Private dollars leading recovery of New Orleans
With government money for New Orleans trickling through the pipeline, private foundations, wealthy individuals, and philanthropies are playing a larger role than expected.
from the June 27, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 4
Still, big-ticket public works, including rebuilding the water and sewer system, will require tough decisions about which neighborhoods will receive services. It means that city officials will retain much of the final say on the look and feel of the "new" New Orleans.
The Gulf Recovery Act of 2007, which was introduced in Congress last week, also aims to bolster such rebuilding efforts, in part to provide affordable housing for the thousands of residents still living in trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. With rents increasing, "us poor people are in danger of losing our city," says resident Kedrick Gibson.
While federal aid is coming in slowly, "we have known all along that [public] funding is inadequate to affect the entire recovery," says Pat Forbes, an infrastructure manager at the state's Division of Administration.
Even so, experts already note a direct correlation between private investment and the racial and economic characteristics of a neighborhood, as the lion's share of money flows to white and middle-class enclaves.
Indeed, a neighborhood's ability to organize and obtain funding affects its rate of resettlement, says Bill Morrish, an architecture professor at the University of Virginia, who has studied New Orleans' sluggish revival.
Broadmoor, meanwhile, stands out as an example of what can be done to rebuild a community using private money. "If there is a threshold of incredibly sincere work, which Broadmoor has done, can others reach it, too?" Mr. Morrish says.
Broadmoor realtor Kelli Wright says the neighborhood has become more tightly knit as residents fought first for survival and then for rebirth. Now even newcomers to the city are sniffing the local housing market, she says.
Most residents here agree that the Carnegie's $2 million rehabbing of the gutted Keller library – to be opened this fall – marks a tipping point for Broadmoor, and perhaps the entire city.
"You might say it's just a lending library," says resident Lee Isaacson. "But it's much more than that. It tells people that their neighborhood is back."
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