The Battle of New Orleans:

Urban Planning After Hurricane Katrina

Daniel M. RothschildAssociate Director, Global Prosperity InitiativeMercatus Center at George Mason University

drothsch@gmu.edu703-993-4898

Background on Mercatus Research Five-year project

Three sectors of society What works

What I plan to cover Larger research project

Emily Chamlee-Wright (Beloit College) Virgil Storr (Mercatus Center) Sanford Ikeda (SUNY – Purchase) Peter Gordon (USC)

Why is Planning an Issue?

Old ideas come to the forefront Policy Entrepreneurs

John Kingdon: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (1984)

Disaster Capitalists

Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine (2007)

Something needs to be “fixed” Solving collective action problems

What’s Working on the Ground

Civil Society Neighborhoods and Civic Groups Churches

July 2006, New Orleans East

February 2006, Near UNO

What’s Working on the Ground

Civil Society Neighborhoods and Civic Groups Churches

For-Profit Sector Small Entrepreneurs Large Businesses

Local Government Entrepreneurs (!)

What’s Not Working on the Ground Road Home Program No clear rules of the game Moving Money: SBA and CDBG State and Local Governments in Chaos

Permit process a wreck Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic

Poor communication between governments

New Orleans: City Planners Gone Wild Assumption: New Urban Plan Needed Interest Group Politics Five Major Planning Initiatives Additional Regional and De Facto Plans

Louisiana Speaks Road Home

Plan I: ESF-14

Managed by FEMA Mostly matters outside of New Orleans Incorporated into Louisiana Speaks

Regional Plan for Southeast Louisiana Based on “citizen participation”

Plan II: Bring New Orleans Back Announced September 2005 Bypassed City Planning Commission Staffed by Local Notables “Green space” + “Buyouts” = Land Grab December 2005: Canazaro Plan

Three years to build Shrink “inadequate” neighborhoods

Proof of Viability

Plan III: Lambert Plan

46 Local Plans Difficulty Defining Neighborhoods “Citizen Participation” Poorly Advertised Community Meetings Quickly Abandoned

Plan IV: Unified New Orleans Plan Funded in part by the Rockefeller

Foundation; Managed by the Greater New Orleans Foundation

Building on Lambert Plan: 14 District Plans Denounced by Lambert

Plan IV: Unified New Orleans Plan March 2007: Draft of UNOP Released

BGR: “A wishlist, not a plan” “You may have the greatest plan in the world, but

if we do not understand it, we will not trust it.” “A hearing is a nice thing, but it’s not

participation.” May 2007: Final Draft Released

Did not confront flood risk No information, no tradeoffs

Plan V: Blakely Plan

UNOP-Plus $14 billion plan 17 targeted zones for $1.1 billion investment

Common Threads in Replanning Top-down Disrespectful of Property Rights Citizen “Participation”

“We, the regular everyday run-of-the-mill citizen has had to become experts on everything because we

deal with experts about every phase of our lives and they are expert in their field, but we’ve had to

become experts on everything, on planning, on construction, on city works, on infrastructure, on

organization, on healthcare, on elders, on schools, on Dancer, on Prancer, on Donner, and Blitzen.”

- New Orleans resident, March 2007

Common Threads in Replanning Top-down Disrespectful of Property Rights Citizen “Participation” Irreconcilable Differences Master Plans that Pick Winners Big Promises, Most Broken Lip Service to Markets Never Really Serious

Urban Planning on the Ground Plans Initially Taken Seriously Now Irrelevant to Individual Action Politics and Rumors Taken Seriously

“And it’s so confusing because you know you hear one thing on the radio, one saying this; you know bits and pieces of information. There’s no clear plan.

Even you go to those meetings; you can’t get a clear answer about what’s what.”

–Educator, New Orleans, April 2006

Urban Planning on the Ground Plans Initially Taken Seriously Now Irrelevant to Individual Action Politics and Rumors Taken Seriously Signal Noise

The persistent distortion of signals that does not self-correct making the underlying signals – the signals that are critical to guiding sustainable recovery – more difficult for people on the ground to read and interpret.

“But we have to stay the course. We have to, and this is an analogy that I love because it’s so New Orleans. We are like a folks at a Mardi Gras

parade. We have to stand in line and throw our hands up at every float that passes in hopes that we

catch something, because surely if we don’t go to the parade, we don’t get nothing. What we mostly get is junk. But if we’re not at the parade, we miss

the party. We miss the party. We’ve got to go.”

- New Orleans resident, March 2007

Lessons for Future Disasters

Don’t Lie to People Underpromise, Overdeliver Don’t Trust the Man Don’t Try to Replan Cities Allow Neighborhood Devolution Understand Organic Growth

Daniel M. RothschildMercatus Center at George Mason

University

drothsch@gmu.edu703-993-4898

www.mercatus.org/katrina