Part II: Two New Orleans, The Invisible Gulf Coast
By Keith Gaddie ~ There are, in a sense, two cities of New Orleans.
One, in the uptown district along the Mississippi River, is headed for a quick recovery as housing prices prepare to skyrocket. To give you an example, I’ll note my own previous home in uptown New Orleans. The house, at 1001 Pleasant Street in the Irish Channel, is a former “up-down double” (a duplex) that was opened up into a two-story, two bedroom house. The place was built around 1870, and when I bought it in 1993 the property assessed at about $80,000. Now, with uptown the only remaining source of charming houses (and the best bet not to flood), the same house appraised at $299,000 and a similar building two doors up the block appraised at $285,000. The building in between, despite never being renovated and extensively wind damaged, appraised for taxes at over $60,000 and would likely sell for over $100,000 and could be flipped for another $50,000 investment.
Blocks where I would previously not drive, let alone walk, are now having small shotguns gobbled up and when renovated they sell for over $200,000. Anywhere that has houses with gingerbread and columns will gentrify, and as a consequence the ability of working class and lower middle class residents to stay in uptown will be imperiled.
Uptown New Orleans is beat up, but it is preparing to purge itself of its diverse economic character. Every bar and restaurant I went into was filled with young professionals and risk takers who are getting in on the New Orleans recovery, and they will likely build a smaller, more exclusive New Orleans.
Then there is the other New Orleans, which I largely described in Part I. It is the land of devastated houses and busted neighborhoods, where a house or two gets renovated amidst numerous destroyed residences. FEMA trailers are everywhere, and anyone who is toughing it out in a FEMA trailer has my respect. It is a brutal life. This New Orleans is the place of lost land titles, spotty insurance coverage, and land-lord tenant disputes amidst the spots where habitable property invites residents to return, whether the property owners want them back or not. Leases are a funny thing, but they are designed to protect both property owners and renters.
What sort of New Orleans gets built outside of uptown is unknown, but it will be sporadic in its redevelopment, black and brown and likely a risky place to live, whether it rains or not. It is the New Orleans that John Edwards sought to illuminate in his presidential announcement, and it is worthy of attention because it asks only for a hand getting up, not a hand-out, but it has been lost in the noise of the Gulf War and the not-entirely deserved hype of the recovery of the tourist quarters.
It’s worth noting at this point that New Orleans has always hyped its flashy tourist quarters while hiding its racial and poverty problems, so the spin of Mayor Nagin and the chamber types is not unprecedented. A buddy once told me that to see all of New Orleans after spending the night with the French Quarter is kind of like seeing a one-night stand the next morning. It is sobering and disappointing, and sometimes downright scary.
Fact check for the uninformed: No federal reconstruction money has gone to private residence owners in New Orleans. All of the rehabilitation and reconstruction is being paid for in New Orleans by private insurers, who paid on flood policies that many New Orleanians carried. If you wanted to get a mortgage in Orleans parish before 2005, you had to have flood insurance. Now watch how the insurance underwriters flee because they actually had to make good on their contracts.
The Invisible Gulf Coast: Then there is the real tragedy and the lost story, that of the Mississippi Coast. I had the chance to see Stan Tiner, editor of the Biloxi paper, as he spoke on a panel about Katrina media coverage. We also visited, briefly, as Stan was once the editor of The Oklahoman before he was run out of town because he changed a lot of things and spent a lot of money. Stan brought sobering facts to the table. On the Mississippi coast, 88,000 people still live in FEMA trailers some 16 months after the storm. Insurance companies continue to dispute whether or not their homeowner policies should cover home damage since they blame tidal surge rather than wind and water for many losses, and the complaints are going to trial. Stan also notes that the national media have let go of their story, and it is only local media who keep pressure on policy makers to deal with the disasters of the coast.
The casinos are rebuilding, on land, and that means that jobs will be back. But the Gulf Coast is more dangerous now than ever. One of the features that kept crime low in south Mississippi was that poverty was widespread but not densely concentrated. Now, Mississippi’s worst-off are congregated together in pockets of poverty in FEMA camps where violence, rape, drug use and property crime is rampant. But the national media does not notice. We’ve put the Gulf Coast on the shelf, and we’re ignoring the less-flashy parts of New Orleans. But the problem is still there, arguably the greatest national tragedy since the Great Depression and far more significant than who we are as a people than any terror event.
CODA: I had two students from New Orleans in a class this fall, in which we explored the rebuild New Orleans problem. The class handled it in a clinical and dispassionate fashion, and, in retrospect, that exercise was one of the stupidest things I ever did in my life. There is no logical analysis of the devastation of the Gulf Coast that can be persuasive to people who knew New Orleans and have seen their entire history in the city swept away. I was lucky, in that my old home, haunts, and neighbors continue to survive and thrive. For my less-fortunate friends from down there, my apologies and prayers.
One, in the uptown district along the Mississippi River, is headed for a quick recovery as housing prices prepare to skyrocket. To give you an example, I’ll note my own previous home in uptown New Orleans. The house, at 1001 Pleasant Street in the Irish Channel, is a former “up-down double” (a duplex) that was opened up into a two-story, two bedroom house. The place was built around 1870, and when I bought it in 1993 the property assessed at about $80,000. Now, with uptown the only remaining source of charming houses (and the best bet not to flood), the same house appraised at $299,000 and a similar building two doors up the block appraised at $285,000. The building in between, despite never being renovated and extensively wind damaged, appraised for taxes at over $60,000 and would likely sell for over $100,000 and could be flipped for another $50,000 investment.
Blocks where I would previously not drive, let alone walk, are now having small shotguns gobbled up and when renovated they sell for over $200,000. Anywhere that has houses with gingerbread and columns will gentrify, and as a consequence the ability of working class and lower middle class residents to stay in uptown will be imperiled.
Uptown New Orleans is beat up, but it is preparing to purge itself of its diverse economic character. Every bar and restaurant I went into was filled with young professionals and risk takers who are getting in on the New Orleans recovery, and they will likely build a smaller, more exclusive New Orleans.
Then there is the other New Orleans, which I largely described in Part I. It is the land of devastated houses and busted neighborhoods, where a house or two gets renovated amidst numerous destroyed residences. FEMA trailers are everywhere, and anyone who is toughing it out in a FEMA trailer has my respect. It is a brutal life. This New Orleans is the place of lost land titles, spotty insurance coverage, and land-lord tenant disputes amidst the spots where habitable property invites residents to return, whether the property owners want them back or not. Leases are a funny thing, but they are designed to protect both property owners and renters.
What sort of New Orleans gets built outside of uptown is unknown, but it will be sporadic in its redevelopment, black and brown and likely a risky place to live, whether it rains or not. It is the New Orleans that John Edwards sought to illuminate in his presidential announcement, and it is worthy of attention because it asks only for a hand getting up, not a hand-out, but it has been lost in the noise of the Gulf War and the not-entirely deserved hype of the recovery of the tourist quarters.
It’s worth noting at this point that New Orleans has always hyped its flashy tourist quarters while hiding its racial and poverty problems, so the spin of Mayor Nagin and the chamber types is not unprecedented. A buddy once told me that to see all of New Orleans after spending the night with the French Quarter is kind of like seeing a one-night stand the next morning. It is sobering and disappointing, and sometimes downright scary.
Fact check for the uninformed: No federal reconstruction money has gone to private residence owners in New Orleans. All of the rehabilitation and reconstruction is being paid for in New Orleans by private insurers, who paid on flood policies that many New Orleanians carried. If you wanted to get a mortgage in Orleans parish before 2005, you had to have flood insurance. Now watch how the insurance underwriters flee because they actually had to make good on their contracts.
The Invisible Gulf Coast: Then there is the real tragedy and the lost story, that of the Mississippi Coast. I had the chance to see Stan Tiner, editor of the Biloxi paper, as he spoke on a panel about Katrina media coverage. We also visited, briefly, as Stan was once the editor of The Oklahoman before he was run out of town because he changed a lot of things and spent a lot of money. Stan brought sobering facts to the table. On the Mississippi coast, 88,000 people still live in FEMA trailers some 16 months after the storm. Insurance companies continue to dispute whether or not their homeowner policies should cover home damage since they blame tidal surge rather than wind and water for many losses, and the complaints are going to trial. Stan also notes that the national media have let go of their story, and it is only local media who keep pressure on policy makers to deal with the disasters of the coast.
The casinos are rebuilding, on land, and that means that jobs will be back. But the Gulf Coast is more dangerous now than ever. One of the features that kept crime low in south Mississippi was that poverty was widespread but not densely concentrated. Now, Mississippi’s worst-off are congregated together in pockets of poverty in FEMA camps where violence, rape, drug use and property crime is rampant. But the national media does not notice. We’ve put the Gulf Coast on the shelf, and we’re ignoring the less-flashy parts of New Orleans. But the problem is still there, arguably the greatest national tragedy since the Great Depression and far more significant than who we are as a people than any terror event.
CODA: I had two students from New Orleans in a class this fall, in which we explored the rebuild New Orleans problem. The class handled it in a clinical and dispassionate fashion, and, in retrospect, that exercise was one of the stupidest things I ever did in my life. There is no logical analysis of the devastation of the Gulf Coast that can be persuasive to people who knew New Orleans and have seen their entire history in the city swept away. I was lucky, in that my old home, haunts, and neighbors continue to survive and thrive. For my less-fortunate friends from down there, my apologies and prayers.
Labels: New Orleans
posted by Mike McCarville @ 9:36 AM
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