(Updated) Saving the shotgun house in New Orleans

Photo: Rick Loomis, The Los Angeles Times.

In August, I wrote a blog entry called "Learning from Louisville," among other things, it discussed a book co-authored by Professor John Gilderbloom of the University of Louisville and his experiences linking the University to housing production and neighborhood stabilization activities in the low-income Russell neighborhood. The book is discussed in this article from the Louisville Courier-Journal, "Book tells of U of L ties with inner city: Co-authors analyze Russell redevelopment." When Professor Gilderbloom started the "Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods" program, they built and sold houses for less than $70,000. Ten years later, these houses have doubled in price, and today houses are being built at market rates.

In an email, Dr. Gilderbloom wrote about New Orleans and reconstruction of historic lower-income housing, which I am taking the liberty of reprinting below (his text in blue). I've added some photos and additional discussion at the end.

Here are some of my tentative ideas and propositions about rebuilding Gulf Coast Communities--just in case I get a phone call or you the kind reader can use it if you are called. Several people on this list have been asked to give advice, design, planning and zoning guidelinesto rebuild communities, I wonder if a guiding principle will be to save as many lots that are zoned for shotgun houses. I wonder if advocacy planners will also embrace this as well. If you are concerned about housing for poor people do we start with how the neighborhood is zoned?

I wonder if the following is correct in terms of shotgun houses: In part my experience is derived and discussed in my recent book, Promise and Betrayal: Universities and the Battle for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods with Rob Mullins. Here is an argument for the vernacular shotgun house:

(1) the cost to build shotgun homes are about $45,000 for a three bedroom /one bath with 1,250 square feet with no basement or garage--the wages for the builders are pretty good too;

Double Shotgun House in the Bywater Neighobrhood, New Orleans, www.bywater.org.

(2) a shotgun house is part of the historic fabric of New Orleans and other places giving a sense of historical connection; a $40,000 mortgage after $5,000 is put down can only be around $400/month depending on interest rates;

(3) some shotgun houses survived the storm while others were either torn apart or will need to be demolished, planners should resist putting in larger homes especially ranch styles quare homes because they will look out of character in these historic districts;

(4) because of the hot and humid weather shotgun houses appear to be more energy efficient because of their narrow width and they can capture Gulf winds better than say a less energy efficient ranch style square house--I wonder if this point is correct in terms of energy efficiency. Can anyone provide additional evidence for this?

(5) Shotgun house design has been replicated and reproduced in the Andres Duany-designed new urbanist community of Norton Commons in Louisville and it looks good;

Shotgun style Italianate Cottage, Norton Commons, Louisville

Baton Rouge Advocate staff photos by Patrick Dennis Denise Ragsdale. Left, a FEMA ground-management leader from Mancos, Colo.; Nort Phillips, center, a fire-management officer from Vermont; and Charles Steinkamp of the Ocala National Forest office in Florida; keep tabs Monday on the movement of mobile homes and travel trailers into and out of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Depot Trailer Staging Area.

(6) shotgun houses appreciate better than manufactured housing. Studies show in Kentucky that the historic shotguns have continued to appreciate in both low, moderate and even high income neighborhoods while manufactured housing tends to cause surrounding stick built houses to fall in value--with a single wide having the most harmful impacts (see my study in Housing and Society on the impact of manufactured housing on neighborhood values);

Single Shotgun House in the Bywater Neighbrhood, New Orleans, www.bywater.org.

(6) a typical shotgun house in Louisville can house a family of five or six comfortably and cooled cheaply using a combination of open windows on all four sides and fans; changing the width size of neighborhoods zoned for shotguns will increase the price of housing keeping out the original residents;

Shotgun House in Louisville's Russell Neighborhood, photo from Wikipedia.

(7) you can place four shotgun houses with space between each home and it will equal the amount of land of your typical suburban ranch house;

(8) I worry that even New Urbanist but middle and upper class planners and architects look down on the shotgun house as poor people housing, ugly, out of date and a better house is something on a wider lot. I had a similar sentiment when I first lived in Houston and then in Louisville but it needs to be overcome. Can someone post some pictures of nice looking shotguns?;

Brick Shotgun House, Louisville, Kentucky. While shotgun houses are traditionally of frame construction, Louisville has hundreds if not thousands of shotgun houses constructed from brick. Photo from ARCHITECTURAL STYLES OF OLD LOUISVILLE.

(9) shotgun houses are preferable to ranch, mobile homes and manufactured homes and will have longer lasting value with increasing appreciation;

About 1,500 people who lost their homes or were already homeless still live in a makeshift mobile home/trailer park run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Charlotte County, Fla., since Hurricane Charley struck last year. Photo Credit: Marc S. Kaufman, The Washington Post.

(10) is advocating increasing the width of the lot size in a historic neighborhood that has or had shotgun houses a racist act?

(11) In the poor black neighborhood we helped revitalize, remake and renew we were able to keep many of the shotgun lot sizes we were also able to accommodate middle and upper class blacks who wanted to build larger houses in the neighborhood and create economic diversity--so maybe some flexibility is in order. In other words, we don't want to create a neighborhood that is solely for poor people--i.e. trailer parks but one that has a mixture of low, middle and upper income households.

(12) you cannot rebuild a neighborhood with just housing we found that you need to maintain places of worship, have good schools, grocery stores, recreational opportunities, positive police presence that works with the residents rather than against them, and location near jobs. My sense is if any of these components are missing, the neighborhood is in trouble.

In this post, I am making the case that new urbanism should embrace the history and design of neighborhoods with shotgun houses because they might be the best way to help house poor. The mission of new urbanism is about being inclusive and this means providing housing for the poor and working class. We need to be mindful of this.

Can anyone make the case against shotgun style houses over other housing types? What other arguments can be mustered here? Your ideas are welcomed.
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When I was in Louisville, I saw an item at an open exhibition that the National Trust had to promote linkages between historic preservation, the conference, and the Louisville community--they didn't have a similar setup in Portland.

Anyway, this publication: The Shotgun house : urban housing opportunities, published in 1980 by the Preservation Alliance of Louisville and Jefferson County Kentucky, is an extensive documentation of the Louisville Kentucky area shotgun house. Alas, it isn't available in the Library of Congress, but is available in Louisville-area libraries.

This link is to a webpage discussing the shotgun houses typical of the "Bywater" neighborhood of New Orleans. And this entry from Great Buildings Online has some quotes and lists some academic resources on the shotgun house (one of the references is by GWU professor John Michael Vlach, who lives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of DC).

Mtaminika Youngblood, a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Board of Directors, and formerly director of the Historic District Development Corporation in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn neighborhood, was involved in the rehabilitation of shotgun houses and the construction of new housing in that neighborhood, which includes the historic Martin Luther King, Jr. house. HDDC's efforts were featured in the Architectural Foundation film "Block by Block."

HDDC projects had to meet each of three objectives: (1) no displacement; (2) historic preservation not demolition; and (3) economic development; otherwise they didn't undertake the project. This online brief and this article discuss the HDDC.

Also, see this article, "Don't bulldoze distinctive houses. New Orleans' historic districts survived. But what about the structures that give them flavor?" by Inga Saffron, urban design writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

And these articles about FEMA and trailer housing--this article by Bruce Katz and Mark Muro from the Brookings Institution: "HURRICANE KATRINA The Aftermath Logic of FEMA trailer park plan questionable Katrina camps could delay survivors' return to their normal lives", "Florida's FEMA City falling fast into decline" and The Washington Post article: FEMA's City of Anxiety in Florida.

AND FINALLY, related to Dr. Gilderbloom's point that you need more than housing to stabilize and rebuild a neighborhood, Mihalio Temali's Community Economic Development Handbook is a great primer on where to start.