Building the new New Orleans, block by block
Soon after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, in August 2005, residents of the heavily flooded Broadmoor neighborhood began organizing their recovery. They founded a local development organization to help repair housing and convert blighted properties into new homes. Another new organization helped create an “educational corridor” featuring a school, library, community center and cultural center. Meanwhile, people working as “block captains” located displaced residents, asked about their plans, and persuaded them to return — even as the neighborhood was still coated with the physical residue of the flood. When these residents returned to their old homes, the neighborhood group placed signs in their yards proclaiming, “Broadmoor Lives.” This community activism and involvement in the recovery process is an underappreciated part of New Orleans’ story in recent years, says Karl Seidman, a senior lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and author of a new book, “Coming Home to...