The Good that Comes when you “Make it Right”
Urban redevelopment that returns the right to the city to Lower Ninth Ward Residents in New Orleans, Louisiana
The current definition of environmental justice rests on the fight for fundamental rights to all for clean air, water and land, but what about resilient land? Better yet, what about resilient land that supports the longevity of communities that inhabit it? Non-profits in New Orleans, Louisiana model the ideal way of dealing with substandard housing communities by rebuilding the site most heavily impacted by category five Hurricane Katrina that submerged 80% of the city: the substandard housing area of the Lower Ninth Ward.
So far, the $14.5 billion dollar levee system promised to New Orleans during the 2008 Obama campaign is running on the support of a temporary water pumping system that will not be replaced until 2017. Furthermore, construction shortcuts as a result of limited funding and eminent need resonated in a levee system, that despite promise of category 5 hurricane protection, the new system is only suited to protect against a “100 year storm,” which means a storm that has a 1% chance of occurring every year. Thus, it is clear that the levee as a solution to resilience is unacceptable. Not only are these anthropocentric, human-dominance-over-nature inducing infrastructure projects unacceptable, but they fail to address the situation of those most in need: the 9th ward ghetto and the low-income, heavily african american residents of east side New Orleans.
It is true that Katrina devastated the lives of white and black residents alike, but the waters that roared through much of the city disproportionately flooded its predominantly black eastern half. Thus raises the extension of the definition of environmental justice. Sean Reilly, a member of the state commission, said as quoted in local New Orleans news provider, The Lens, “Every neighborhood in New Orleans will not be able to come back safe,” and if a highly vulnerable neighborhood tries to rebuild — little federal aid should be expected if another storm hits in the future. This is systematic exacerbation of inequality — the commissioners are saying yes, inhabit whatever areas you want, but the areas that were hit the hardest that belong to the poorest people, those are the ones we won’t help in the future, those are the ones with no right to reestablish roots, rebuild their community, or even attempt to recreate their home.
Losses from hazards — and the fact that the nation cannot seem to reduce them — result from shortsighted and narrow conceptions of the human relationship to the natural environment. A better solution than mass infrastructure that cannot be ensured to work: innovative housing that returns the right of the city to the increasingly vulnerable, but vitally important sub-standard housing community inhabitants that are the invisible backbone of New Orleans that simultaneously recognizes that humans cannot stop nature, but they can deal with it. The Laissez Faire approach Joseph C. Canizaro — designer of the blueprint for redevelopment of New Orleans — created allows residents to return and rebuild anywhere they choose, regardless of insecurity and vulnerability to another tragic storm.
As oppressively as this policy can be interpreted, foundations like “Make it Right” have realized it as a challenge. Although it is over ten years since the devastation of Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward is still largely disorganized and adrift. While the rest of New Orleans has regained about 90 percent of its pre-Katrina population, only about a third of properties in the Lower Ninth have been repopulated. Make it Right and many other nonprofits have “picked up the gauntlet” and are attempting to give these low income communities the freedom to start new by creating a resilient urban fabric that serves the economic, social, environmental, and community needs in an equitable and honest way.
Make it Right are geared towards acknowledging past histories and traditions, and implementing future desires to create a comprehensive design that moves the world away from common, one dimensional planning, ultimately subverting the belief the site could or should determine situation. Here are just a few problems organizations making homes for Lower Ninth Ward residents must juggle: poisoned soil in which plants will not grow, hurricane proofing i.e. wind, rain, and flooding proof, heat and extreme temperatures, small budgets, terrifying memories, and loss of community.
It is loss of community that is the vital to recognize in future design plans. There were 2,100 homeowners in the Lower Ninth who qualified for federal aid after the storm, two-thirds said they wanted to rebuild. Thus the difficulty is rebuilding in a way that keeps the Lower Ninth as “A sit-on-your-porch, trade-vegetables-over-the-fence, have-Sunday-dinner-with-your-grandmother kind of place,” that M.A. Sheehan, director of the Lower Ninth Ward Homeownership Association nonprofit describes. This requires making a home that 1.) is not going anywhere 2.) gives space for these organic person-to-person and family-to-family interactions to occur, and 3.) bring the history of music, joy and soul back to the ghostly urban expanse.
How does Make it Right not only retain community authenticity and weave it into a sustainable, comprehensive design? Research. Make it Right did massive amounts of research on the community of the Lower Ninth Ward pre and post Katrina. Their data collection included common house-front design photo collections, popular floor plan archives, notes on paint colors of homes, what aspects of life burdened residents, and where social interactions take place in neighborhoods. In addition to research, the group has guidelines for building that include mandates for materials that resist water damage, engineering for a rooftops to be used as a safe haven during catastrophic floods, making sure building systems are familiar to local technicians so that they can do maintenance, incorporating a front porch area for family and friend gatherings, and most importantly, cost-effective building and materials that allow these homes to be a useable reality for its residents.
This form of urban redevelopment is unique in that is protects, and even grows the foundation that allows for healthy, consistent, and efficient societal functions. Make it Right goes beyond recognizing the individual, it give him or her a home.
