The Other New Orleans
Photo: Francesca Pedersen.
The conventional wisdom about New Orleans these days is for the most part positive: an engaged mayor (with the obligatory “60 Minutes” profile under his belt), rebounding neighborhoods, improving schools, young people flocking in. All of this is true, as far as it goes, but it’s an incomplete accounting. What has gone largely unreported in the mainstream press is the condition of the neighborhood hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. Much of the Lower Ninth Ward—despite the heroic efforts of Brad Pitt and Make It Right—remains desolate.
This past weekend I went on a bus tour of the Lower Ninth, sponsored by the local chapter of the AIA and hosted by John Williams, who in addition to his work as executive architect for Make It Right has taken on the role of unofficial master planner for the embattled neighborhood. While there are pockets of hope in the Lower Ninth—the Holy Cross section has seen about half of its residents return—the overall picture is troubling.
Photo: Alex Pedersen.
“Before Katrina, seventy-two percent of the residents owned their homes,” Williams says. “It was the highest rate of home ownership in the state of Louisiana. It was a dense neighborhood. There were blighted properties, but virtually no empty lots. Eighteen thousand people lived here. Today I’d put that number at thirty-two hundred.” Prior to Katrina, there were eighty businesses on St. Claude Avenue, a main drag running through the neighborhood; there are now five. There were once 72 churches; about 20 survived. There is one school, but it largely serves students from outside the neighborhood. The children of the Lower Ninth live mostly elsewhere: Dallas, Houston, Baton Rouge.
For the past couple of years Williams has been fighting to get a school in the Lower Ninth. But it’s been a kind of chicken and egg game: the neighborhood asks for a school; the city says they don’t have the kids to support it (which is true); and the community responds, we would if they had a school to go to. According to Williams, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and his sister, Senator Mary Landrieu, have expressed support for a high school in the Lower Ninth. To her credit, the senator appears to be showing an interest in the neighborhood, conducting regular meetings with community activists there.
Photo: Francesca Pedersen
The bright spot here in the Lower Ninth is Make It Right. Despite all the difficulties—complicated finances, bureaucracy, and the typical delays that plague all construction projects—the organization has built 74 LEED Platinum homes. “The most in the country,” Williams boasts. Ten additional houses are under construction. Make It Right expects to complete all 150 (the original goal) by 2014.
Photo: Alex Pedersen
The challenge now is to build these houses—many of them conceived as “Architecture,” with a capital A—to LEED Platinum standards at an affordable price (something around $150 a square foot). Williams’ job as project architect involves modifying these schemes in an effort to satisfy both requirements—and it’s something of a thankless role. “Some of the architects don’t like what we’re doing,” he concedes. “But others, like Kiernan Timberlake, say, ‘Strip it down, this is about social justice.’”
Almost everything in the Lower Ninth revolves around social justice—or the lack of it. There are active community groups here, fighting to hold onto what’s left of their neighborhood but it’s a nearly impossible challenge. There just aren’t enough of them to create a cohesive political force. Make It Right, for all of its success, sits in one of the more desolate stretches of the neighborhood. To achieve its ultimate goal, it would need to be about ten times as large. I talked to a couple of life long residents and both said, ruefully, change is coming. “I saw a young white woman pushing a baby carriage,” one said. “And I’m pretty sure she wasn’t lost.”
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BACK TO TOP
Thank you!! Hope you’re able to join us for September’s tour - a look at the historic Treme Neighborhood by bike! More details available at http://www.aianeworleans.org.
Comment by AIA New Orleans — August 18, 2011, @ 2:12 pm
According to the most recent census, the Lower 9th Ward’s population now is 5,556 people.
Also, Lower 9 has been approved for a new high school at the old Alfred P. Lawless High School site.
While the Lower 9th Ward doesn’t have enough children locally to support the High School, this doesn’t matter because there is a lack of schooling city wide, and as your article points out, children are already being bussed from other parts of the city to the one school in Lower 9 (MLK Charter for Science and Technology) which is k -12. Those students could at least move to this new building, not counting students from other parts of the city who will travel great distances to attend
Comment by David — August 18, 2011, @ 3:24 pm
Wow, 9th Ward residents “rue” the coming of white people to there neighborhood ? No racism there.
Comment by Howwie Munson — August 18, 2011, @ 3:26 pm
Make it Right = Social Justice for some…the truly poor have not been able to return due to the bungled and discriminatory “Road Home Program.”
To qualify for Make it Right, one still has to qualify for a mortgage. People who had generational homes but were still below the poverty line have, by and large, been cut out of rebuilding in Lower 9 due to economic constraints. They were not given the right of return.
Until economic Justice is achieved at a larger scale Make it Right will be a bandaid solution to a systemic fair/affordable housing crisis.
Comment by David — August 18, 2011, @ 3:32 pm
Lower Nine and Holy Cross may get a grocery store too. Details matter of course, but big picture this would be big.
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2011/08/holy_cross_neighborhood_associ.html
Comment by Casius — August 19, 2011, @ 12:48 pm
Thank you for your comments. We had a similar experience about a year ago and wrote about it in our online article “New Orleans Post-Katrina: Making it Right?” http://thearchitectstake.com/editorials/new-orleans-post-katrina-making-right/
Comment by mark english — August 19, 2011, @ 7:55 pm
My sincere congratulations to Make It Right. As a former design director at an urban non-profit, i know firsthand how ethereal ideas can become when confronted with reality. All the excitement and structure seems to dissolve like cotton candy in a rainstorm, and a lot of good work gets wasted. The fact that MIR has taken ideas from concept to construction is harder than most people will ever realize. Quite frankly, design professions in all cities should be doing more of the same.
My only issue comes down to pricing. $150/sf might not sound like much, but that translates to $150,000 for a 1000sf home, folks. LEED Platinum is fine … but the sad fact is, a single mom with 4 kids isn’t going to care. Of course, a plethora of other ills (unemployment, stagnant economy, growing gaps in income, shrinking social nets, etc.) contributes significantly to this malaise. But that doesn’t obviate good design from recognizing who the client is. These homes aren’t being built for young, hip architecture students willing to take a chance, who always have the option of moving out if the neighborhood doesn’t roll to their satisfaction. These are clients who, quite frankly, don’t have such choices.
Comment by shtrum — August 25, 2011, @ 2:23 pm
To the comment about reverse racism—you don’t get it. White people integrating a black neighborhood has almost always signaled that they are about to be pushed out. And for people who want to return to the past comforts of pre-Katrina, there was not a white person in sight. Make it Right is not doing anything for anyone except architects and people who want to see extreme green implemented. For someone who is retired or low-income (like most of the previous 9th ward residents, these are incredibly impractical houses. What does someone do when something breaks like a hot water on demand heater? They have no resources and the expertise on repairing and working on solar panels and other innovations doesn’t exist. There have been endowments established to help people maintain the houses. How is that making it right? Making it Right should have entailed rebuilding modest homes that are easy to maintain and repair. Insulation and quality building would have been enough to make the houses energy efficient and comfortable. Most of the residents don’t like the designs of the homes either—they think they look institutional. But hey, the fancy magazines come to take pictures and yuppies are moving in.
Comment by Lindy — September 10, 2011, @ 7:21 pm
It is true - the Lower Ninth Ward was a predominantly African American neighborhood prior to the levee breaches - 98%, to be precise. And the neighborhood enjoyed one of the highest rates of African-American homeownership in the nation - a rate which is being maintained by the good work of nonprofit organizations in the area - not at all to the exclusion of MIR, who are building homes for residents of the Lower Ninth Ward exclusively (pre-Katrina, that is).
Yes, a large shift in population could mean pre-K residents are pushed out, but at present this really isn’t an issue (as of 2010 Census, the neighborhood remained 93% African-American).
The issue in the Lower Ninth Ward is that affordable housing is still not accessible to prior residents - their right of return is not being respected or supported by programs like Road Home (just found to be discriminatory in a Federal court of law). Amnesty International calls this a violation of their human rights, and those of us working hard in the area, regardless of our budgets, our access to the media, and our styles of building/rebuilding agree. Please support us. Advocate. Volunteer. Donate.
Comment by Laura Paul, lowernine.org — November 27, 2011, @ 10:15 pm