Sep 12, 2005

Don't Rebuild, Regrow

by Cliopatria

New Orleans is one of the most interesting cities in the world, and I say this as someone who's never personally experienced the city, but I'm familiar with the art, literature, music, food and joy it has spread into American culture. New Orleans is the Id of America: energetic, sensual, emotional, creative, disorganized, risky, fun. New Orleans was post-modern, in a pre-modern sort of way; perhaps it would be more true to say that it was archaic and traditional, in a cutting-edge, ever-changing fashion. Perhaps not. New Orleans invented traditions -- Mardi Gras, Jazz, etc. -- and those traditions invented New Orleans, as we know it.

The one thing that New Orleans is not is a modern city. Or, to be more precise, a modernist city. This is why we must not rebuild New Orleans, at least not if it means trying to improve, fix, plan or design the result. That would kill the soul of the city and damage the heart of a nation. We should, instead, make a new space for New Orleans' displaced denizens to regenerate it: infrastructure, and defenses against the water, to be sure; insurance, loans, charity and spendthrift consumerism, absolutely; National Guard, volunteers, Red Cross, tourists are welcome.

Building codes and regulations, though, should set aside by administrative fiat; anyone who"draws up" or"mocks up" or" conceptualizes" the way the city might look in two, five, ten years, should be treated like a looter and summarily.... removed from the city. Any attempt to mandate adherence to the pre-Katrina"look and feel" is also anathema: even without disasters, cities change and grow and the only way that New New Orleans will have the charm and power of Old New Orleans is if it is allowed to grow in that raw organic fashion which worked so well the first time. Professional developers and major corporations should be allowed to rebuild their existing real estate, but expansion must be put on hold for a few years and should not be exempted from building codes, etc.

In spite of New Orleans' manifest vulnerabilities and pathologies, it would be harder, and less productive, to prevent New Orleans from rising up than it will be to reinvent it. We need to think very carefully about the lessons of this disaster, in terms of the infrastructure and ecology of the city. If the displaced are willing to accept the risk, to live and love again in the shadow of dark waters, then we should thank our lucky stars and make plans to visit.

Update: Harry Shearer's Le Show provided a lovely audio remembrance of the city last week. This takes you to a slideshow by a resident of New Orleans.

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More Comments:

Jonathan Dresner - 9/11/2005

Mr. Merkowitz is right that I'm hoping for a more organic and diverse growth pattern. That's why I think that the code restrictions should be relaxed and, in answer to Mr. Lederer's concerns which I share, professional developers limited in access. It's not architecture which concerns me, primarily: it's the ability of people to design their own space as individuals and build a community

John H. Lederer - 9/11/2005

I think Mike Labash summed up what both of you mean:

"And as a fellow New Orleans enthusiast I know says, "It's one of the last places that feels like a place.""

Louis N Proyect - 9/11/2005

Actually, the most far-sighted government environmental policies were adopted in the early years of the Russian revolution, something I wrote about here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/ussr_ecology.htm

Furthermore, Cuba has adopted similar policies in recent years, at first as a result of the impact of cutoff of trade from the USSR, and later on because it made sense. Speaking of Cuba, what a contrast between how they manage hurricane evacuations and how the USA mismanages it. That in itself is an argument for planning rather than the anarchy of markets.

David T. Beito - 9/11/2005

Most of what you are you describing stems from state coercions (often via government/business "partnerships") not the work of markets.

To find cities that defy most spectacularly defy sound ecological principles, of course, one need look no further than such monuments to state planning as East Berlin, Pyongang, Tirana, and Bejing.

David J Merkowitz - 9/11/2005

I think broadly speaking what Prof. Dresner is arguing for is the organic re-development of New Orleans, which may mean a city vastly different than the one pre-flood or not, but definitely not one controlled and manipulated by the modern desire to control.
However, Prof. Lederer makes a valid point that the nature of American capitalism and urban development today is such that "Leaving New Orleans to its own devices is likely to result in a monotonous city, indistinguishable from tracts of housing in New Jersey or California."
The question it seems to me is how do we/they make space for organic non-modern development in the powerful even hegemonic world of American culture and capitalism?
I wish I had an answer. The thoughts that come to mind include not allowing the government at any level to get involved in the actual rebuilding beyond the level of funding where necessary and maintaining basic safety measures. Governments like uniformity and manageability, New Orleans isn't about either of those.
At the same time, I could see disincentizing the use of the big building corporations (home and corporate) in the rebuilding of the city, emphasize the development of local building industry.
Some of that may be pie in the sky, but the more bigness is introduced into New Orleans the less the new New Orleans will be.

Louis N Proyect - 9/11/2005

New Orleans was a response to the imperative to trade. Don't recall the title of the book I noted at the Labyrinth bookstore near Columbia recently, but it was focused on the centrality of New Orleans in the cotton and slave trade.

Nearly every "great" American city was built in defiance of sound ecological principles.

Chicago rests on the rotting corpses of the bison and the senseless transformation of the prairies into grazing land for cattle.

The new cities of the Southwest can only exist by diverting precious water so that suburban lawns can flourish and so that office buildings can be properly air-conditioned.

For all you need to know about L.A., read Mike Davis's "City of Quartz," despite the reactionary critics who tried to do a Ward Churchill on him.

New York is an abject lesson in how capitalism refuses to dispose of trash in a way that respects nature and future growth.

Karl Marx called for the reintegration of town and country in Communist Manifesto. He was right, y'know.

John H. Lederer - 9/11/2005

Virgin white pine is a dream wood for woodworkers. Uniform grain gave it an ease in carving, milling, turning, and clefting, that is unequalled. Fast seasoning made it an easy wood to process.

In the last half of the 1800's huge rafts of first white pine logs and then milled boards were sent down the rivers from the upper midwest to New Orleans and other river cities. Some rafts had cook shacks and quarters built on them for the raft crew.

Mark Twain described them:
"I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that used to glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,-- an acre or so of white, sweet-smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more, three or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for storm-quarters,--and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talk of their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterning successors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and get on these rafts and have a ride."

The court house in Prairie du Chien Wisconsin has a photograph of a raft with a two story house built on it for the crew, complete with porch.

This economically available wood influenced the architecture of Misissippi and Louisiana along the river. New Orlean's growth between the Civil War and WWI relied on white pine: clapboard, turned columns, fret work, floors.

Today, because of improvements of transportation, we do not have such disparities in the availability of materials. I went to Home Depot to buy some lumber a few days ago. It came from Sweden, indicating that with lower transportation costs and twisted tariffs, one can make money sending coal to Newcastle.

Leaving New Orleans to its own devices is likely to result in a monotonous city, indistinguishable from tracts of housing in New Jersey or California.

Jonathan Dresner - 9/11/2005

Oh, well then. Never mind. Obviously if the "interesting" sections of the city are fine, then there's nothing to worry about. Let the bulldozers roll! Modernism to the rescue!

Not.

Sergio Ramirez - 9/11/2005

As someone who has personally experienced the city, I'm very sad for the people who've lost so much there. In terms of architecture and history, however, there was little of interest outside of the above mentioned areas, most of which will survive. Much of the city was a disgrace before the flood.

Dale B. Light - 9/11/2005

Fortunately the most architecturally interesting parts of the city were for the most part the least affected by the flood. The French Quarter, for instance, was largely spared.