Placemaking and disaster recovery: targeting place for recovery in post-Katrina New Orleans

Abstract

One of the central strategies employed by the City of New Orleans to address the challenge of disaster recovery after Hurricane Katrina was a place-based strategy of targeted investments. This strategy sought to address the twin challenges of the punctuated disaster from Katrina and the slow-motion disaster of economic decline that pre-dated the storm. We analyze the key components of the geographic targeting program in New Orleans through a case study of a particular target in the Gentilly planning district of the city. The goal of the process was to utilize reinvigorated places to both encourage community reinvestment and deal with the underlying challenge of rebuilding in a more resilient manner. Target-area resources were never fully translated into dedicated resources for project implementation. We find that weak implementation and management capacity significantly limited the effectiveness of the targeting program in meeting place-based goals.

Keywords:

• placemaking
• New Orleans
• geographic targeting
• Hurricane Katrina

Notes

1. While there were some discussions of enhanced code enforcement and an auction by the New Orleans Redevelopment Agency for the “lot next door” program (designed to allow owners of adjacent land to purchase agency-controlled parcels), there was little overall implementation on broader target-area projects