New Orleans diaspora
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The New Orleans diaspora refers to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced from New Orleans, Louisiana, by the effects of Hurricane Katrina in the late summer of 2005.
As of December 2005, New Orleans itself has about 2/3 of its original pre-Hurricane Katrina population. Since the mandatory evacuation of the city, many have not returned, due to such reasons as destruction of homes, loss of jobs, fears that the city may similarly reflood again, fears of environmental pollution in the city, and finding better economic or educational opportunities elsewhere. Some 200,000–300,000 people have been scattered away from their home town, many living in shelters, many others with friends and family away from their home town.
Contents |
[edit] Diaspora destinations
Baton Rouge had by far the largest population of displaced New Orleanians after the storm. In the weeks immediately following the hurricane, traffic in Baton Rouge overloaded the road infrastructure; there were claims that the city's population has doubled during that immediate time following the disaster. Some schools, such as Brother Martin High School, have set up official temporary locations in Baton Rouge, using existing school buildings in the evening, all this occurred in 2005. In 2006, Baton Rouge has seen the largest drop in their evacuee population out of any city that had a major number of evacuees (250,000 in Ocotober 2005 to between 20,000 to 35,000 in October 2006). The main reason why Baton Rouge lost so much of the evacuee population was because the housing market could not handle the evacvuees and the infrastructure crumbled with the evacuees from jamming on the interstate, slow emergency respond calls, over-crowding in schools, and that led to between 215,000 to 230,000 evacuees leaving Baton Rouge. As of January 2007, only a small fraction of displaced citizens remain in Baton Rouge, leaving Mayor-President Kip Holden and the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce stunned as they missed a great opportunity that came from the once massive influx.
Other major destinations include north Louisiana and East Texas, particularly Houston. Six months after the storm, Houston had the largest number of New Orleanians still displaced.
[edit] Race demographics
A majority of the population of New Orleans is African-American, as are the majority of displaced people and the people who have returned to the city.
There has been considerable speculation that the long term effects of the diaspora will result in demographic changes. A concern has become common among the evacuees that without government assistance in returning, the rebuilt New Orleans will be "whiter" than it was before the storm. It has been suggested that the results may be a shift from a city with a 60% African American population to one with 40% or less. However those rumors were dismissed in March 2006 as a report released stating that New Orleans was once again majority African American.
[edit] Economics, race, and class effects
Some writers without deep knowledge of New Orleans have perpetuated the myth that it was almost exclusively the poorest neighborhoods which suffered destruction. The two major factors correlating with destruction were proximity to levees which failed and geographic elevation. Catastrophically flooded neighborhoods included not just poor and minority sections of the 9th Ward by the breaches of the Industrial Canal, but the prosperous West End behind the 17th Street Canal breach, which also flooded the mostly white middle class Lakeview neighborhood, which had accounted for 1/3rd of the city's property tax revenue. Substantial neighborhoods of middle class home owners, white and black, were flooded by the failure of the London Avenue Canal levees.
The single largest section of the city which escaped flooding was the portion of Uptown closer to the Mississippi River. Uptown is perhaps the most ecomonically and ethnically diverse portion of the Metro area, with racially mixed blocks common, and mansions of millionaires only a few blocks walk from homes of the poor.
If the storm and flooding did not respect economic class distinctions, repopulation is quite a different matter. The poorest of the city's residents often face the greatest obstacles to returning.
Landlords of still standing or easily repairable housing have been evicting poorer tenants, whether back in the city or still absent, in hopes of renting to more prosperous people looking for housing. Recent court rulings are starting to give more protection to displaced New Orleans residents, calling for a guarantee of notification and due process for all people facing evictions from their homes in the city.
The poor often lack the resources to begin again from devastation, and sometimes may not even have the resources needed to make the return trip to New Orleans.
Many of the city's housing projects have been declared uninhabitable in the aftermath of the evacuation, leaving many more poor with nowhere to return to. Others claim that all New Orleans public housing have all been shut down without regard to the actual condition of individual buildings.
Within the city, however, the poor who have managed to return have found more economic opportunity than before the storm. There is a great demand for unskilled labor in demolition and reconstruction industries. Wages for such menial jobs as dishwashers have more than doubled, and fast food chains are offering substantial bonuses for workers-- in both cases this has still not been enough to relieve serious labor shortages in the industries, largely due to housing shortages.
[edit] Culture
The diaspora of New Orleanians have spread aspects of New Orleans culture to other places. Some have started cooking New Orleans style food professionally. A group of Mardi Gras Indians who wound up in Austin, Texas plan to continue their tradition in that city until their return to New Orleans.
[edit] Crime
While most New Orleanians back in the city view the diaspora as an overwhelmingly negative phenomenon, in the months after the city reopened many hypothesized one bright spot among the effects: a drop in crime. The city seemed to have lost both the worst of its gangs (some removed by force by the National Guard during the evacuation) and some "bad apples" of the police force (some having deserted their posts in the crisis, turning up in other cities in stolen automobiles). A city long used to the depressing news of a murder almost daily went for some two months with only one.
Unfortunately, such hopes were short lived. News of police misconduct have continued in New Orleans, including the highly publicized beating of a 64-year-old black man, police harassment of volunteer relief workers. New Orleanians report that, since the courts are largely not functioning except eviction courts, police are picking up people, mostly black people according to some, on nuisance charges and telling them to plead guilty or stay in jail for a couple of months. Out-of-town criminals who came to the city with the relief workers and contractors have perpetuated an epidemic of thefts, stealing the remaining possessions of many people already devastated by the disaster. Especially since Mardi Gras, more criminals from the city's pre-Katrina gangs have returned, and shootings, many apparently related to turf wars, have again regularly been in the news.
[edit] Politics
The reduced population of the city, if continued over the next decade, is likely to prompt redrawing state districts, and may result in the loss of a Federal congressional district.
Republican city council woman Peggy Wilson announced her candidacy in the 2006 mayoral election, with hopes that diaspora and post-crisis related changes in the traditionally Democratic city might give a Republican candidate a chance at the top office. But neither she nor any other Republican made it to the runoff election. Wilson's campaign with what many saw as racially charged language failed to gain the support of more than 1% of the electorate. The two leading candidates, incumbent Ray Nagin and Mitch Landrieu who faced each other in a run off on May 20, were both Democrats who have succeeded in getting significant support across racial lines.
Many speculate that this political reality has influenced the politics of reconstruction, with government agencies arguing over how -- and, in some cases, to what extent -- to rebuild flood-prone neighborhoods, many of which are majority-minority.
[edit] The Revival of New Orleans
Most of the city's still displaced residents are currently waiting for the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season to end before reinvesting in the region after the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season. It is speculated that by August 2006 half of the city's pre-Katrina population will have returned to the city. Mayor Ray Nagin has stated "It will probably take five to six years for the city of New Orleans to fully recover from the disasters." It is also speculated that before the year 2007 New Orleans residents may file a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers citing their failure, over the past 30 years to make improvements to the area levees even after reports, dating back to 1988, saying that New Orleans levees would founder in the event of a major hurricane. In February 2006 Corps of Engineers officials blamed President George W. Bush as well as his father, former President George H.W. Bush and for making budget cuts to Corps projects over the past decade which led to under-funded projects and half-finished jobs. Corps officials acknowledge that by the start of the 2006 Atlantic storm season the levees would be as "strong as they were in July 2005" and by the start of the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season Corps officials say if another Katrina-type storm would come through the levees would not break. By December 2007 Corps officials will turn into Congress a report detailing how category 5 levees can be built throughout the region and Congress can then begin to fund category 5 or "cat 5" levees.
Population Recovery - October 2007
Using data from the U.S. Postal Service the September population of Orleans Parish is estimated to be 70% of the July 2005 estimated population of 452,000, or about 316,000. Estimates vary but the postal information in terms of delivery points is reliable. The population of Jefferson Parish has essentially returned to the pre-disaster level. Adjoining St. Bernard Parish, all but completely submerged by the storm surge, has now reached approximately 40% of its pre-disaster population.
