Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Imageability and Justice in Contemporary New Orleans

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13574800903056804

1469-9664

Delia Duong Ba Wendel,

Crime, Deviance, and Social Control

Abstract In the highly contentious rebuilding debates that emerged in New Orleans after the 2005 hurricanes, neighbourhoods were compelled to use rhetorical methods to solicit funding and municipal support for reconstruction. The stakes were particularly high for the Lower Ninth Ward; a neighbourhood the city was reluctant to rebuild. In New Orleans, notions of ‘justice’ were multiple, variable, and instrumental to the Lower Ninth Ward's ‘right to remain’ assertions. To discuss the ways in which the ‘just city’ was conceived after the hurricanes, the paper draws from the work of John Rawls, Iris Marion Young and Hannah Arendt. Kevin Lynch's notion of imageability is employed to discuss the centrality of spatial representations in debates over justice and rebuilding. The paper concludes by illustrating this theoretical framework in Lower Ninth Ward efforts to circumvent the municipality's exclusionary rebuilding plans. Notes 1. The various planning processes, initiated at municipal, state and federal scales, involved planning experts and resident participation to varying degrees. Their recommendations conflicted, their mandates overlapped, and ultimately it was not clear who was in charge and what was prescribed for rebuilding the city. These planning processes included: (1) the Mayor's Bring New Orleans Back Commission (BNOBC) was initiated in Fall 2005 with members of the Urban Land Institute and recommended shrinking the city's footprint; (2) the City Council's ‘New Orleans Neighborhoods Rebuilding Plans’ (NONRP), or ‘Lambert Plans’, were initiated in Spring 2006 to counter the opacity of the Mayor's BNOBC and attempted to integrate better community organizers into the process; (3) The Federal Emergency Management Agency's ‘Orleans Parish Plan/ESF-14’ was initiated in January 2006 to provide a recovery overview and outline a series of rebuilding projects to initiate recovery in the parish; (4) The Louisiana Recovery Authority's The Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) (2007 The Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) (2007) Citywide Strategic Recovery and Rebuilding Plan, and District 8 Plan. April. Organized by the Louisiana Recovery Authority with the New Orleans Community Support Foundation. Available at http://unifiedneworleansplan.com/home3/section/136/city-wide-plan ; and http://unifiedneworleansplan.com/home3/districts/8/plans/ (accessed 15 May 2008) [Google Scholar]) was funded largely by philanthropic bodies, sought to integrate the various neighbourhood plans underway with citywide policies and regulations, and encouraged ‘clustering’, an ambiguous effort to consolidate the city's footprint through both forced and unplanned means; and (5) the appointment of disaster recovery specialist Ed Blakely in December 2006 redirected coordination of the overall recovery process to the Mayor's newly created Office of Recovery Management, which supported ‘trigger’ projects, iconic architectural and urban initiatives intended to spur private development in 17 target areas. These planning processes are described in further detail in: Green et al. (2007 Green, R., Bates, L. K. and Smyth, A. 2007. Impediments to recovery in New Orleans' Upper and Lower Ninth Ward: one year after Hurricane Katrina. Disasters, 31(4): 311–335. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Kates et al. (2006 Kates, R. W., Colten, C. E., Laska, S. and Leatherman, S. P. 2006. Reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: a research perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 103(40): 14653–14660. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Mikell (2007 Mikell, R. 2007. A unified New Orleans? Neighborhood organizations, factionalism and rebuilding after Katrina. Conference Papers – Southern Political Science Association, : 1–32. 6 January [Google Scholar]) and Nelson et al. (2007 Nelson, M., Ehrenfeucht, R. and Laska, S. 2007. Planning, plans, and people: professional expertise, local knowledge, and governmental action in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 9(3): 23–53. [Google Scholar]). 2. ‘Imageability’ is a concept defined by the urban theorist and planner Kevin Lynch, and will be further discussed in the body of this text. Environmental justice literature is prominent in linking space to justice as a means of defining justice's limits (Bullard, 1994 Bullard, R. D. 1994. “Decision making”. In Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice, 2nd ed, Edited by: Lawson Westra, L. and Lawson Westra, B. E. 3–28. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. [Google Scholar]; Capek, 1993 Capek, S. M. 1993. The ‘environmental justice’ frame: a conceptual discussion and an application. Social Problems, 40(1): 5–23. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Cole & Foster, 2001 Cole, L. W. and Foster, S. R. 2001. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement, New York, NY: New York University Press. [Google Scholar]; Colten, 2006 Colten, C. E. 2006. Vulnerability and place: flat land and uneven risk in New Orleans. American Anthropologist, 108(4): 731–734. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 3. Although the BNOBC recommendations were ultimately rejected and replaced with an alternate series of convoluted planning schemes (see note 1), skepticism for the intentions of municipal government persisted (Breunlin & Regis, 2006 Breunlin, R. and Regis, H. A. 2006. Putting the Ninth Ward on the map: race, place and transformation in desire, New Orleans. American Anthropologist, 108(4): 744–764. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Cobb, 2006 Cobb, K. 2006. Razing versus rebuilding: restoring New Orleans, house by house; volunteers labor to prove that the hardest-hit areas are still habitable. Houston Chronicle, 23 January, p. A-1 [Google Scholar]; The Economist, 2006 The Economist. 2006. Flooding back? A misguided new plan to help New Orleans. The Economist, 22 April [Google Scholar]; The New York Times, 2007 The New York Times. 2007. In divided New Orleans (Editorial Desk). The New York Times, 15 May, p. A-18 [Google Scholar]; Nossiter, 2006a Nossiter, A. 2006a. Fight grows in New Orleans on demolition and rebuilding. The New York Times, 6 January, p. A-16 [Google Scholar]). 4. The following gives some pre-hurricane demographic description of the ‘green-dotted’ neighbourhoods, based on 2000 US Census data. New Orleans East was a relatively new suburban neighbourhood populated by low- and middle-income residents, predominantly African-American (68%) and Vietnamese (3%—proportionately small in population but highly organized). Gentilly and Lakeview are located north of Downtown along Lake Pontchartrain. Lakeview was predominantly White (94%) and upper class, and Gentilly was more diverse and middle-class (62% African-American, 33% White, and 3% Hispanic). The Upper and Lower Ninth Wards, incorporated before 1921 when the Industrial Canal physically separated them, are located east of Downtown. A predominantly low-income African-American (82% and 95%, respectively) community resided there (Greater New Orleans Data Center (GNODC), n.d. Greater New Orleans Data Center (GNODC) (n.d.) Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Snapshot, Post-Katrina Population & Housing Estimates, and Pre-Katrina Information Based on the US 2000 Census. Available at http://www.gnocdc.org/index.html (accessed 1 September 2006) [Google Scholar], ‘People & household characteristics comparison for neighbourhoods within Orleans Parish’). Despite assertions to the contrary, the recommendation to shrink the city's footprint could not have developed simply from ‘smart growth’ policies, as many of the city's suburbs were not similarly ‘green-dotted’ (e.g. Metairie and Kenner) and the neighbourhoods that were ‘green-dotted’ lay within 3–6 miles of Downtown. 5. A Brown University study completed in January 2006 charted the race and class characteristics of the most damaged neighbourhoods, including Mid-City, New Orleans East, Gentilly, the Lower Ninth Ward, Bywater, and Lakeview, which had “90% or more of their residents in damaged areas” (Logan, 2006 Logan, J. R. 2006. The Impact of Katrina: Race and Class in Storm-Damaged Neighborhoods, January Providence, RI: Brown University. Available at http://www.s4.brown.edu/Katrina/report.pdf (accessed 20 August 2006) [Google Scholar]). The study found that the storm “struck the neighborhoods of many people of all backgrounds”, but that “the population of the damaged areas was nearly half black (45.8%)” and the “odds of living in a damaged area were clearly much greater for blacks, renters, and poor people … poor and black people also have fewer resources for returning and rebuilding” (p. 7). These findings were confirmed by Congressional Research Service analysis (Gabe et al., 2005 Gabe, T., Falk, G., McCarty, M. and Mason, V. W. 2005. CRS Report for U.S. Congress, Hurricane Katrina: Social-Demographic Characteristics of Impacted Areas, Washington, DC: The Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, Domestic Social Policy Division and Congressional Cartography Division. 4 November [Google Scholar], pp. 13–14). The Brookings Institution estimated that one year after the storms, 49% of the pre-Katrina population had returned to New Orleans, but that its population had undergone a considerable demographic shift from 59% to 73% White (Liu et al., 2006 Liu, A., Fellowes, M. and Mabanta, M. 2006. Special Edition of the Katrina Index: A One-Year Review of Key Indicators of Recovery in Post-Storm New Orleans, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. August [Google Scholar]). While many areas in the city experienced similar levels of flooding, the pace and scale of recovery was substantially slower, started later, and was larger in scope in areas with lower income and non-White residents (Smith & Rowland, 2006 Smith, J. and Rowland, J. 2006. “Temporal analysis of floodwater volumes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina”. In Science and the Storms: The USGS Response to the Hurricanes of 2005, Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey. [Google Scholar]). 6. An initial registration period of one month, from 20 February to 20 March 2006, was extended first to four months, then to 29 August 2006 in reaction to grassroots protests (Eggler, 2006 Eggler, B. 2006. Lower 9th Ward spared from gutting law; Council eases stance on deadline. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 1 June, p. M-1 [Google Scholar]; Nossiter, 2006b Nossiter, A. 2006b. Demolition of homes begins in sections of New Orleans. The New York Times, 7 March, p. A-12 [Google Scholar]). Despite the extension, demolition proceeded in the Lower Ninth Ward during this period (author's observations, June–July 2006). 7. The Lower Ninth Ward is a downriver neighbourhood occupying approximately 2 square miles, separated from the ‘central city’ by the man-made Industrial Canal. The neighbourhood is bordered by the Industrial Canal at its western edge, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet at the north, the Mississippi River at its south, and Louisiana National Guard barracks and Bernard Parish at its eastern edge. According to the 2000 US Census, the neighbourhood's pre-Katrina population was 2.8% (14 008 people) of the city total (484 674), 98.3% African-American, and proportionately high in elderly residents (14% compared with the 11% average in the city) and homeowners (59% compared with the 46.5% average in the city). The neighbourhood includes the Holy Cross area, located along the Mississippi River's natural levee and populated by middle-income families, most of whom have resided in their homes for generations (Breunlin & Regis, 2006 Breunlin, R. and Regis, H. A. 2006. Putting the Ninth Ward on the map: race, place and transformation in desire, New Orleans. American Anthropologist, 108(4): 744–764. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Lewis, 2003 Lewis, P. F. 2003. New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape, 2nd ed, Santa Fe, NM: Center for American Places (distributed by University of Virginia Press). [Google Scholar]). Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initially estimated that 82% of the Lower Ninth Ward neighbourhood sustained severe structural and flood damage, primarily in the north of the neighbourhood (Bates & Green, n.d., p. 30 Bates, L. K. and Green, R. A. n.d.. (Mis)uses of Data: What Counts as Damage in Post-Katrina New Orleans Recovery Planning, Urbana-Champaign, IL: New Orleans Collaborative Planning, Faculty Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Available at http://www.urban.uiuc.edu/research/NOLA/new_orleans_faculty.html (accessed August 2008) [Google Scholar]; FEMA, 2006). The USGS estimated that the post-Katrina water levels in the neighbourhood reached depths of between 4 and 12 feet (Smith & Rowland, 2006 Smith, J. and Rowland, J. 2006. “Temporal analysis of floodwater volumes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina”. In Science and the Storms: The USGS Response to the Hurricanes of 2005, Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey. [Google Scholar]). Flood depths were highest in the north-east area bordered by the man-made canals. 8. As an indication of the extent to which the Lower Ninth Ward still signifies disaster, the January 2009 ‘Prospect.1’ art biennial in the city featured a virtual space recreation of post-Katrina New Orleans for the online role-play game ‘Second Life’. Chinese artist Cao Fei's project, titled ‘RMB City: NO LAB, New Orleans Biennial’, recreated the city as a disaster zone, and was based wholly on the Lower Ninth Ward landscape (MacCash, 2009 MacCash, D. 2009. Digital disaster tour; an unreal world captures post-flood reality. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 9 January, p. Lagniappe 14 [Google Scholar]). 9. Essayist Dan Baum gave the following characterization: “Depending on who was talking, the two sodden square miles represented either the indolence, poverty, and crime that Katrina had given the city a chance to expunge or the irreplaceable taproot of African-American New Orleans. The Lower Ninth Ward became, in the aftermath of Katrina, a vortex of overwrought emotion and intemperate rhetoric, a stand-in for conflicting visions of the city's future” (Baum, 2006 Baum, D. 2006. The lost year; behind the failure to rebuild. The New Yorker, 82(21 August): 25–46. [Google Scholar], p. 46). 10. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR-GO) has been denounced as a ‘hurricane superhighway’ for providing a conduit for storm surges crossing the swamplands of the neighbouring parishes (Breunlin & Regis, 2006 Breunlin, R. and Regis, H. A. 2006. Putting the Ninth Ward on the map: race, place and transformation in desire, New Orleans. American Anthropologist, 108(4): 744–764. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The Industrial Canal's levee wall suffered several severe breaches on 29 August 2005, including that by a shipping barge, which destroyed a portion of the levee wall and ploughed through the neighbourhood's north-east section. In addition to these man-made vulnerabilities, the area has experienced significant infrastructural disinvestment in the last decades. In the 1970s, a real estate and infrastructure boom (e.g. land infill and drainage, utility infrastructure, and building systems) in the suburbs of New Orleans coincided with a period of ‘white flight’ (Lewis, 2003 Lewis, P. F. 2003. New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape, 2nd ed, Santa Fe, NM: Center for American Places (distributed by University of Virginia Press). [Google Scholar], pp. 76–84). Whites either moved to the suburbs or held onto properties on the natural levee, and a ‘belt of black population’ shifted to areas behind the artificial levee on the eastern peripheries of the city, which became crowded and where “drainage was bad, foundation material precarious, streets atrociously unmaintained, mosquitoes endemic, and flooding a recurrent hazard” (Lewis, 2003 Lewis, P. F. 2003. New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape, 2nd ed, Santa Fe, NM: Center for American Places (distributed by University of Virginia Press). [Google Scholar], p. 52). In the 1980s, the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans contracted with the planning firm EDAW, Inc. to guide “future public and private investment decisions that may affect the residents of the Ninth Ward” (EDAW, Inc., 1980 EDAW, Inc. (1980) Ninth Ward Study: Socio-economic Existing Conditions Volume 4. January. Prepared for the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans [Google Scholar], p. 1). EDAW identified the following ‘liabilities’ affecting development in the Lower Ninth Ward: “physical isolation from the remainder of the City; serious housing quality deficiencies; unfavorable housing market conditions; narrow and congested streets in poor physical condition; widespread quality deficiencies in community facilities resulting from inadequate levels of maintenance; shortages in recreation, police, and classroom facilities; poor drainage; a declining population with a high dependency ratio and a low level of educational attainment; high unemployment and subemployment, an unskilled labor force, a high proportion of low-income households; and a negative image and reputation” (p. 114). It is obvious from the report that disinvestment persisted into the 1980s, and despite the neighbourhood's robust civic activism. These disadvantages were present in other areas in the city, but for the Lower Ninth Ward, funding for continual repairs and insurance payments were not forthcoming (Colten, 2005 Colten, C. E. 2005. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 54–57, 83, 90). 11. This is a much-repeated argument in this city. In reference to Hurricane Betsy, which made landfall in 1965, the historian John M. Barry wrote: “to say you can't re-inhabit the Ninth Ward because of safety is a bit of a phony argument. … If you build a good flood-control system, the entire city is safe. If we don't get a good flood-control system, the entire city is dangerous” (Barry, 1998 Barry, J. M. 1998. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. [Google Scholar], p. 222). 12. Generally speaking, the risks of environmental hazard, social problems and economic decline are shifted to marginalized spaces where residents are not considered valuable stakeholders (McCarthy & Prudham, 2004 McCarthy, J. and Prudham, S. 2004. Neoliberal nature and the nature of neoliberalism. Geoforum, 35: 275–283. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). More specific to New Orleans, Mickey Lauria and Michael J. Soll substantiate the notion that “less powerful groups absorb the majority of negative impacts” in their discussion of malfeasance in the siting of the Industrial Canal, and its effective separation of the Lower Ninth Ward from the ‘city proper’ (Lauria & Soll, 1996 Lauria, M. and Soll, M. J. 1996. Communicative action, power, and misinformation in a site selection process. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 15(3): 199–211. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 13. The Mayor's Office issued the following statement on eminent domain demolitions: “The City of New Orleans will also provide notification. … At least 7 working days prior to demolition of properties blocking public rights-of-ways, including 99 of the 117 Ninth Ward properties, and the 4 properties located in Gentilly and Lakeview” (New Orleans Mayor's Office of Communications, 2006a New Orleans Mayor's Office of Communications. 2006a. City Enters into Consent Decree on Demolition, New Orleans, LA: New Orleans Mayor's Office of Communications. 19 January Press Release [Google Scholar]). 14. In addition, the Mayor's Office reported that 18.8% of upper-middle-income Lakeview and 14.6% of middle-income Gentilly had received and/or applied for electrical permits (New Orleans Mayor's Office of Communications, 2006c New Orleans Mayor's Office of Communications. 2006c. Situation Report for New Orleans, New Orleans, LA: Mayor's Office of Communications. 14 June Press Release [Google Scholar]). Only 2.8% of Lower Ninth Ward residents had similar activity. This suggests that recovery inequity was linked to disparities in financial resources and historical disinvestment, and more specifically to the presence or absence of individual means for returning and rebuilding, federal and insurance assistance, and the quality and maintenance of infrastructure, social services and building stock before the storm. 15. Involvement with the Lower Ninth Ward began with volunteering efforts and field research during June and July 2006. During this period, I lived in an Upper Ninth Ward school retrofitted for volunteer living, provided structural assessments and demolition work for a local grassroots organization (Common Ground), and documented rebuilding efforts in the Lower Ninth Ward. I returned to the area in December 2007, volunteering for rebuild efforts with different grassroots organizations (LowerNine, Emergency Communities, and Lower Ninth Ward Village) and living for two weeks in the neighbourhood. 16. Under the Office of Recovery Management (ORM), funds have started to be allocated to particular projects thought to ‘trigger’ further investment in identified ‘recovery zones’, but actions to follow these allocations have been stalled by City Council disputes, federal delays, and fund mismanagement (Eggler, 2009 Eggler, B. 2009. City Council approves batch of 2007 grants; but clash still simmers on economic fund. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 8 January, p. Metro-1 [Google Scholar]; Guillet, 2007 Guillet, J. 2007. Funding pitfalls surround New Orleans citywide plan. New Orleans City Business, 25 June [Google Scholar]). There are promises of US$136 million in funds to be split in the development of a New Orleans East ‘District Center’ (for retail use) and a Lower Ninth Ward ‘Neighborhood Center’. As the ORM terms it, these two developments are considered “public assets … to generate further private investment from developers” (ORM, 2007 Office of Recovery Management (ORM) (2007) ORM Plan for ‘Target Recovery Zones, Available at http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?tabid = 95 (http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?tabid=95) (accessed 30 November 2007) [Google Scholar]). This suggests a high reliance on laissez-faire development strategies, particularly for areas in need of substantial recovery efforts. 17. In January 2007, the local New Orleans ACORN chapter, which had been active in Lower Ninth Ward civic activism before the 2005 hurricanes, issued a 200-page document to describe desired improvements for the neighbourhood (ACORN, 2007 Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). 2007. A People's Plan for Overcoming Hurricane Katrina Blues: A Comprehensive Strategy for Building a More Vibrant, Sustainable, and Equitable 9th Ward, New Orleans, LA: ACORN. 6 January [Google Scholar]). This included a Five-Year Action Plan, in which both threats and opportunities for rebuilding were discussed (see also Cronrath, 2005 Cronrath, D. 2005/2006. Report from the ACORN Community Forum on Rebuilding New Orleans. Social Policy, 36(2): 9–10. [Google Scholar]/2006). 18. As an example, individuals with multiple identity-associations that have historically encountered discrimination, such as x-age (young)—x-race (African-American)—x-gender (female), might experience multiple discriminations that align with biases in society. 19. See, for example, the discussion on the ‘New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilding Plans’ (NONRP), or ‘Lambert Plans’ (Kates et al., 2006 Kates, R. W., Colten, C. E., Laska, S. and Leatherman, S. P. 2006. Reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: a research perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 103(40): 14653–14660. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Nelson et al., 2007 Nelson, M., Ehrenfeucht, R. and Laska, S. 2007. Planning, plans, and people: professional expertise, local knowledge, and governmental action in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 9(3): 23–53. [Google Scholar]). This process was notoriously atomized by neighbourhood interests unable to agree on a comprehensive vision for rebuilding the city. 20. Bound up with the assumption that rebuilding this area is futile is a conflation of the Lower Ninth Ward with criminality (e.g., guns, drug paraphernalia and networks, gangs, etc.). Reinforcing socio-economic and racialized segregation patterns that became most pronounced in the 1980s, this conflation assumes a homogenous criminalized African-American identity and inscribes it within this neighbourhood. Certainly this neighbourhood has been “crime-ravaged” (Pompilio, 2001 Pompilio, N. 2001. 9th Ward residents make a stand; they want more police presence. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 17 July, p. Metro, 1 [Google Scholar], p. M-1) in a city that exceeded national averages for murder and drug-related crime since the mid-1990s (MSNBC, 2005 MSNBC (2005) New Orleans Murder Rate on the Rise Again; Homicide Rate Nowhere Near ‘94 Peak But Still 10 Times the National Average. 18 August. Available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8999837/ (accessed 20 August 2005) [Google Scholar]). The spatialized and racialized fear of crime informed the everyday activities of New Orleans residents who could easily avoid this canal-separated neighbourhood in “commonsense routines of survival” (Regis, 1999 Regis, H. A. 1999. Second lines, minstrelsy, and the contested landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole festivals. Cultural Anthropology, 14(4): 472–504. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], pp. 477–478). The collective assumption of a criminalized Lower Ninth Ward persisted after it was largely emptied of its residents, and news media ascribed the ‘return of crime’ mid-2006 to the return of evacuees (Nossiter, 2006c Nossiter, A. 2006c. As life returns to New Orleans, so does crime. The New York Times, 30 March, p. National, A-1 [Google Scholar]; Foster, 2006 Foster, M. 2006. New Orleans police still struggling in Katrina's wake. Associated Press, 30 June [Google Scholar]). While homicide increases were reported in central areas of the city at this time, the Lower Ninth Ward did not see a resurgence of crime except the theft of architectural antiques (Thevenot, 2006 Thevenot, B. 2006. Adding insult to injury, thieves are stealing pieces of the city's soul: irreplaceable architectural details. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 6 June, p. N-1 [Google Scholar]). Nevertheless, the National Guard re-patrolled the Lower Ninth Ward beginning in mid-June. This overly easy and persistent ascription of the Ninth Ward as crime-ridden was not statistically or experientially referential to the neighbourhood's actual situation. 21. In an Aspen Institute White Paper on community development corporations, Auspos et al. (2007 Auspos, P., Brown, P. & Sutton, S. A. (2007) Living Cities and Civic Capacity: Leadership, Leverage and Legitimacy, October (Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change) [Google Scholar]) expound on this importance of “managing a public image” as fundamental to building and maintaining civic capacity. In their definition, civic capacity is evaluated by the ability to leverage resources and influence decision-making. 22. Later, Fredric Jameson would extend Lynch's ‘cognitive mapping’ to its logical conclusion, with a cynical shift from ‘value’ to ‘ideology’ (Jameson, 1991 Jameson, F. 1991. Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 1–54). ‘Cognitive mapping’, in Jameson's definition, allows individuals to understand ideological representations and it becomes a way for the postmodern subject to orient himself to the fragmentary and deleterious capitalist conditions inscribed in space. 23. This analysis is drawn from 2006–2007 field research, including: Ninth Ward resident and activist interviews and attendance at community meetings (Lower Ninth Ward Development Association meetings and Lower Ninth Ward Survivor's Council meetings in June–July 2006). 24. Fats re-emerged in the media spotlight when he was rescued from his Lower Ninth Ward home during the August 2005 floods (Coleman, 2006 Coleman, R. 2006. Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Cambridge, MA: Perseus. [Google Scholar]). 25. See note 10. 26. This tactic was identified in June–July 2006. To appreciate its success, see the PBS television segment that discusses the Calhoun-McCormick gallery and photography as part of the citywide ‘Prospect.1’ arts biennial (Brown, 2008 Brown, J. (2008) New Orleans Art Exhibit Aims to Help City Heal, PBS Online Newshour with Jim Lehrer. 15 December Available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod = 0&pkg = newshourart&seg = 1 (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=newshourart&seg=1) (accessed 15 December) [Google Scholar]). 27. See, for example, the documentary photography of Ed Richards, a professor at Louisiana State University Law Center. Richards photographed churches in the Lower Ninth Ward throughout the recovery period (see http://www.epr-art.com/katrina/9th-ward-church.htm). 28. ‘Gutting’ is the process of removing all that lies on the interior of a building, such that wall and ceiling structural members are exposed. Lower Ninth Ward buildings endured high floodwaters and could not be inspected by residents for more than three months after the storms. As a result, ‘gutting’ was an especially dangerous task – ‘black mold’ thrived in the humidity, and refrigerators left in the houses required special disposal. 29. See note 21.