Authors term post-Katrina revitalization of New Orleans a failure | It's a confirmation of my "Transformational Projects Action Planning" concept

 TPAS as a concept grew out of earlier writings associated with a writing project on best practice culture-based revitalization programs in eight European cities--I was commissioned by the EU National Institutes of Culture for a project they were doing in Baltimore.

The writing project dovetailed with my other experiences and writings about the topic that were more US centric.

Industrial remains in Detroit.

During the project I wrote a blog entry of my own tying some European and US examples in "Economic restructuring success and failure: Detroit compared to Bilbao, Liverpool, and Pittsburgh," (2014).

The EU project's lessons for revitalization are summarized in ""Richard Layman Reflects on EU in Baltimore and Blog".

1. A commitment to the development and production of a broad, comprehensive, visionary, and detailed revitalization plan
2. the creation of innovative and successful implementation organizations
3. strong accountability mechanisms
4. funding to realize the plan
5.  integrated branding and marketing programs to support the realization of the plan 
6. flexibility and a willingness to take advantage of serendipitous events and opportunities and integrate new projects into the overall planning and implementation framework 

The museum wasn't part of the original revitalization program for Bilbao, it was added when given the opportunity.  Similarly, after the museum opened they realized they needed better ground-based transit, and they built a tram system, complementing their subway system.

The 2017 piece on Bilbao, "Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning, reiterated the points, explaining why adopting startling new architecture isn't enough to spur significant revitalization.  

In Bilbao, the Guggenheim Museum is merely one of many elements of an overarching program.

I later termed this "transformational projects action planning," building on other writings and examples from Toronto and elsewhere.

TPAP at multiple scales.  Over time, as I wrote more about it, I realized it should be applied at multiple scales ("A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do," 2022).

Every so often, I continue to refine the tenets of best practice urban revitalization.  In "Updating the best practice elements of revitalization to include elements 7 and 8 | Transformational Projects Action Planning at a large scale," I added two more elements.

The updated list.

1. A commitment to the development and production of a broad, comprehensive, visionary, and detailed revitalization plan/s (Bilbao, Hamburg, Liverpool);
2. the creation of innovative and successful implementation organizations, with representatives from the public sector and private firms, to carry out the program. Typically, the organizations have some distance from the local government so that the plan and program aren't subject to the vicissitudes of changing political administrations, parties and representatives (Bilbao, Hamburg, Liverpool, Helsinki);
3. strong accountability mechanisms that ensure that the critical distance provided by semi-independent implementation organizations isn't taken advantage of in terms of deleterious actions (for example Dublin's Temple Bar Cultural Trust was amazingly successful but over time became somewhat disconnected from local government and spent money somewhat injudiciously, even though they generated their own revenues--this came to a head during the economic downturn and the organization was widely criticized; in response the City Council decided to fold the TBCT and incorporate it into the city government structure, which may have negative ramifications for continued program effectiveness as its revenues get siphoned off and political priorities of elected officials shift elsewhere);
4. funding to realize the plan, usually a combination of local, regional, state, and national sources, and in Europe, "structural adjustment" and other programmatic funding from the European Regional Development Fund and related programs is also available (Hamburg, as a city-state, has extra-normal access to funds beyond what may normally be available to the average city);
5. integrated branding and marketing programs to support the realization of the plan (Hamburg, Vienna, Liverpool, Bilbao, Dublin);
6. flexibility and a willingness to take advantage of serendipitous events and opportunities and integrate new projects into the overall planning and implementation framework (examples include Bilbao's "acquisition" of a branch of the Guggenheim Museum and the creation of a light rail system to complement its new subway system, Liverpool City Council's agreement with a developer to create the Liverpool One mixed use retail, office, and residential development in parallel to the regeneration plan and the hosting of the Capital of Culture program in 2008, and how multifaceted arts centers were developed in otherwise vacated properties rented out cheaply by their owners in Dublin, Helsinki, and Marseille).
7. commitment and time.  Revitalization is a forever process that takes a long time to begin to see results.  It needs to continue beyond the vicissitudes of changing political administrations.
8. adaptive management. Visionary revitalization requires continuous process improvement.  Other ways to think about it are using the design method or adaptive management instead of remaining static.  Programs can always be improved and should be.

The 17th Street Canal, where a levee breach contributed to the devastation of New Orleans after Katrina. (Ricky Carioti/ The Washington Post) About this story

New Orleans.  An op-ed ("This Is Why New Orleans Never Recovered From Katrina," New York Times) about the failure of New Orleans to leverage $140 billion in post-Katrina investment, illustrates the rightness of the TPAS concept, in that a lot of money went into New Orleans, but it was dissipated, unfocused.  From the article:

Today, New Orleans is smaller, poorer and more unequal than before the storm. It hasn’t rebuilt a durable middle class, and lacks basic services and a major economic engine outside of its storied tourism industry.

The core problem was the inability to turn abundant resources into a clear vision backed by political will. Federal dollars were funneled into a maze of state agencies and local governments with clashing priorities, vague metrics and near-zero accountability. Billions went to contractors and government consultants while public institutions such as schools, transit, health care and housing barely scraped by. For example, one firm, ICF International, received nearly $1 billion to administer Road Home, the oft-criticized state program to rebuild houses.

The focus of the effort became replacing what was lost, not building something stronger and better. For example, public funds poured into several flood-prone neighborhoods below sea level, while smarter plans reimagining New Orleans as a modern, sustainable, water-resilient city remain neglected. Countless ribbon cuttings gave an impression of vigorous recovery, belying the reality that they failed to lay the foundation for long-term growth.

The TPAS concept didn't really address rebuilding versus building anew, except in how it calls for the creation of a set of anchor projects as a way to push a community's comprehensive planning cycle towards achievement and improvement. 

IBA Germany.  A great example of time and commitment is the German International Building Exposition (IBA).  It culminates in an exhibition, but is preceded by a multiyear phase of project development and implementation, and after the exhibition year, usually continues as more projects are finished.  It's easily a 10-15 year process.  I saw some of the results, not all, in Hamburg.  

-- The contemporary International Building Exhibition (IBA) : innovative regeneration strategies in Germany, MIT thesis

An exhibit on water at IGF Hamburg.

Garden Festivals.  IBA events are often paired with IGF events (International Garden Festival).  I argue that the IBA and IGF process should be processes adopted in the US to spur revitalization forward.

-- "DC has a big "Garden Festival" opportunity in the Anacostia River," 2014

The ability to leap forward.  Or we can extend this idea from the Alexander Gerschenkron article, "Economic Advantages of Historical Backwardness," where the "disaster" gives the laggard the ability to adopt the latest and greatest in best practice, like how China could more easily adopt EV automobile technology compared to the US, where the companies have billions of dollars invested in gasoline-based vehicles.

A counter example: New Orleans K-12 Schools.  An op-ed in the Washington Post, "‘Never seen before’: How Katrina set off an education revolution," argues that the wholesale reconfiguration and rebuilding of how schooling is delivered in New Orleans has had extranormal benefits.  

The schools were closed, in favor of charter schools and other entities, that could build anew rather than on past failures.  According to the article recent studies found significant positive impact:

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, the city began a long climb back that remains incomplete to this day. Yet one aspect of recovery began soon after the catastrophe and quickly gained speed: A new approach to public education was introduced. And in the five years after Katrina smashed into this fabled city, it progressed so far that Arne Duncan, education secretary in the Obama administration, declared the storm “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.”

... Tulane University researchers have analyzed scores of studies of this bold experiment. They conclude that New Orleans’ daring act of liberation from local bureaucrats, converting all city schools into charter schools — publicly funded, but with the freedom and flexibility to set curriculums in line with contractually agreed goals — has been a remarkable success. 

“It’s the largest, broadest and most sustained improvement we’ve ever seen in a U.S. school district with substantial improvement everywhere we have looked, from test scores and parental satisfaction through to college access and reduced involvement in crime,” Douglas N. Harris, the Tulane economics professor and director of the Education Research Alliance who headed the research, told me. 

New Orleans has gone from being one of the country’s worst school districts, with graduation rates 18 percent below the national average, to middle of the pack. Graduation rates rose nearly 20 points in the scheme’s first decade. Improvements have since plateaued, but they have been sustained, dipping during the pandemic amid school closures before recovering sharply. “We’ve leapfrogged thousands of school districts,” Harris said, “

Although some disagree ("After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans fired thousands of Black teachers. Twenty years later, these groups are bringing them back," Guardian). And the NYT authors argue that equity should be a key element of planning for revitalization.

In any case, wholesale redevelopment of schooling in New Orleans offers a ratification of the TPAS concept and the NYT op-ed's identification of why the post-Katrina revitalizataion effort has failed.

Conclusion.  Of the original 6 points for best practice revitalization, New Orleans exhibited one, the money.  Money in itself isn't enough.  The NYT authors argue something similarly:

Recovery should start with a vision for a stronger place, not just a rebuild of what was lost. Fund recovery initiatives that try to improve upon metrics such as job creation, school enrollment, transit availability and population retention. Empower planning experts and citizens to look forward instead of trapping them in bureaucracy that often favors rebuilding what was already failing. Embed transparency and accountability from the start.

Although they say that equity should be a primary element.  I agree about the primacy of equity, but planning through an equity lens can often lead to a kind of haziness and loss of focus, as I argue with DC and its persistent level of power "East of the River." 

-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021

I think using the concepts of social urbanism rather than the hazier concept of equity will work better.  And I think that's what they mean too:

Rebuild public infrastructure with equity at the center. Restore not just roads and levees but libraries, clinics, transit lines and parks. Invest in long-term maintenance 

Social urbanism

-- "Experiments in Social Urbanism"
-- "'Social urbanism' experiment breathes new life into Colombia's Medellin Toronto Globe & Mail
-- "Medellín's 'social urbanism' a model for city transformation," Mail & Guardian
-- "Medellín slum gets giant outdoor escalator," Telegraph
-- "Medellín, Colombia offers an unlikely model for urban renaissance," Toronto Star 

"Abundance thesis" and equity (planning).  I haven't gotten around to writing about the book because I haven't read it yet.  While I think I'm likely to disagree with a big portion of the argument, I'd say:

1.  We do need to move from a scarcity/austerity mindset about government and community that was put forth and adopted as part of the neoliberalism agenda from the late 1970s and still in operation today.

2.  Yes, I do agree that government initiatives are often over-burdened with a wide variety of other objectives, which make projects harder to realize and a lot more expensive.

The latter point is what I am meaning about equity objectives, I have no problem with equity planning, although I've shifted more towards the social urbanism point.  

The issue when equity is ill-defined and far afield from what the project is supposed to deliver.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017
-- "Equity planning: an update," 2020
-- "Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago," 2021

Rendering of the Mirableu water garden, New Orleans.

Coda.  From the Politico article "Katrina inspired a $3B wetlands rebuilding project. Louisiana just killed it":

Coastal scientists and conservationists are now unsure what comes next as land losses continue, climate change accelerates and questions remain about the $618 million already spent on the project. Critics of the move see this moment as a return to a pre-Katrina tradition of politics determining how the state spends coastal restoration money instead of being guided by scientific evidence.

By contrast, see "20 years after Hurricane Katrina: What can UK learn from New Orleans’ approach to flood resilience?," New Civil Engineer.