Most of its northern half now consists of jungle-like wilderness and unauthorized solid waste dumps, full of mattresses and discarded furniture.

A few blocks down and toward the rebuilt flood walls of the city’s Industrial Canal, however, is what is possibly the face, or at least a glimpse, of a different American future: Environmentally friendly and climate-change aware, driven by celebrity philanthropy with an unusual, quasi-commercial structure, and created in a laissez faire vacuum. This is the Make It Right Foundation’s Lower 9 village, a pet project of actor and erstwhile New Orleans resident Brad Pitt. Whether it has been a success or not, however, depends on your viewpoint. It looks cozy and comfortable, and full of up-to-the-minute, modern design, from some of the most accomplished architects in the United States. Even so, the past year saw the first sale and, independently, the first foreclosure of its 100 or so properties, this after already changing, in 2012, ownership requirements that included being a former resident of the area.

Telling the story of, and closely analyzing, this section of a larger, nearly mythological American neighborhood could have much to say about current trends in American politics. These include issues of inequality, race, the role of celebrities in public life, changes in and a greater reliance upon philanthropy, a lack of public trust in institutions, and the priorities and sometimes seeming absence of federal, state, and local governments in 21st Century America.

To do this, I propose a mixed methods study. The research would entail short surveys and semi-structured interviews with neighborhood activists, residents, and representatives of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, including Make It Right, and area environmental and neighborhood groups. The research would also include interviews with city elected officials and administrators. Demographic and neighborhood change data is available, meanwhile, for analysis from The Data Center, a local nonprofit, and organizations involved in the rebuilding of the city, including the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, and the state Road Home program (whose stringent rebuilding terms, some existing literature has it, were a major contributor to low resettlement rates in the Lower Ninth Ward).

Author

• Ray S Mikell, Jackson State University