Balkinization: And Now for Some Random News about Nola

And Now for Some Random News about Nola

Stephen Griffin

Several articles this weekend intersected and yielded some insights about New Orleans in the shadow of NYC's recovery after 9/11. There was a September 8 AP story comparing planning efforts in the two cities. NYC has had problems building on ground zero, but more success in the neighborhoods close by. Planning efforts in Nola started and stopped at least three times, hobbled by lack of funding. But the sort of funding available to NYC has been largely unknown in Nola. Today's NYT had an article on a neighborhood comeback near ground zero, below Chambers Street.

"The rebound is a testament to the healing power of billions of dollars in government aid, like the federal Liberty Bond program, which provided more than $6 billion in tax-exempt financing for reconstruction downtown, as well as various rent and wage subsidies from redevelopment agencies. Optimism abounds now among developers and merchants, who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into real estate along the narrow streets of Lower Manhattan."

Observers of Nola's recovery can only shake their heads at figures such as these. $6 billion! On redevelopment alone? It is well known that the much touted GO Zone Act of 2005 has been a bust in New Orleans, not yielding much investment. On a per square mile basis, $6 billion of pure economic stimulus in lower Manhattan would have to translate into at least $60 billion for Nola. One must always keep in mind that President Bush's "billions spent" on Nola has been spread over the entire Gulf Coast and was mostly spent on cleaning up, flood insurance, proper levee protection, federal salaries, and the state homeowner compensation plan.

Let's consider another article from the September 7 NYT. This reported on some recent arrests in New Jersey. "Eleven public officials, including two members of the State Assembly, were charged Thursday with taking thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for promising municipal business to undercover officers posing as insurance brokers in the latest federal probe into New Jersey's rampant political corruption. . . .The arrests are the latest example of how the state's roster of elected and appointed officials has come, at times, to resemble a police blotter."

In the early months after Katrina, public officials in Louisiana pointed without success to the corruption problems of other states. Louisiana has been treated as unique, when the reality is that it is far from the only state to have serious and systemic corruption problems. But the more fundamental and overlooked point is that no one really doubts that if a New Jersey metropolitan area were destroyed in a hurricane, federal dollars would flow unimpeded by corruption concerns. New Jersey has a bigger population than Louisiana and more powerful and influential politicians in DC. And it is tied in all sorts of ways to other powerful states such as Pennsylvania and New York that would back up its legitimate needs in a time of emergency. The contrast to the half-hearted response to Katrina could not be more obvious.

Posted 9:39 PM by Stephen Griffin [link]

Comments:

Stephen--you are right, except that news about NOLA is not random. It is one of the most important things in our country.

What is happening (or not) in NOLA is not random, it is the result of deliberate federal neglect. I've spent a month doing recovery work there. Residents, neighborhood and community organizations, and volunteers are doing remarkable and courageous work to rebuild. I haven't seen much of the government, except that it is creating enormous bureaucratic obstructions that are getting in the way of relief.

Most everything that only government can do is either not being done or is being done badly. As I'm sure you know, even in the areas where substantial federal funds have been dedicated--levee protection, insurance, homeowner compensation--money allocated has been slow to arrive. All of these problems still exist. Even levee protection, where the greatest amount of funding has gotten to where it is needed on the ground, is uncertain.

There is no substitute for resources, and those resources are money, manpower and organized, efficient government administration of both. There's not enough of any of those resources in the Gulf, and that is because the federal government in general and the President in particular do not care enough to get them there.

Of course there are historic, systemic, and physical obstacles to recovery. Any sensible recovery plan must consider these obstacles and include solutions that take them into account.

But if violence, corruption, past mistakes and antiquated infrastructure were reasons to give up on large government projects, we'd not be in Iraq. If the President cared as much about the Gulf Coast as the Persian Gulf, and was willing to take the lead in dedicating the federal resources needed to succeed, the Gulf Coast would be in much better shape than it is today.

The moral and political argument for a more robust federally led recovery plan is inconstestable, because the federal government is responsible for the vast majority of the flooding caused by poorly built levees and wetlands deterioration.

The neglect of the Gulf Coast and its residents is shameful. Hopefully it will end, because the work people there have done on their own is inspiring. It's sad that their government isn't as good as they are.

Maybe its naive, but the America I believed in would not let this stand. I always thought that if something this awful happened, we'd all be in it together and for each other. After the horrific images of the post-flood crisis, I really believed that we'd apply our know-how and make the restoration of the area and its people a top national priority.
If we don't make things right, we're not really much of a country, are we?

Charlie Martel

# posted by

Charlie Martel : 12:15 AM

The comparison of NYC and NOLA does not exactly shed a more flattering light on the corruption and incompetence of NOLA and LA in general. NYC cleaned up, planned and started rebuilding right from the start. Years down the road, NOLA still cannot even agree on a redevelopment plan while billions of dollars of federal assistance wait to be spent.

BTW, there is no direct square mile comparison between the costs to rebuild a Manhattan and NOLA. Manhattan is far more concentrated and far more expensive to rebuild. NOLA simply cannot make a decision on how and whether to rebuild its suburbs.

The problem is definitely NOT a lack of our tax money. The hurricane recovery effort down there is currently five times as large as any previous effort and will get larger. You will notice that, apart from a great deal of hot air on the subject, the Dem Congress is not exactly rushing down to throw more money down to NOLA.

If you want to make an apt comparison, you may want to measure NOLA's awful record with that of Haley Barbour's Mississippi recovering from the same storm. Indeed, the comparison is so embarrassing to the Dems defending NOLA, that they have stooped to trying to paint Barbour with the corruption brush because they cannot fault his stellar performance. Even assuming that Barbour was corrupt, that only makes NOLA corrupt and incompetent.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:20 AM

I agree that it is not only intentional neglect, it is far more strategic than people can imagine. At the outset, there were certain calls made that favored private equity over public. New Orleans attempted to open broadband in the central city area, to facilitate communications, it would have enhanced rebuilding networks, especially volunteer groups, but it never happened. Every neighborhood should have had a police substation to provide security for families rebuilding, but security is the largest problem in New Orleans and the biggest hindrance for those isolated in their neighborhoods. Families who want to come back to rebuild are afraid to be the only ones on their block.

In many towns along the Coast, public services are working out of tents and trailers, and there is no sign of rebuilding public infrastructure.

The burden of reconstruction has fallen totally on the goodwill of strangers, and the whims of speculators and developers. Those least able to shoulder the burdens are scapegoated and left to the FEMA parks. The FEMA trailer parks are dangerous gulags where single moms and elderly live side by side with meth addicts and other criminal elements.

It became apparent early on that their was a directed attempt to manipulate the economic pattern of the Coast. Volunteer organizations that gave "free" consumer goods, such as tools or meals were shut down and instructed to concentrate on labor (more dangerous for volunteers to do rather than run soup kitchens) I wonder if those early rulemakers though it would actually discourage volunteers form helping at all, thankfully there have since been a steady stream of people, notably Samaritans purse, Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity, and many others who have had to work according to some arbitrary guidelines set in the early days after Katrina.

Every day since Katrina there have been obvious abuses and indignities heaped upon the citizens who live along the Gulf Coast. Curfews, changing regulations and code enforcement, permitting requirements, En masse destruction of public housing and subsidized housing on often drier and higher land. (possibly to be sold to developers once the clearance is given)

Because of the lack of housing, casinos, rather than raise wages have turned to increased immigrant labor. Not the front desk people, but cleaning staff, kitchen help, all the people you do not see. The casinos maintain their visas and contractors are paid to house them. The workers come from all over the world, although it appears the majority are Latino/Hispanic or Asian. The wages are lower than they should be for an area that has lost much of it's workforce, so the effect overall is that as cost of living skyrockets along the Coast due to increased insurance, loss of equity, limited services, wages are suppressed.

While Houston complains about the "refugees" they took in from New Orleans, they forget to mention that many of the offices of major firms along the Coast and New Orleans relocated to Houston.

What I believe, is that those who help rebuild the Coast, out of spite, or in spite of the hardships we face, are rebels to the disaster. We know this could happen anywhere. We know it is the prototype for the next disaster, whether it be natural or unnatural.

# posted by

lilorphant : 10:23 AM

Steve,

I am curious as to why Mary Landrieu is said to be in trouble re next year's Senate election. One might think that no sane Louisianan would vote for a Republican, given the party's hostility to the very idea that government can be an effective provider of anything other than military weapons and the linked hostility to programs directed at the economic interests of the working class. And, of course, Vitter has been exposed as yet one more sanctimonious hypocrite on the "social issues," even as almost all Republicans have remained silent, in marked contrast to the hysteric reaction to Larry Craig. So why is Landrieu vulnerable?

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 10:29 PM

Just in response to Sandy:
Keep in mind that Landrieu won office in 1996 and reelection in 2002 only by narrow margins. In fact, her margin of victory both times was probably provided by African American voters in New Orleans parish. So there is a Katrina connection. Conservative democrats like Bennett Johnston and John Breaux have won in La. but only by co-opting some of the Republican vote. It's been harder for Landrieu to do that, I'm not sure why, since she is pro-life etc. Republicans in La. of course support Katrina aid for the state, provided it doesn't flow solely to Nola. They have an odds-on favorite to win the election for governor this year in Bobby Jindal. After all, Dems led the state through Katrina in Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin, but weren't perceived as doing a good job.

# posted by

Stephen Griffin : 10:50 PM