Like a lot of New Orleanians, 2005 with Katrina, the flood and the subsequent years of rebuilding changed my perspective on the city of New Orleans. Primarily it lead me to change my focus from activities like writing plays and screenplays to thinking about the municipal policies to keep New Orleans surviving and thriving for the next 300 years.
The short answer take away: New Orleans needs more population with good jobs through economic development, and much of the policy at City Hall needs to be focused on that. We need policies that encourage business development and in-migration and housing policy that spurs on more investment and building of a modern housing stock.
I lay out many of these ideas in 3 websites. Some of them need updating. I’ve moved on from some of these positions but I think that keeping them up with the dates are important as a way to show the ways in which my thinking has changed on them.
They are
Alive New Orleans http://http;//aliveneworleans.com
Alive New Orleans lays out the overarching theme of population through good jobs and economic development by having a more permissive zoning code but, right now, as I write this the themes aren’t fully fleshed out. But this will probably help me work more on this site.
8 Principles for New Orleans http://progress.8principlesforneworleans.com
This was a project I worked on in the first 5 years after the storm. It was largely a disaster recovery project that tried to address policy failures I saw in the post-disaster planning era. It has some civic media designs that I considered akin to something like 30 s and 40s era posters encouraging citizens to do their part for the effort. It also lays out my opposition to the city’s “Master Plan” which I considered, and still consider a mistake that unhelpfully empowered those opposed to economic development
The Corner Store Initiative http://cornerstoreinitiative.com/
The Corner Store Initiative was designed to highlight the ways in which the current zoning code led to blighted buildings and reduced economic opportunities for neighborhoods by making it difficult or impossible for businesses to occupy former corner store sites that dot our neighborhoods.
These are just a sample of some of the thinking I’ve done about municipal policy in New Orleans. There are also PowerPoint decks and an unfinished album which I describe as “making the zoning code danceable”. Because I love my city and want to see it and its people survive and thrive.
